In the first class we had, I kind of made a request that you consider what the ultimate concern of your life was, or is, and I appreciate that a number of you have been considering this, and I appreciate that you're doing that kind of contemplation. keeping in touch with that question of what you hope to accomplish in this lifetime. I think I have a memory that I also said something like, I kind of don't want to bother you.

[01:03]

I just, in some sense, want to leave you alone so that you can settle down. And I feel that we had now, it's been about a week, right? We started last Friday. And I feel that now your group has settled quite a bit. It took a little while, but you seem to be kind of settled now. It takes about a week to get settled, maybe. Five days or a week for a lot of us. Unless we just come from a retreat or something. Or some other kind of... situation where we're, for whatever reason, we're quite settled and undistracted. When I talked last Sunday, I suggested the basic meditation practice of not grasping anything and not seeking anything, not grasping for or seeking anything.

[02:23]

I also mentioned in the first class that you sometimes might hear about the teaching of the Buddhas as being compassion, as having the elements of compassion, renunciation, and realization, or compassion, renunciation, and correct wisdom. And I said that I thought Linda would be emphasizing compassion, so let's assume that that's fundamental to our discussions.

[03:44]

And then I was going to look a little bit with you at what renunciation might be. And the first aspect of it that I brought up, although I didn't mention it, was... Did you see that I brought it up? What was it? Not grasping. Yeah, not grasping, or seeking. So, a simple approach to meditation is not grasping anything or seeking for anything. Entering into that kind of practice is also a kind of renunciation because it means to renounce our usual mode, which is, generally speaking, we have equipment, neural and sensory motor equipment, for grasping and seeking.

[04:56]

We're very good at it. We have all kinds of, we even have an elaborate conceptual system that helps us seek and grasp very effectively. In fact, we have a conceptual system that makes us overlook a lot of stuff so that we can grasp other stuff more effectively. Like, you know, we see something that would be useful to have and we overlook the fact that it belongs to somebody else. or that it might cause some trouble to the environment. We have a way of seeing that's very well built for us, getting stuff for us. And we have almost no equipment for letting go of grasping and letting go of seeking. But somehow the message is coming from somewhere.

[05:59]

And of course we like to grasp where it is it's coming from and who's sending it, the message coming to like try to antidote this powerful grasping, seeking equipment. Renunciation etymologically, renounce etymologically means to re-announce, to announce again. So our body basically announces grasping and seeking. It actually, the body receives information, so it's got equipment for receiving information, and it receives the information, processes it, and then seeks and grasps in response. So this is our basic announcement to the world, is grasping and seeking. Renunciation is to announce again, announce a reversal.

[07:06]

And I heard this and I can't find the Maybe I'll go over and look at the dictionary after this class. In the Western tradition, renunciation, the word is often used in the Western tradition of metanoia, which I think means to reverse. Yes, Greek. What? Regret. But it also is sometimes used for renunciation. Repent. That's another related function of the medicine of the Buddhas, is repentance. To repent, our usual mode, to introduce a reversing process,

[08:15]

In terms of the meaning of renunciation, it has a number of meanings. It's related to the words abandon, to let go, to relinquish, to cede, to yield. All these are related words, almost synonyms for renunciation. But renunciation also has this quality of, because it's like a re-announcement, it also has a quality that you actually announce. You don't just let go of something, you also announce it. So in the, in the Buddhist community life, because Buddhism involves a community life, it isn't just individuals, you announce to the community that you're making a reversal. You announce and say, I announce that I would like to reverse my endemic habits.

[09:38]

of greed, hate and delusion and so on. I would like to, I renounce, I formally, publicly renounce my ancient tendencies. I confess my ancient tendencies of karma and I announce to you that I wish to reverse them. I have a long-standing history of selfishness, and I wish to announce that I would like to reverse that habit and try to find a way to be devoted to all beings. I do not announce that I will be successful at this immediately, but I wish to eventually learn how to do this. I announce that I... have been thinking sometimes that I can live on my own without a lot of help, but now I re-announce that I ask the help of all beings in the process of this reversal.

[10:54]

So I just said you can talk about the Buddha way can be presented as compassion, renunciation, and wisdom. You almost could say that that's like compassion and meditation. like renunciation and wisdom, or like the meditation. The orientation or the spirit, the heart of it is compassion. And the meditation has these two dimensions of renunciation and wisdom. And in that way, if you think of meditation as renunciation and wisdom, then renunciation Maybe if my mind categorizes the field of meditational phenomena, then I think, well, if I would say that meditation was renunciation and wisdom, then I've also heard that meditation is sometimes spoken of as tranquility or concentration and wisdom.

[12:26]

So maybe renunciation has something to do with concentration. or, you know, tranquility and serenity. And I kind of feel that it does, although it's an association that I haven't seen very often made. But in fact, usually, in our daily life as animals where we relate to our experience. We have experiences, but we don't just have experiences. We also relate to our experiences in terms of the objects involved in our experience.

[13:27]

We think of them often as out there. and we relate to objects as out there and manipulate them as out there on their own and so that way of interacting with the objects of our experience is generally doesn't develop doesn't develop tranquility and relaxation and buoyancy and flexibility and clarity of mind, it tends to disturb the mind to relate to experiences, objects of experience, as outward. But we have a strong tendency that way.

