I thought I might say something about the difficulty and some kind of good points of it, of some redeeming qualities of all the difficulties. We don't have sashimi just to cause pain. That's not the point of sashimi. I don't think anywhere that's what... I don't think cities are divided to cause pain along cities.

[01:09]

But in fact, most people that sit a long time have considerable physical discomfort. And so it's a debatable practice because of that. Why be so uncomfortable? Many people ask, why does empathy so much pain? In fact, there doesn't have to be that much. Some people don't have that much. After many years of sitting, it's not necessarily quite so bad. Although some people who have been sitting for many years still have a real hard time. So you can't say all of a sudden, after sitting for 20 or 30 years, you might maybe not sit a second for a year or two. and then sit and have a real hard time again, because you get kind of out of shape.

[02:14]

But generally speaking, people who sit a lot for a number of years, the sashi aren't so difficult for them, because they're physical. They're looser physically, and they're into various modes of adaptation to the sashi. So they do get through without curing this non-difficulty sometimes. But what about when you do have difficulty? I guess one principle or one idea that I'd like to propose to you is that, or to someone like yesterday, when I was talking about patience, a similar thing applies to, under ordinary circumstances, but being light, people can go around for example, and think of the future, you can think of the future and, generally speaking, and even attribute some substance to it, and generally speaking, you can survive.

[03:26]

I mean, you think too, right? But if you're eating a lot of tea and you think of the future, Or let's say, I would say that when you're in a lot of pain, thinking of the future, when you're in a lot of pain and you think of the future, you can see sometimes that thinking of the future in a certain way is really untenable. I mean, you can't stand it. When you're in a lot of pain, The only thing that works, the only way you can survive is to stay in the present. If you wander off, you may get a temporary, if you dream and fantasize your way away for a little while, you get temporary relief.

[04:29]

So after you come back from that little trip, it's worse than when you left. There are even yogic mistakes that I may mention later, but yogic trances you can get into, and you can actually go there and get a real relief from physical pain. They're actually, in some of these trances, they're getting negative sensation. But when we come back to the regular world, you can sometimes be quite shocked. And then sometimes, because of your shock, you get angry, and then you go to hell. So by going into certain high states, if you're not prepared for reentry when you come back, your emotional reactions sometimes propel you below where you were before. And when you see that, you gradually, I think, understand that

[05:37]

Under extremely intense situations, the only place that you're safe is in the present. And the only place you're safe, the only time you're safe is in the present. The only time you're safe is in the present. The only place you're safe is right here. If you move the slightest bit from this, you won't be able to stand it. And under ordinary circumstances, people don't realize that, because they say, look, I move. So what? I'm thinking of the future. See, I've got five of them. Because the intensity isn't strong enough, people can't see the damaging effects of certain kinds of thinking and acting. So they indulge in those activities, and they think they survive. He says, she, some people have learned that there isn't room for that. There isn't room for that. If you think of the next 15 minutes or the next period or the next few days, you feel really, really bad.

[06:47]

Because you think, what if this pain goes on for another hour or another 10 seconds? I won't be able to stand it. But if you don't think that way, if you stay in the present, you actually can take care of anything. So that's one of the advantages of the intensity of such heat. One of the uses of it is you actually learn the truth of how to live. Namely, don't go someplace else. You cannot afford it. And hopefully, what I'm hoping we can learn in this session is you even learn that thinking of objects is untenable and extremely painful. Matter of fact, that pain is due to thinking of objects. When you're in a lot of pain and you think of the pain objectively, if it's a strong pain, well, it can do you in.

[07:54]

But as soon as the pain isn't an object, it can't hurt you in the slightest. Now, theoretically, people could learn this in daily life. They could learn to sit still, to sit where they are, to settle into what they're doing, and realize that that is bliss. But without the encouragement of the intensity of a Sashin or some other life disaster, people don't settle. Generally speaking, they don't do it. So they don't find out that settling sets up this wonderful opportunity. But still, I think it's debatable. The Sashin is debatable. And some of us in Sashin are debating whether it's good or not. And Suzuki Roshi, who started the Sashin Zen Center, he was somewhat debating whether it was useful himself.

[09:06]

And he told me that he felt that the Sashins were primarily for laypeople who couldn't practice Zazen regularly. And he felt that in one week, a person who didn't ordinarily practice could get a taste of Zen. They didn't feel the sesshins were so necessary for people that could practice on a regular basis. Because of course, they can get a taste of Zen without sesshin. I'm being somewhat sarcastic when I say that. Because actually, even those of us who practice every day don't necessarily sit intensely enough to really get a taste for unwavering devotion and self-surrender to the moment. But he had very high opinion of us regular practitioners and thought that we needed some

[10:16]

But he said that during a seven-day sesshin, perhaps there would be one period in the middle of approximately, well, how many do we have? 77, 93, something like that. In the middle of those 70 to 90 periods, there might be one period in the middle there someplace where for the whole period, you could really just sit there. Just sit. Not going backwards or forwards. Not jumping to the future or the past. Not hoping for anything else and just being there. Maybe one period. And then I said to him, after he said that, I said, let's talk about this one period. He said, oh, that's what I'm talking, when I say one period, I mean the people who don't live here.

