the intention or the will of sensual pleasure, of sensual desire, the will or the intention of ill-will, and the intention of cruelty. This is wrong intention. So, common consciousness couldn't sponsor such an intention. It kind of felt like it goes a long way, that it was greed and lustful. Yeah, right. The first one's like greed. The second one... But the second two are both kind of like hatred. Yeah, so this is called wrong intention. What? Well, in a sense, if you didn't have right view, you wouldn't know you had wrong intention.

[01:00]

But you could have wrong intention without having right view. But as we come into study, coming in to learn what right intention is, the first step in learning right intention is to learn what wrong intention is. If you have right view, you could spot a wrong intention in yourself. You could have mundane right view, and yet in you there could arise an intention of sexual or sensual desire or of ill will that could arise in you. And if you had right view, you would see, oh, that's wrong intention. You could see that. Right view doesn't guarantee that you're going to have right intention. However, it does tend to promote the realization of right intention because if you have right view, you can see wrong intention and right intention.

[02:07]

And if you can see wrong intention, you can see what... See, right view, although it doesn't prevent wrong intention, it does observe what? It can see it. It can see it, and what else can it see? What else can right view see? What else is right view looking around for? Right? Yeah, right. Right view will see... Right view has already said there is fruit of actions. And now we're looking at the definition of action is intention. So if you can see wrong view and you have right view, you know that's wrong view and also there's going to be a fruit of this. And you will notice you won't notice, until you're enlightened, you won't notice the full range of it. But you can start to see, oh, this is a wrong view, and this is wrong intention, and this is the trouble that follows from wrong intention. So with right view, applying it to intention, and noticing this is wrong intention, then you see, oh, wrong intention makes me unhappy.

[03:10]

That's the fruit of wrong intention, which I do. And right intention, which I do, brings happiness. And you might not be doing the good and the bad. You don't do the bad to make yourself unhappy. You do the bad because you've got a wrong intention. But then, as you notice, this wrong intention leads to unhappiness and suffering. Right intention leads to happiness. You start to change. So your intention evolves towards right intention by bringing right view to wrong and right intention. But right view itself will not initially, it doesn't really initially prevent wrong intention. But it knows wrong intention and it also believes in the effects of actions, the combination of those two leads to an evolution towards right intention.

[04:14]

And what is right intention? You probably can guess that now. To do good, but specifically... It's not really... This isn't really to do good karma. This is good karma. Okay, this is good karma. Right intention. First of all, karma is an intention. So it is always this right intention is good karma. So it is what? It is renunciation. So that's what bad karma, that's what wrong intention is. What's right intention? Right intention, I say, is twofold, like before. One that's affected by taint, Partaking of merit on the side of attachment. And then one that is noble and taintless, super mundane.

[05:17]

So what is the intention, what is the one that has taints? What's that like? That's the one where there's an intention of renunciation, an intention of non-ill will, and an intention of non-cruelty. This is the type of intention that's affected by taint. It partakes of merit and ripens on the side of attachment. And this type of intention I think probably all of you are somewhat familiar with, right? Right? That's the mundane that you're probably familiar with. that you actually intend to do something non-cruel, non-ill will, and renunciation means to give up trying to get something for yourself in the pleasure department. It's not that you're rejecting pleasure, it's just that you're not trying to get yourself pleasure.

[06:28]

The things you do where you're actually renouncing trying to get yourself pleasure, that's called a right intention. So once again, Buddhism doesn't say you can't have pleasure. It just says, if you're intending to try to get yourself pleasure, that is wrong intention. Is that right, that sensuality is considered about the wrong Pardon? Is that what sensuality is considered a wrong intention? Sensuality is not considered a wrong intention. It's intending, it's trying to get yourself sensuality. You're trying to get something just for yourself. If you tried to get pain for yourself, that would also be wrong. There's two extremes. One is to try to... Self-mortification, you know, like, criticize yourself, be down on yourself, beat up on yourself, that's one.

[07:38]

You're trying to beat up on yourself because you think it would be good for yourself. That's what Buddha did for quite a while. The other is thinking that getting sensual experiences, that will be good for you. But they're both forms of addiction. Just sensual pleasure is okay, and just pain is okay, but to use pain to avoid your life, or to use pleasure to avoid your life, those are extremes. So this is talking about the mundane right intention. Listen to the super mundane right intention. And what, monks, is right intention that is noble without taints or outflows, super mundane and so on? It is thinking, thought, intention, mental absorption, mental stability, directing of the mind, verbal formation, in one,

[08:43]

whose mind is noble, in one whose mind is taintless, who possesses the noble path, who is developing in the noble path. This is right intention, which is noble, taintless, super-mundane." Did you hear what the intention was? You didn't hear really what it was, didn't you? What you heard was... What did you hear about it? Yeah. Right, exactly. It didn't tell you where it was going. It didn't tell you, actually, it was going... Of course, it didn't tell you it was going towards cruelty. And it wasn't going towards ill-will. And it wasn't going towards sensual pleasure. It didn't tell you that it was going towards non-ill-will or non-cruelty either. It just said, it is the intention. It's the intention. It's the thinking.