[14:29]

So one gesture of stabilization is again to renounce that perspective and turn the mind around and look at, turn the attention around and look at the mind itself. It's a kind of renunciation. So rather than looking at the object, we actually turn the mind around and look back at the subject. So like it says in the Fukon Zazengi, learn the backward step that turns the light back and shines it inward. And some translations say that shines it inward to illuminate the self, but it doesn't actually say that in the original. However, in fact, if you do reverse, if the light is turned around and shine inwards, it does eventually illuminate the self.

[15:35]

But first of all, what you're illuminating is not so much the self, but subjectivity. You're illuminating that which has objects, and the subject has objects. So, every experience there's a subject that has an object. Consciousnesses are subjects because they have objects. I see some twisted foreheads and cheeks. Maybe that's a big new idea for some of you, that consciousnesses are subjects.

[16:36]

Subjects are things that are what has an object. However, I parenthetically, it's a big parenthesis, but I parenthetically mention that a subject, although it has an object, it has no independent existence from its object. But subjects, that have objects also often have conceptual systems which support the illusion that the object and subject have independent existences. And this is one of the sources of the self, closed parenthesis, to be dealt with later under the topic of insight or wisdom. For now, I suggest to you that renunciation can be seen as renouncing relating to objects as out there.

[17:54]

And renouncing relating to objects that's out there is quite similar to giving up grasping objects. And giving up grasping objects doesn't mean you toss them away. It just means that you let the objects just be objects. This is a renunciation of what we usually do, is we don't let object just be objects. We say, that object's out there. And we say a lot more. We elaborate on the objects. We get quite active around objects. We make judgments about objects. We have preferences among objects. Right? Have you noticed that? Or other people, you notice other people do.

[19:00]

So the renunciation is to let go of that kind of active activity around the objects. AND OBJECTS CAN BE, YOU KNOW, WHEN I SAY OUT THERE, OBJECTS CAN BE OUT THERE LIKE OUT THERE IN THE HILLS, BUT THEY CAN BE LIKE OUT THERE AS LIKE YOU'RE... THERE'S AN AWARENESS OF A FEELING THAT YOU HAVE OR AN AWARENESS OF AN OPINION YOU HAVE OR AWARENESS OF A... OF A IDEA THAT YOU HAVE. THERE'S ALSO A SENSE THAT THERE'S SOMETHING THAT KNOWS the idea out there. So Bodhidharma says, outwardly, cease all involvements with objects. Inwardly, no coughing or sighing in the mind. with a mind like a wall.

[20:12]

In other words, this kind of mind which is like a wall. Thus you enter the way. So, developing this mind like a wall is initially renunciation. There's many kinds of renunciation, but the renunciation I'm mentioning now is the renunciation of discovering a mind like a wall. It's not a wall, it's a mind like a wall. In other words, it's a subject that acts like a wall. So when an object meets a wall, that's pretty much it. The wall doesn't say, you know, who asked you to come? Or, you know, could I have one more of those? Or, don't come near me anymore. Or, the wall just basically accepts its objects that touch it.

[21:14]

A mind like that is a mind by which we are initiated into the way. And in our ordination ceremonies, after invoking the presence of of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the first thing we do is renunciation. That's the first step in initiation of actually entering. It's to reverse. And it is initially also calming. Now when you first try it and are unsuccessful, that's not necessarily calming. And in fact it's hard to learn how to do this because it's a new thing for us. But when we actually realize when renunciation has actually arisen, I suggest to you that it's very similar to calming practice.

[22:20]

And I think of... Let's see, I think of... Ru Jing talking to Dogen about this and something else. What was it? Forgot. Again, it is, I think, a common understanding or conception or idea that when you concentrate, when you practice stabilizing, for example, when you're following your breath or something, that you can actually look at an object and focus on it and calm down by focusing on an object. But actually, focusing on objects, external objects, does not calm you. What calms, the object of meditation for calming is an inner object, not an outer object.

[23:30]

And by turning the light around and shining it back on the inner object, shining it inwardly, you actually are looking at the nature of the mind. Because the nature of mind, one aspect of consciousness, is that it just knows and it doesn't elaborate on what it knows. So again, looking at the nature of mind means to renounce elaborating on what you know. And again, finding a mind like a wall. So there are, we have in the Zen tradition, the story of Bodhidharma facing the wall. And to tell the truth, I don't know of lots of stories of Indian Buddhists practicing, you know, facing a wall. Does anybody know stories of Indian Buddhists practicing facing a wall? Emmanuel, he ends up in like Bodhidharma.

[24:46]

He lost it. That's my way of saying, I don't know stories. Yeah, he was going like this. Anyway, in Japanese, they say mempeki, and in Chinese they say piguan, right? So it means facing wall, facing the wall. So then people think, well, the practice is like you're facing the wall, which actually we do do. But another way to understand it is it's not so much that you're looking at the wall, but you're practicing the way the wall looks. You're looking at the wall to get instruction from the wall about how to look. So how do I look? Well, the wall says, just like I'm looking at you, that's how you look.

[25:47]

But of course, we can look at walls in ways that walls can't look at us. So, you know, some say, well, we got some stuff that walls don't have, and it's true. We can do stuff to walls that walls can't do to us, but we can also learn to be like a wall because we have that in the background way, way back before we learned how to look at walls and make comments. we know how to look at a wall the way the wall looks at us. So in Soto Zen, we look at the wall, sort of like, tell me, how can I be like, how can I have a mind like you? And it just sits there and doesn't say anything, have you noticed? Sometimes it starts to talk a little bit, I understand. Some people come and tell me what it says, and they say, is it like, is that good? No, that's a projection of your abilities onto the wall. Walls actually can't do the stuff that you just said that walls can do.