[11:21]

The people who live here, of course, they start right away, can't they? Because you're practicing every day, so immediately, as soon as you start, you can get into that kind of practice. He had a very high opinion of it. So anyway, the principle is that I'm saying that we walk around like this a lot of the time. I can get by with this. See? And sure enough, lightning bolts don't strike us. A lot of the time, right? They strike us, but not necessarily right away. Sometimes they strike right away. But a lot of times we just go around saying, see, I can do whatever I want. But again, So we don't go to because we don't have to. I'm sorry to say that most of us do not do it unless we have to.

[12:29]

The question is how to get yourself in a situation where you have to. Well, during Sashin, a lot of the people have to. Or some of the people have to. It's the only way we can survive in that. As Hisamatsu-sensei said, cornered, you pass it through, you change. The tashin is not really intended to cause pain to us, it's intended to corner us. corners so we stop shrinking away and fooling around. The schedule's almost enough. But then once we get into Zen, though, if we can get by with wiggling around there, we will.

[13:32]

And the ones who have a lot of pain, it's, you know, I feel sorry people have pain, but I also feel like they're the ones who are cornered. and they're the ones who may pass through. Once you can sit without a lot of pain in your knees or back, then you're lucky if you have emotional pain and shame. So when you're fooling around, you feel ashamed of yourself for wasting time. At the end of the poem, it says something like, let's just say, please excuse me. Sorry to be so brash to say, but for those who study the mystery, don't waste time.

[14:41]

So I've been talking now for both these practice periods, I've been talking about thinking of the unthinking or reversing your thought. How to do this is a kind of mystery. Everybody finds it kind of mysterious, and nobody really knows how to do it. How can you not have objects of thought? How could you sit still? This is a mystery, actually. If you feel it's mysterious, I think that's OK. But what's not OK is to waste time. Yesterday, I read the part of the Bukhamsa Daini where Dovizhenji says, therefore, study or learn the backward step of turning the light and shining it back.

[16:24]

body and mind will drop away of themselves and your original face will appear. If you want such, such, if you want body and mind to drop away, if you want your original face to appear, then You should urgently practice zazen. You should hurry up and work at zazen. This morning, I said in zendo, I don't know, this is a kind of, I don't know where this etiquette came from, but there's an etiquette which I heard about at some point, maybe we made it up at Zen Center, how when the server serves you the gamashio, This is the bowl part of the spoon, this part.

[17:37]

This is the handle. When they serve you the gamasio, they hand it to you with the bowl part in the gamasio towards you. You spoon towards that, right? Is that the way we do it? And then you use it for whatever you want to use it for. And when you give it back to them, you turn it around. You hand it back the other way so that the spoon handles toward you. And I heard this kind of politeness. I don't know which is more polite, actually, to offer the bowl or the handle to the server. But the point is, anyway, we make it accurate to do something polite to the server. And I said, point the handle toward yourself. And after I said that, I thought, is that right? Is the handle pointing toward himself? I thought, I think so.

[18:37]

I think the handle's pointing back this way, right? I think it is pointing towards myself. Myself? Where is myself? Myself's not out there. Myself's back there, isn't it? You know, I hesitate to say so, because it seems like, why would we keep ourself back there? But I think we do. So point when you give the servers back, give them the spoon that way. And also remember that this spoon is pointing. This phone is telling you to take the backward step. It's saying, turn around and look back at yourself. So when I said that, I looked this morning when I said that. This kind of activity of having the spoons and stuff tell you to take the backward step, this is a very fortunate situation I felt happening when I started to be reminded in that way.

[20:11]

And I think to respond and actually to look when the spoon tells you to look back, I think that's... Think I was a good boy when I did that. This next part is sort of difficult in a certain way to understand this. The first translation of ,, he said, after he says you should get to work on Zazen, then he says, for studying Zen, one should have quiet quarters, be moderate in food and drink.

[21:31]

During the session, that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem. It's fairly quiet most of the time in this end, though, and we're pretty moderate, right? The next part, cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. Cast aside all involvements and discontinue all affairs. I think what that means is actually try to not actually do work in the sense of planning your day, going over conversation.