[09:45]

And also thinking is also another word for intention. It is the thought. It is the thinking, thought, intention. It's the mental absorption. It's what the noble person is concerned with. Whatever they think, that's right intention. They aren't like trying to steer away from this or towards that. So in this case, the intention, what kind of an intention is it? It's not common. They're not doing it. It's just like they're a certain type of person and their intention is like they don't make it anymore. It's just naturally the way they are. If they don't make it, then it's not an intention. It's not really an intention, yeah. It's almost the word intention. Except that they can still have intention.

[10:48]

They can still think. But it's no longer them doing it. Because they are taintless. They are taintless. It says they're taintless, I believe. Yeah, their mind is painless. In their mind there's no gain or loss, there's no existence and non-existence, there's no self and other. This is giving early Buddhism a lot of credit. And I think it's okay to do that. They didn't say it as fully as later, but it's very much in accord So part of what Zen practice is about, actually, not about, I shouldn't say, but part of the Zen style is that rather than emphasize mundane right intention, the intention of renunciation and non-ill will and non-cruelty, rather than emphasize that kind of developing better and better intention, what Zen practice often does is it tries to address the mind and make it free of outflows.

[11:53]

And then when you have such a person, then they not only practice right view and right intention, etc., but they do it in this super mundane way. In other words, they don't do it. It's just the way they are. Like, you know, some people, if you say something to them, you know, they just say, okay. But they don't really feel like they did that. Like you say, did you help me? They say, sure. They don't feel like, okay, I intend to be helpful, or I intend to say, sure. It just pops out like a knee reflex. Would you give me your arm? Sure. Would you give me a hand? Would you give me a foot? It just pops out like saliva, because they're that type of person. And of course, it is actually non-cruel, non-ill will, and renunciation.

[13:00]

but it's no longer them thinking that they're going to do this. On the mundane level, however, there is a mundane right view where you're actually intending to renounce trying to get pleasure for yourself. You're trying to give that up. Just in case it's scary to any of you, or me, I assuage myself by knowing by believing and knowing that if you give up trying to get pleasure for yourself, it doesn't mean you won't get any. The brownie still comes. Even I didn't want it, she brings it. With ice cream to give me a heart attack. She doesn't want me to come back anymore. And also, even though I'm not trying to get, even if I give up trying to get sensual pleasure, my grandson shows up.

[14:06]

Hi. I do not know that you'll get more pleasure if you give up trying to get it. I don't know that. I really don't. I think maybe you will, but I'm not sure. And I don't know if you won't get less. I really don't know if this makes you get more or less pleasure. But I have more confidence that you'll be happy if you renounce trying to get yourself pleasure. It's other factors that will determine how much pleasure you get. It's possible that you would renounce trying to get pleasure and various factors would come together such that you have a big pain coming up, like you get really sick right after that or something. Like you just finally manage to really practice this right intention of giving up, of renouncing trying to get sensual pleasure, and you have this big slate of big pains for weeks that might happen.

[15:08]

But it won't happen because you gave up trying to get pleasure. And not only that, but if you were still trying to get pleasure when that big slate of pain came, you'd really be frustrated and really pissed off. Because none of these drugs are working. So even then, you're being more at ease and happier, and you can see that, because you've got right view and you're watching. Now here I am, I've got this big sickness, and I'm trying to get pleasure, and it's really making me miserable. And then you notice, I've got this big sickness, and I'm not trying to get pleasure, and I'm more comfortable with it. And then the pleasure and the pain goes away and you get this big onslaught of really great sunsets and lovely grandchildren and very kind friends and all kinds of wonderful things happen. But not because you tried to get them. They just happen. Here they are.

[16:10]

And you practice renunciation, they come and you say, hi, and you don't hold on to them. You feel good. You see that, you learn that that kind of right intention is good. But again, that right intention is still from the point of view of, I'm doing this practice which I heard is good. It is good. And I'm doing it still. But the super mundane right intention, see, it's different. Nothing about like, no mention of that stuff. But of course, Of course, your intention, although we don't mention that it's non-ill will and renunciation, it is like that. It's just you're not doing it anymore. And we don't have to mention it even, because it's spontaneous. There was a phase in the Buddha's life, the Buddha said, there was a phase where he didn't notice that certain intentions led him to trouble. He actually had that experience.