[26:52]

But that's okay. It's all right. Don't worry. So Bodhidharma's practice of wall-gazing is really the practice of learning how to relate to everything the way a wall does. This is not the whole story. This is just an initiation because it means give up all your abilities to look at things And then as soon as you look at them to think what they look like, to compare them and categorize them. And you can't help that because whenever anything comes in, your mind just immediately starts working on it. working it over, putting it here, here, here and here, and not there, not over there. It's a human. It's a woman. It's a good woman. It's a Zen student. It's not a Zen student. It's my friend. It's my lunch. The mind just won't leave it alone.

[27:57]

In the midst of that, we practice renunciation. Right while that's going on, to try to let go of that process. You can't stop it, but you can let go of it, and letting go of it. By letting go of it, by training your attention to letting go of it, you're actually turning your attention around and looking back at a part of the mind that doesn't do that. The basic cognition does not categorize. just knows. And turning the attention towards this non-categorizing, non-choosing, non-deliberating, simple knowing starts to calm the whole system. And make, and so, another way I was talking about was whatever comes And again, our usual habit is not whatever comes.

[29:00]

Some things are going to come and other things aren't. And if some things come and they don't want to come, I'm going to arrange for them not to come. And if some things that should be coming are not coming, I'm going to... So we've got that side. But this is like whatever comes, you meet it. Whatever comes, you meet it. Whatever comes, you meet and join it. Whatever comes, you meet and relax completely. Completely means you renounce every shred of messing around with the object. You cease all involvements with the things you know. Simultaneously, somebody's offering all kinds of opportunities for engagement, like, boy, is he cute. He's so helpful. He's not helpful at all. So these things are flying all over the place, but there's not any involvement with that stuff, no involvement.

[30:04]

And you're being challenged with lots of possibilities for involvement. every moment. Not every moment, but every minute. There's many moments, and in each moment you're offered opportunities of some object to get involved with, rather than just know like a mind, like a wall. So this is the renunciation. I've I looked at various phases of the Buddhist teaching where people talk about renunciation, and oftentimes before they introduce renunciation, they mention some things which they think are going to encourage renunciation. I may at some point bring those things up which they think would be encouraging, but I haven't brought them up now because...

[31:07]

The current cultural situation of America, even in Buddhist communities, is such that if you bring up the traditional prologue to renunciation, people oftentimes get kind of, I don't know what, they get entrenched in their original position. So I'm not going to mention the usual thing yet. I'm going to wait until you're more into the renunciation and then give you some information about what they usually do to try to get you to practice renunciation. And sort of as just another way to talk about this, which I think is maybe not so difficult to listen to, is... Dogen was talking to his teacher, Ru Jing, one time.

[32:12]

He said he was, anyway. And his memory of the conversation was something about hearing Ru Jing say that some meditators, you know, don't like the world. Try to get away from it. And... But bodhisattvas don't try to get away from the world. They actually sit right in the middle of it. They sit in the middle of the world of suffering. And by sitting there, And with great compassion for all the suffering beings, they gradually realized this mind, which is called a nyu-shin, which is Taiyo's name, nyu-shin or ju-shin, which means soft or flexible or pliant.

[33:16]

mind or heart. And then Dogen says, well, what is this soft mind? And Run Zheng said, it is the willingness for body and mind to drop off. It is the willingness to let go of everything. Now, the things you're not attached to, you don't have to let go of. But it's the willingness to let go of all attachments. The willingness for body and mind, the acceptance of body and mind dropping away, the willingness for body and mind to drop off. And that willingness... develops through sitting in the middle of the world of suffering.

[34:25]

So it seems to me that to some extent the people in this room are actually literally willing to sit in the middle of the world of suffering. So when you arrived here last Friday, you started to enter into a program where we actually spent some time sitting, and each of us is sitting in the center of the world of suffering. The center of the world of suffering is where we sit. If you think you're off-center and the center is someplace else, please move over to the center. That's where you should be sitting if you wish to be like the Buddhas. Because each of them is sitting in the center of the world of suffering. The center of the world of suffering is where all the suffering can reach you.

[35:30]

And that's the place you melt. And then when you melt, then you're willing to renounce all your attachments. Of course, in order to sit in that place, you have to practice some patience. you have to renounce, to some extent, some running away from being present there. So there's some renunciation just to sit here and follow this schedule. And to sit on your seat, there's some renunciation of some of the attachments and involvements. And then, by that level of renunciation, you soften up and open up to even a deeper level of renunciation. And then when the renunciation reaches the point of where you're actually now changing the way you experience, the way your attention meets objects, then you become even more calm and more stable and more flexible and softer and more willing to even more thoroughly renounce worldly affairs

[36:59]

And there's two other things I just want to register before I call on Laura. And one is this business about renouncing the world. And another expression is letting go of desire for the world. In the Zen tradition, the term that's usually used for renunciation is to leave home. And there's various interpretations of home. One is your family. So you actually leave your family and go to another community to train. you go to a community that's set up to help you leave home.

[38:06]

And there's your physical home with your family, and there's the home of your body and all your habits. So the Chinese term for enunciation is to leave home, to depart or abandon or relinquish your housing. And I think, just to touch upon some of the sensitive issues, to abandon attachment to the pleasures of the world, it kind of scares people to hear that. But again, it doesn't mean you hate the pleasures of the world. But it does get close to sometimes being a little bit afraid of attachment to the pleasures of the world. I'm not saying you should be afraid, but again, this is part of the way they sometimes bring this up.