[17:12]

Like it says in Ehe Koso Hotsugamon, if poor Buddhas were Buddhas, they were like us. Buddha, all the problems that you have, all the stupid things you do, all the selfishness that I experienced, Buddha once tried that stuff out too and learned from it. So Buddha actually did observe in himself these kinds of wrong intentions, and he said, and I saw what they led to, and then I observed the right intentions and I saw what they led to, and then he evolved more and more to have right intentions. And this was before he had super mundane right intention. He had the mundane right intention first. So some of you, some of us, maybe you're hearing about the super mundane, because the super mundane is sort of the topic of this course, because this course has become liberated from karmic consciousness, and both wrong intention and right intention are karmic consciousness.

[18:13]

Both of them. Okay? Super mundane intention is liberation from karmic consciousness. Even though the person, if you could look in their head, you'd still see them thinking. It would still be like planning a reasonable way to drive to the grocery store would still be in their head. But it would be the thinking of someone who has a taintless mind. So they still can navigate through space, but they no longer think, I'm doing it. and they no longer think in terms of gain and loss of getting to the grocery store or not. So their intention is right intention, but we don't need to say what it is anymore. This person who has this right intention, however, this super mundane right intention, probably spent quite a while learning the mundane right intention.

[19:18]

So, it's good to practice that one too, right? And if you already are beyond practicing from the point of view of an individual self, then I would say, well, you used to do that. So, I thought that was kind of interesting that the description of right intention of the super mundane type didn't mention anything about non-ill will and so on. It's just the intention of a person whose mind has no outflows, who is beyond gain and loss, which means beyond separation between gain and loss, separation between self and other. Yes? Also, you didn't mention it because There's no judgment about whether something is good or not good, or good or bad.

[20:27]

I mean, it's just actual, it's not, it's no longer judged. I feel like that actually makes me well with that little thing. I don't think so. I think that the judgments can still arise in the mind of one of these people. It's just that in this mind the judgment would arise, it would be a phenomena that arises, and this person would see this phenomena as it is. So you can give them whatever phenomena you want. Hey, here's a judgment. What do you do with that? Here's a negative judgment. Here's a positive judgment. Here's a preference. You can give them any phenomena and they see basically, they can see basically always the same thing.

[21:35]

Everything tastes the same. Ultimate truth. So no matter what you give them, It's the same. You give them a dependently coercive thing, like a judgment, they can see it, and they can see the emptiness of the agitation on it. So it's not that their brain can't conjure up any old thing, it's just that whatever is conjured up and presented to their consciousness, they understand it for what it is, and therefore their response their mental response, which is their mental intention, arises spontaneously out of that understanding, and it is right intention. So, in other words, I don't know, you could have a Buddha on the, I don't know, judging Olympic figure skaters or something, among one of the judges.

[22:39]

And they could be observing all the different things, you know, but they would respond to their judgment in this, you know, beneficent way. They still have the judgments, though. And so they would be teaching the Dharma while they're making the judgments. I told somebody the story of Samuel Johnson. He lived his life modeled on the Christian monastery schedule, I think. They used to have a schedule where they'd get up in the middle of the night and pray. I think midnight prayer is called matins. Is that right? Matins is morning. What's the midnight one, do you know? There's a... I think there's that. Anyway, there's the middle of the night.

[23:50]

I went to a monastery one time and we got up in the middle of the night. The vigil is all night. But there was a thing in the middle of the night. Anyway, part of his schedule was he would get up in the middle of the night not necessarily to pray but sometimes to study. Anyway, one of these times he got up in the middle of the night and while he was up something very traumatic happened up in the brain area. And he thought that he had a stroke. Very painful, very disorienting. And he felt like his brain was just like blowing apart. And so he knelt down by his bed and he prayed. And he prayed in Latin. And in Latin he prayed, you know, Dear Lord, you can destroy my body as much as you want, but please do not destroy my mind.

[24:58]

He didn't have much of a body anyway. And he had gout and stuff, so, you know, destroy my toe, go ahead. Anyway... So he composed that verse, that verse of prayer, praying that the Lord would preserve his mind. And he got back in bed, and he laid in bed for a while. And then he critiqued his Latin verses. He said, those weren't very good verses. And then he said, then he got out of bed again and knelt down and said, Dear Lord, thank you for preserving my critical faculty. So if you look at the Buddha's behavior, you can see the Buddha can criticize. He would say to some of his disciples, No, that's really off. Not what I said. Did I ever say that? No. Did I say this?