[39:14]

It's kind of like, almost to say you should be afraid of the destructiveness and the danger, the harmful possibilities of attachment to the pleasures of the world. So really, the essence of the world is not the pleasures or the pains of the world. The essence of the world is the attachment to the pleasures of the world. That's what keeps the world going, is the attachment to the pleasures. And that's the part where the renunciation bears is on that attachment. the grasping and that seeking. Okay? Yes, Laura? How do you, if you're sitting on the wall, I don't know, I mean, whenever I sit, at some point, I just melt.

[40:17]

Yeah. And after I do that, there's a lot of emotion. Yes. And somehow, the emotion feels like Well, not like a wall at all. So an emotion arises, and you feel like that's not like a wall? Yeah, no longer the wall. I have great feelings. At the end of that feeling, there's a great, there's an opening. At the end of the feeling of joy, did you say? Yeah, so there's a feeling like, there's a feeling of joy, there's a feeling of sadness, and at the end of the feeling of joy and at the end of the feeling of sadness, what's there? Yeah, there's an opening there, isn't there? So... At the end of every event, there's an opening. So we say, what is it, we say, delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.

[41:21]

Is that what we always say? And then you might, whenever I hear that, I think, now, do people think that this stuff's going to end? Like, you know, we're going to get rid of them? I don't think that's exactly what it means myself. At least I don't understand it that way. What I mean is that, what I think it means is these delusions are inexhaustible. It means they actually are inexhaustible. They're going to keep, there's not going to be, they're not going to get annihilated. They're going to arise. No event lasts forever. Otherwise it wouldn't have happened yet. All events that we experience are ones that have actually arisen and ceased. But arising and ceasing does not mean arising and being destroyed. So any feeling that arises right at the end of it, if you're actually present with that, you've realized the end of the joy or the end of the delusion.

[42:22]

So if you can be at the... When something arises, if you're there at the arising and you're there at the ceasing and that's it, you're all set. That's it. That's the mind like a wall. The mind like the wall is not the thing that happened. It's that when it arises, it just arises, and when it ceases, it just ceases. So we don't say, delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to arise them. We say, I vow to end them, but really, although we don't say, I vow to arise them, because maybe that's confusing to people, in some sense, maybe we should say, I vow to arise them. In other words, I'm going to be there when they arise, and that's it. When they arise, they're just going to be arising, and when they're ceasing, they're just going to be ceasing. That's the way I vow to learn to be with delusions.

[43:28]

And, by the way, the word delusion is a translation that we've come to, but really, literally, what that character means is affliction, bono. Bono means affliction, hardship, pain, and suffering. They have no measure. I vow to cut them, but you don't actually cut them. They get cut by their own nature. They arise by causes and conditions and they get cut by causes and conditions. We don't make, we do not make affliction get cut. But they do get cut. And that's called an affliction. Affliction is something that has arisen and got cut. In other words, that's a chunk of affliction. We don't make that happen. We don't make things arise and cease.

[44:30]

But the idea that we make things arise and cease is an affliction. And that affliction does arise, right? That I made that arise, I made that cease. So when that kind of affliction arises and ceases, if in the arising there's just the arising, and if in the ceasing there's just the ceasing, basically this is the end of suffering. And the thing that arises and ceases is, the mind also arises and ceases, but the mind is like a wall, is the mind where in the arising there's just the arising, and in the ceasing there's just the ceasing. That's the mind like a wall. And you're reporting that maybe sometimes you feel there's a melting, there's the arising and ceasing of melting, and then that opens up wonderful dimensions of the arising and ceasing of emotions, the mind like a wall, is for each of those phenomena to in the arising just be the arising, and in the ceasing there just be the ceasing. This mind, this aspect of phenomenal experience, to be with that aspect, to that way of being with phenomenal experience, is, I would say, renunciation.

[45:40]

And this is the door to wisdom. And the wisdom is the realization that in the arising of whatever our experience is, and in the ceasing of whatever our experience is, that's all there is, is the arising and ceasing. And there's no self being announced in the arising and ceasing of things. So this renunciation then opens the door to, you know, what we call the ocean seal samadhi. It opens the door to wisdom. And when we first start practicing settling with the experience, renouncing our usual way of when something arises, saying, I made that arise, or I didn't make that arise, somebody else made it arise, all this comment, renouncing all that and just watching things arise and cease. Initially in that practice,

[46:42]

even if we get with it for a while and a kind of show or demonstration of the way we just gave up, namely the way of messing with experience. But now we can look at these habits in a new context of renunciation and see through them. But in the first phase of renunciation, the initiatory settling, we're narrowing a little bit. So we have a special setup sometimes of sitting quietly or walking quietly, so we really feel safe to let go. It's good to hear an explanation of the wall term. That's kind of impartial. recipient of information. I mean, it's just a word, but I've always had trouble with it myself as a, you know, the wall like a barrier also.

[47:52]

I had a dream the other night that someone, I was in a room with somebody who walked through a wall, walked through a wall. Yeah, I tried it too, and I got stuck in there. You got stuck in the wall? Stuck in the wall. It was working, and I thought about it. But the wall itself seems kind of uptight, you know, just the wall itself. Seems cold. Yeah. So anyway, when I think of that, I kind of translated myself into more water like, you know, receiver. Yeah, you could say you could say mine like water. That'd be fine. There's a picture in the altar in the doksan room over there. And it's a picture of Bodhidharma facing the wall and his disciple offering him a little tidbit of a forearm that he had just cut off to demonstrate his sincerity.

[49:00]

And so Bodhidharma is sitting there in kind of Indian outfit. He's got his robe partly over his head. He's facing the wall. But it's hard to see, but actually if you look at the picture, there's this kind of like very soft, very soft kind of cream color surrounding his whole body. So Bodhidharma looks pretty tough in that picture, and generally speaking, it looks kind of tough, but there's a kind of toughness or thoroughness or rigor about the renunciation. But it actually, it's thorough, but it's not tense. It's actually very soft. It has to be soft and flexible, otherwise you'll get stuck in the wall. If you think a little bit about it, then you're... you're not actually doing the wall practice. The wall practice is to give up your thinking in a very gentle, soft way.

[50:05]

Because you're, you know, you're humbled by the situation. You're softened by the situation. And so he's kind of, he's strict in a way about his meditation, but he's very soft, Bodhidharma. And actually Andy in China, on our China trip, he bought a Bodhidharma and he says this Bodhidharma is at Green Gulch someplace. And he said something like, he said, whenever you're ready, I think he said, whenever you're ready, I'm ready to present it. And, you know, I'm not ready for this bodhidharma. This bodhidharma is, you know, I have to get ready for this because it's very intense, and I don't want people to misunderstand this bodhidharma. So we have to think about, you know, what situation can this bodhidharma be brought out so people won't be frightened by it because it's so intense, the picture of this particular bodhidharma.

[51:12]

It looks... He looks, I don't know what. Anyway, it's hard to relax when you look at him. Maybe we need a cage for it or something. You know, people need to be very relaxed when they look at this Bodhidharma. Yes, Jessica. To further tease out this notion for me, mind like a wall does not mean unnecessarily, oh, it's going to be rigid. It means definitely not rigid. It's more actually steadfastness or sort of a soft figure. Right. It means that, you know, maybe Bodhidharma shouldn't have brought up this wall thing, but anyway, I think it's good that he did because there is a kind of like, it's a dimension that we have to deal with this, that, you know, when you peel away all of your, all the ways you deal with things and just meet them,

[52:33]

without holding on to all of your interpretations and elaborations, there's a possibility you might think that that's cold or unkind to just look at somebody without saying, this is a good person, this is my friend, this is my child. We somehow think that if we care about somebody that we would be attached to them. can you really be devoted to someone without being attached? In other words, while holding to your idea of who they are and how you should help them. And we somehow think that if we did that, that would be cold to meet people in this radically simple way of just letting them be in what they are. Namely, there's something which is arising for you and ceasing for you. Arising for you and ceasing, that's actually all that's happening. But we think, if I would just let it be that, then wouldn't I be not a very good friend. So the thing about Mind Like a Wall is it brings up, I think, the side that we who elaborate on everything think that if we didn't, that would be like inhuman.

[53:46]

And in a way, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about renouncing your humanness, not killing it, letting it go. And there's something about us which says, that's like being like a wall. Yeah, it is. But we need that side. But it's not rigid, actually. What's rigid is we're actually rigidly holding to being human. And we don't feel safe to let it go. Because what comes up for me initially, and I couldn't let it go, was just the... I hear like a while, I hear like other people who've trained me, like teaching what taught me, like be like a while, like just do it, that type of training. But we're talking different. Well, it's not completely different, though. Just do it means whatever you're doing, do it without adding or subtracting anything. Do it without even finally, Jessica, doing it.

[54:48]

But that isn't rigid. As a matter of fact, it develops flexibility. But it's a narrowness and it's a focusing. It is a focusing. It's a narrowing for a while. And again, people feel afraid to relax. Will I be safe if I relax my usual equipment? my constant judging and assessing whether I'm safe. So when we don't feel safe, we feel like we have to keep checking to see if we're safe. If you feel safe, maybe you can let go of checking to see if you're safe for a while and just watch what's happening. In this way, you turn your attention towards, in fact, A part of what's going on all the time is just watching what's happening.

[55:52]

So, I often bring up that story, Case 21 of the Book of Serenity, of the busy one and the unbusy one. Okay? So, the monk is sweeping the ground and his friend, his brother comes up to him and says, you're too busy. And he says, you should know that there's two moons, excuse me, you should know that there's one who's not busy. So we are busy. Almost all the time we are busy. And if we're not busy, okay, that's fine. But most of the time we're busy. But there's also one that's not busy. So a part of our mind can elaborate on things and judge things and choose things and pick things and prefer things and categorize things. That's part of what's going on. But there's also a part if there's one that's not busy who just knows and that's it and doesn't elaborate. And it's just that way.

[56:54]

But to turn the attention from the one who's busy to the one who's not busy, if you feel scared and unsupported, you don't dare turn away from being busy with things, because being busy with things is how we protect ourselves and keep ourselves, you know, on top of what's going on. It's our power move, getting ready to, like, control or escape. So to turn away from that way of being with what's happening, especially to turn away from that way of being with our pain and to look back at the one who's not busy, you know, we have to feel somewhat safe. And then the more you look at the one who's not busy, the more you relax and the more at ease you feel. And then when you feel more at ease, or quite at ease, then we can turn our attention back and look at the equipment of judgment and fear and all that.