[25:58]

Yes. The Buddha was quite critical and quite, you know, lots of judgments coming off him. But, No obstacles. So he was like, people really appreciated his judgments. They were like enlightening. But not so much just his judgments were enlightening, but the way he worked with them was enlightening because he understood the nature of his judgments. namely that they were empty of any kind of inherent existence. Just like himself and the people he was making judgments about, and the practice, and the path, all of it lacks inherent existence, lacks self. He knew that. So, as a result, he always could help people wake up to this. So we don't have to... And that's, again, another strong point of Zen, I think, is that Zen teachers obviously are still just like... are well known for like being not super like, you know, saintly.

[27:07]

You know, like, no judgments. No, not so much like that. Like, Sri Guruji's son was visiting Gringos recently and he came, and one of the things he did there was he taught us how to do a certain kind of Japanese chanting. And then he told us that in Japan he teaches it, and he's been teaching it for quite a few years, and he has a large group of students. He said, and they're all... All women, no men in the class. And he says, you know, 120 women. And he said, a little bit old. I said, it's okay, a little bit old. No young ones. That's all right. He said, big hound. He said, the most are quite a bit older than him.

[28:13]

I went to the class there. I mean, they're like, generally, I think they're almost all lower than him. When you say it's super mundane and mundane, can you actually say that super mundane is the samadhi practice and mundane is my field of practice? Well, I could say that. Watch. The super mundane is a samadhi practice and the mundane is a mindfulness practice. Thank you. See, he made a judgment. Although I could say that, I don't know if I'd say it again.

[29:17]

Or if I could say it again. Supramundane means that it is beyond the world that has some kind of self in it. The world is basically the world that arises from belief in self. That's the world. Now there's another world besides what we usually call the world, sometimes called the super mundane plane, and that's the way things are where you've realized that there's no inherent existence to things. You're still alive, but life is not being confined by distinctions anymore. There are still distinctions and judgments, but they don't cramp the energy anymore.

[30:22]

It's supramundane. It's beyond the world. It's called nirvana. It's peace. I was going to ask you about the early established nature. What's the early established nature? It's that state that you described. Is the super-mundane a thoroughly established? Yes. No. The super-mundane is also a dependently coalescent thing. It's also impermanent. Nirvana is impermanent. I would say. Because nirvana is a way, it's a type of life. And life changes, so nirvana doesn't like... I think some people may be saying nirvana is permanent, but I don't see it myself. Nirvana is like life, life's possibility of being life and peace.

[31:32]

Usually life is life and war, and suffering, and upset. We know about that. It's also possible life can be peaceful and blissful when we have no attachment. You know, I heard this thing on the radio. It's about this Buddhist monastery in Southeast Asia. I don't remember whether it was Thailand or what. And they have a very successful drug rehabilitation program there. And they interviewed one of the guys there who was a Vietnam veteran from Harlem. And I think his name was Monk Mike or something like that. And so here's this guy from Harlem saying, just talking perfect Harlem accent, and you say, something like, Buddha teaching is no attachment, no suffering. That's it. You don't attach to things, you won't suffer.

[32:35]

And that's what this is about, too. In order to have absolutely no attachment, we have to see the ultimate truth. When you understand the ultimate truth, there's no attachment, and then you enter into nirvana. But as a bodhisattva, you don't stay in nirvana. You let go of the ultimate, which means you cash in your nirvana too. And what do you get for it? Samsara. You come back into the world. you still have experience non-attaching and in freedom, so you come back to the world joyfully, willingly, not by mistake. So superlundane is like that, I would say. Is that enough Dharma talk tonight? Yes, Leonard? The last comment for that question was before A bodhisattva will be born back into the world of weight, did you say?

[33:49]

Well, there's theories about this that some bodhisattvas... The Buddha talked about this. The Buddha said, you know, there's various possibilities. During the process of rebirth, Some beings are unconscious at conception, unconscious in the embryonic phase, and unconscious through the birth process. Out of the mother, they're unconscious through the whole process. Some beings are conscious at the conception phase, but then they lose consciousness in the embryonic phase. and then they don't regain consciousness at birth. Some other beings are conscious at the conception phase, conscious during the embryonic phase, and then lose it at birth. And some other beings are conscious at the conception, embryonic, and even go through the birth process, all three of those phases, and stay conscious and remember what they came for.

[35:06]

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