[57:58]

Look at the more complex and difficult things. We can, you know, the issues of self and other and all that. But after we've, in some sense, taken a break from it, a little pause to relax and calm down before we look at this difficult material. But on the way to calming, we have to face the habits of, you know, our habits are going to keep going on for quite a while. So we have to, like, acknowledge that in order to calm down. So part of renunciation is to... Part of moving towards renunciation of our habits is... is confession and repentance, that these habits of attachment are still quite strong. And even sometimes when you have practiced renunciation and calmed down greatly, these habits come right back afterwards.

[59:00]

So there it is again. But this whole process, we must be gentle because if we're not gentle, our system is just going to go to some comfortable place. So you have to do this very gently and encouragingly because this is painful work. To make this transition is, to some extent, painful because you have to gently observe that you haven't made the transition yet. if you're still caught up in your old habits. You have to be gentle about that and not rush yourself. Because, again, we don't want to seek even renunciation. We don't want to seek non-seeking. We want to be relaxed about not having realized non-seeking. Oh, I'm still seeking. So what? I'm just a normal human being, aren't I? Okay, so I'm seeking stuff. But there's somebody who's not seeking anything. And I'm kind of like... I'm trying to get open to the one who's not seeking anything, who I hear is right in the same neighborhood here.

[60:08]

Yes, Carol? I intuitively respond and relate to what you say about the one who just knows. I hear around me from time to time different tenets of Buddhism that talk about not knowing or don't know mind. Could you put those together for me? Well, don't know mind is the same thing. Don't know mind is mind like a wall. Don't know mind is I look at you, but I don't know who you are. I look at you, but I don't think that is or is not Carol. Take your choice. I look at you without thinking what you look like, whether you look like Carol I used to know, whether you look better than the last time I saw you, worse. Are you nicer to me than you used to? Not know mine means to meet you without renouncing all of my human equipment to keep track of what you are for me and my stuff.

[61:18]

That's the same thing as don't know. And don't know mine, again, requires gentleness, and softness and kindness to be realized. I don't know who was next, but I see Judy and Garth and Renee and Tim and Liz and Salvi. I was glad to hear you bring up the part about the gentleness, because the aspect just before about being like a wall and actually being a human... made me go along a whole trajectory of it's as if we are seeking and we're seeking to get to this this place of wall likeness but at best we're a step back perhaps to use the phrase in the yin yang type realm and where I went to is it felt like the wall is

[62:28]

is more of the cold, in the trying of the wall, it's more of a cold type aspect. And cold, and there isn't the balance of the heat. And I sometimes in this practice find myself out of balance in wanting that warmth, in craving the warmth. Because I'll so vigorously go toward the form and the practice of the temple. Right. As I said at the beginning, compassion is the context for this exercise. And if you don't feel warmth for beings, then you need to generate more of that before you try to do this practice, because if you don't, you're not going to be able to follow through. You're going to back off of it, unless you feel this is part of what you're working on in order to help all beings. But it isn't just that I'm doing this to help all beings, and I'm going to be rough and cruel about it.

[63:39]

I'm not only doing this to help all beings, but I'm also being gentle about this because this is the type of material which I'm looking for any excuse to run away from. So I've got to encourage myself and be gentle with myself to get myself into an intimate relationship with these feisty habits. even though the environment, the practice itself, I perceive as sometimes it's an environment that is cold, that it takes a lot of strength to go to that warmth and that compassion. It almost feels like doing it alone, and I understand, just to say first words, how poignant they are, that it's the doing alone that exacerbates the practice looking cold and uninviting. Exactly. And doing it alone is another example of something to not get involved with.

[64:45]

But also, you can start with doing it together. Okay? But as you get into the practice, you even let go of that. You don't even let go of, we're doing this together. Don't even, you know, don't even have like the observation of the arising of a phenomena and we're doing that together. Let go of that too, so you can... So, these things are the kinds of comments that we're talking about letting go of and not grasping these comments of warmth and cold around the practice. Oh, we're all so... we're just so incredibly kind to each other. Yeah, but don't grasp that. Oh, we're doing this all alone. Okay, don't grasp it. Don't get involved with any of these ideas about what's going on. At this phase of the practice, at the renunciation phase, don't get involved in any phenomena, inward or outward.

[65:54]

Including, don't get involved with the idea that you think it's outward or inward. Those things, those conceptions, we will eventually want to look at and to see that it doesn't really hold up that they're out there. But now we're not going to look to see whether it's true that they're out there, or true that it's cold, or true that it's warm, or how do we come up with that it's warm or that it's cold. We're not going to get into that now. We're just not going to get involved in anything. in order to calm down. Which means we're going to look at... What calms us is to train our attention onto the subject rather than the object. Objects are jumping around all the time. The subject, by the way, is not jumping around. But the objects are changing. So to look at the objects and to get involved with the objects around the objects is agitating.

[66:59]

So you just brought up, in a way, examples of a very tempting comment on the practice that can take you away from the practice if you grasp it. That's, again, why you have to feel safe because otherwise the various dangers of the practice, when they come up, you feel like, well, wouldn't it be dangerous if the practice was cold and heartless? Well, yeah, it would be. So right now we're not getting into that. After you're calm, let's talk about that. After you're calm and flexible and buoyant and clear, then let's talk about whether there's coldness in the room. Well, I want to talk about before. Okay, okay. Well, we'll talk about before then. Can we have some more air? Yeah. Could you open the window there? Is that okay with you? It's better to open the upper one so we don't get in the fire. Renee?

[68:05]

I don't know what to say about the wall. I don't have any thoughts about the wall. You don't have any thoughts about the wall? No. What does that sound like? Anyway, that's good. Yeah, it's not dangerous for me to be out there. Uh-huh. So we're leaving that area. Going back to something more familiar where she has thoughts. And that is the problem. And I'm wondering if what you're talking about is much, and I'm actually checking out a couple of questions, my understanding of what the Buddha did when he contemplated the chain of dependent origination and contemplated so intimately and carefully his own mind at the very moment that the mind of contact, so that before, that to keep, oh, maybe this will work, that a mind like a wall, the moment that feeling arises, that if you keep a mind like a wall at that very moment, then attachment does not occur.

[69:14]

Right. That's right? That's tough. Well, that's the thing that you talked about that we're not going to get involved with. That's the thing that if you didn't get involved with, you'd be fine. And then there's a comment on that which we get involved with. So I don't know, but maybe Garth was next. Was he? Maybe? Maybe? Talking about reconciliation, yeah, this is on the little verse of the Persian poet that he's carrying around with me to remind me of that. Okay. It goes like this. There's always a danger to aspirants on the path when they begin to believe and act, as if the 10,000 idiots who so long grew up and lived inside have all packed their bags and sit down or died.

[70:15]

Thank you. Liz? Pardon? Tim? So, maybe I'm in the Zendo and whatever concept is coming up, the mind like a wall is, you know, trying to watch it cease, maybe watching it arise. not getting involved, not getting involved, not getting involved. Then I walk out of the zendo and something happens, like maybe there's a face. But just for me to say face is already in the realm of concepts. And if the face starts talking, then I'm in the realm of concepts. But I assume that I'm not saying, oh, well, drop the wall practice. I'm outside the zendo now. But is it just that... I'm now aware of the fact that I'm getting involved with concepts and just not Well, is it concepts are happening, but there's not an I getting involved with them or believing in them?

[71:21]

But there's still some, like, contact with concept there. Yes. And use of concept. Yes. But even if there is, like, even if what is known, if what is known, in other words, even if we have an example of what we call conceptual awareness, okay, there can still be renunciation in the realm of conceptual awareness. If... if there's awareness of the concept with no conceptual elaboration of the concept. So cognition is non-conceptual, even if it's conceptual cognition, in the sense that what's known is a concept, but the awareness itself is not elaborating on it. Other aspects of mind and attention can elaborate on the concept. But you can, even within the realm of conceptual awareness, which is most of where we live, you can train the mind in renunciation there, in that realm, by not elaborating on the concepts which you know.

[72:25]

And simultaneous with our conceptual cognitions are direct perceptions, where there's no conceptual mediation. And to explore those realms, will be possible, the exploration of those realms will be opened up by training ourself to not conceptually elaborate in the realm of conceptual cognition. If you conceptually elaborate or conceptually mediate a perception, you've just switched into conceptual awareness. And in conceptual awareness, if you don't elaborate on it, you calm down and open the gates to explore direct perception where there's no conceptual mediation. And sometimes in meditation, I think, that's what happens. Sometimes people develop this very simple way of dealing with their concepts arising and ceasing. And this way of being, they calm down enough to open up to a vision of a perception where there is no conceptual mediation. but you don't have to wait to have direct non-conceptual perceptions.

[73:32]

That's redundant. I'm using the word perception for non-conceptual cognitions. You don't have to wait for those until you start the practice of renunciation. You get practice of renunciation in the realm of conceptual awareness. So you can do it in the Zendo with concepts, and you can do it outside the Zendo with concepts. And you can do it and still be functional on some level. Exactly. You can. And also our concepts are actually what we find out eventually is that all this conceptual stuff is to help us function according to certain agendas. And the more we understand that, the more accepting we can be of this equipment, and the more calm we can be with it, and the more we can understand that it's just, you know, what it has to be in order for us to function. We need concepts in order to do the human thing. But we have other realms accessible, and this non-conceptual elaboration mode is a resource for us to clarify the whole situation so we can understand it better.

[74:41]

You talk about, in that realm, just knowing. It's not so much just knowing. I mean, maybe I say just knowing, or you said just knowing, but it's more like actually the just knowing is going on all the time. What we're doing here is training our attention towards the just knowing. So we're training our attention towards the unbusy one. That's already going on. So we're trying to train our attention that way by turning the attention away from elaborating and commenting on everything, letting go of those things, those comments, those graspings, those seekings. And then we realize this simple knowing that's always been going on and always is going on. We become more in accord with it. We calm down, we clear up, and then we're ready eventually to turn back and look at this stuff and examine and see the 12-fold link of dependent co-origination maybe.

[75:46]

But first the Buddha calmed down. First he was sitting under the bow tree with all this stuff happening to him, you know, armies of comments. were attacking him. But he cooled it. He didn't fight them. He didn't get involved with them. He didn't push them away. He didn't run off with them. He just sat. And by sitting in that way, he entered into the body which lets go of, which drops off of all this involvement. And then he could enter into wisdom where he understood how it happens that we have a world and how the world arises and how it ceases and how it can cause misery and how it gets locked in and all that stuff. We can see that, which we need to see. But first of all, the first step is, can we just for a little while let go of our usual trips a little bit, and then a little bit more, a little bit more, and then calm down? That's the renunciation phase. But again, the background of all this is compassion.

[76:50]

You know, we've got some pain here that we wish to address and free beings from. And that's in the background of this renunciation practice. Yes, Liz? It seems like practicing renunciation can be acting as if acting as if you believe. And then that practice actually deals with things we're trying to grasp, but maybe not in a form you can grasp. And I'm thinking about The day before yesterday I was really sleepy in the zendo and it was really painful and I was just fighting it the whole time and basically interacting with all my comments about being sleepy. And something shifted and the next day I was willing to just be sleepy.

[77:59]

And I calmed down and I think understood something about how A lot of the pain was a lot of judgment around how I was telling the story that I was the cause of the sleepiness. And now I know, I don't know if I know, but now I have some sense that maybe it's more complex. Maybe the world is not. Yeah, right. Maybe the world is not totally created by you. Yeah. Maybe you're not totally in charge of independently creating all your states. Maybe we have something to do with it. Yeah, so the fundamental shifts seem to be when you sound like you kind of just let the sleepiness be sleepiness. when the sleepiness is just a sleepiness that means that there is a being who is aware that there's sleepiness and there's a being who is aware that the sleepiness is just a sleepiness and in that kind of awareness there's a lot of light even though the sleepiness is still there the letting the sleepiness just be the sleepiness is very bright and there's some life there and some vividness

[79:24]

how strange that there can be like vividness in sleepiness. And there can also be, you know, sleepiness, but then there's a fighting of it, and then there's like a heaviness and a darkness in the sleepiness. Because it's like, I did this, or my neighbor made this happen, or some little story that you're holding to about, or some big story either that you're holding to about this, rather than just let it. You've got the sleepiness. That's enough. This is a perfectly good thing to be enlightened on. So the Buddha just says, in the sleepiness is just the sleepiness. That's it. What? It's just that I'm asleep in the window. If I'm not fighting being asleep, then I'm asleep. And at that point, I fall off my Zafu, and it's really uncomfortable. You fall off your Zafu? Wait a second. You said it's uncomfortable? You're uncomfortable in your sleep? I'm uncomfortable with falling asleep in the window.

[80:27]

I'm uncomfortable with the physical being upright while I'm falling asleep thing. The gravity thing. And I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I can't just curl up and I was up trying to go to sleep. So you got a lot of discomfort? I suppose that's what I'm describing. I don't mean to hijack your question, but it really resonated especially after this morning. Why'd you sit? It's okay? It's okay. So do you have a question? I heard a comment that you're, I heard you tell us that you have a lot of discomfort. If I just accept the fact that I'm sleepy, and I fall asleep. Okay. And then what? And then all the other stuff I described. Okay, and then what? And then I do it a few hundred more times during the period. Okay. That's a perfectly good opportunity for enlightenment. What? And then I hate doing it. Like, I don't like the experience. In fact, I absolutely really dislike the experience. Okay.

[81:29]

So, we got all that. Now, what would renunciation be in that situation? Not having just told the story about it? No, no, you just told the story. Now, in that story, what's renunciation? In that story you told. Letting go of disliking the experience of it? Yeah, that would be part of it. It would be letting go of everything you just said. I'm not arguing with, nobody's arguing with what you said. You tell us what's going on, we say, okay, that's your experience. Now, the renunciation is like, let go of that. Let go of everything about that Let go of anything that you're any kind of grasping to that story. Let go of it. Any seeking anything other than that story, don't seek anything other than that story. The Buddha is in that story. The Buddha is not like someplace else. So part of this teaching is that Buddha is there with you every step of the way.

[82:31]

It's not like Buddha is waiting for you to wake up and then Buddha is going to be there. Once you wake up, Buddha doesn't need to be there anymore. Buddha's with you when you're not awake. When you are asleep, Buddha's with you. And the way Buddha's with you is that Buddha is not grasping anything or seeking anything. And the way you're not grasping and seeking when you're sleepy or asleep, that mode is the practice of renunciation. And Buddha's there. at that time, not some other time, not a little bit later, but right there in the non-grasping and non-seeking in the middle of your sleepiness or in the middle of your being angry about being sleepy. That's the renunciation. And if I'm sleepy and I'm angry about being sleepy and I just sit in the middle of that, then I might be kind of willing, you know, it wouldn't be that bad to let go of all this, you know. Now, you might say, and it wouldn't actually be that bad to not seek anything other than this because I find that seeking something other than this makes me more uncomfortable.

[83:36]

So if I'm sleeping and I seek to be awake, I feel more uncomfortable than just being sleepy. Just being sleepy is somewhat uncomfortable, and seeking to be in some other state is more uncomfortable, is my experience. And so the nice thing about the first few years of practice is, in some ways, the nice thing about it is that you're uncomfortable with being sleepy. It's kind of nice, actually, kind of sweet that you're not kind of like all complacent and say, so what if I'm asleep? I don't care. But that's a nice opportunity. All this is a good opportunity. It's, or another way to put it, it's quite a challenge. Such a state is quite a challenge because it's such a state, it's a strong tendency to grasp it or reject it. It's not easy to not grasp it. Like, I'll be a terrible Zen student if I don't grasp this and like trash it. But no, no. This is an opportunity for you to actually practice Zen.

[84:40]

Namely, do not grasp the sleepiness. Just let the sleepiness arise and cease, arise and cease, arise and cease, arise and cease. And the more you let it be that way, the more light and awakeness and buoyancy and alertness and vividness can develop in the middle of the sleepiness. And this renunciation is not like a dead feeling. it is a vital, enlivening entry into the path. But the kitchen's left now, so maybe we should stop and we can go into more on this next time. Okay? Is that all right if we stop? And go and practice. The day of our confession.

[85:31]

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