[22:50]

these kinds of things. Such a limitation is, I think, possible to place on ourselves. People have trouble doing that, but I actually think that a person could do that. Again, being a lot of pain, oftentimes people have not too much trouble doing it. Does that make sense to you? If you're going to school and you're worried about what kind of grades you're getting, walking down the street worrying about that can suddenly push your ankle. And you're in excruciating pain at that time. I don't think you're simultaneously worrying about your grades. Probably won't. So I think it is possible.

[23:54]

put aside some of these activities while you're sitting. I actually find that people can do that very successfully. People are much more successful at that than some other things. For example, turning your mind around. I've seen quite a few people who could put aside these kinds of affairs. But understanding how to reverse the thinking seems to be much more subtle. This kind of putting aside of other affairs, worldly affairs, is a similar kind of activity to moderating your food and drink and moderating your sleep. Similar kind of practical arrangement. If you actually cannot... Realistically speaking, you cannot stop thinking about some worldview problem or worldview duties.

[24:56]

It's usually recommended that you go take care of them. Just go do them rather than sitting there thinking about it. So actually one person didn't come to the session because I felt that she would be thinking during the session about how she can support herself. She's in a situation right now. She'd have to figure that out in the next session. in a short period of time, next few weeks. So I said, well, you can sit to Sashin if you really think you're not going to be worried about this and thinking about it during the whole time. You're just going to be sitting there thinking about where you're going to get a job, when you're going to get a job, and this kind of thing. Then it probably wouldn't be so good to go to Sashin. Similarly, if you have a child and you have not been able to arrange proper childcare for Sashin, and you're just gonna sit there and worry about whether your child's safe or not, well, don't sit. First of all, make sure you have good childcare that you can really say, well, look, that's, take it there.

[26:04]

I don't have to worry about that. And similarly, if there's actually, if you have some doubt, in your mind about whether you can really put these things aside, well, then that's it. First take care of them so that you can realistically say, I don't have to think about that for 40 minutes, or for a day, or for a week. That's why Sesshin, Seven-Day Sesshin, is such a rare opportunity when you can get a chance to actually say to yourself, I don't have to think about anything for a week. And so if I do think about these things, I can say to myself, just put them aside. Can I realistically put them aside? Not realistically, but practically speaking, can I put them aside so that when I start thinking about them, I know it's just me fooling around? Ask yourself that question before the session starts. If the answer is yes, And you're pretty sure the answer is yes. Well, then when you start thinking of those things during the period, you can put them aside.

[27:07]

More likely. I told you this before, many of you. When I was in France one time, I went to this Mizegime, and in there I saw an unusual Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva. Loke Cheshpura is most common Chinese form of Loke Cheshpura is a woman in flowing, a female form currently, in flowing gowns, holding a vase in one hand with a flower coming out of it, usually above us. And the vase and the flower symbolize, you know, being involved in the world and being out there with people doing things, you know. He's doing, with compassionate activity, great benefit to beings.

[28:08]

That's Avalokiteshvara's constant compassionate activity that's symbolized by the flowing robes and holding the lotus. In this statue of her, she was sitting cross-legged with her hands in this mudra that we use. And she was sitting in a little cave. And there was a shelf on either side of where she was sitting. And in one shelf was her little vase, and the other shelf was her lotus perch. So she just put aside her ordinary, compassionate work while she was sitting. Even on the low vitesper takes little zodding breaks. And when she does, she actually puts aside this work. So you can do this if you make these arrangements. The next part's a little more difficult.

[29:12]

He says, don't think good or evil. Don't deal with right or wrong. So when you're sitting, for example, if you have one period where the pain's not so much, you might think, oh, this is good. Or you might have some real keen little insight might occur to you while you're sitting. You might think, well, those are neat. You might even want to write them down for future generations. Or you might think, my practice is really not too good. I'm wiggling around here causing myself extra misery." Or, you know, I really have a bad practice. Or my practice is not so bad, but the person next to me really has bad practice.

[30:13]

Or vice versa, they have really nice practice and might not so do it. You might think thoughts like this while you're sitting, but you're saying, don't do that. Don't think of good and evil about yourself or others. You may not be able to stop this, but if you find yourself doing it and you can stop, well, he says, stop. Just stop. You're wasting your time. Nobody needs you to do this. Now, when you're doing it, however, when you can't stop because you're already doing it, then I think I would recommend that you realize that this is not true, what you're thinking. This is just what you're thinking. In other words, do you think your practice is not so good? How do you think your practice is good? And so on. At least then, when you've already slipped into it, remember that's just your opinion. And your practice is something far beyond your opinion. And that way, hopefully, you can not be quite so entertained by these opinions and perhaps stop them.

[31:23]

They aren't necessary. I think beginners sometimes do it, and intermediate students sometimes do it, and advanced students sometimes do it. I think it's having the valuations of their faculty. But I think you can actually stop. Anyway, please stop if you can. And the next one would be even harder. It says, halt the revolutions of the mind, intellect, and consciousness. Stop calculations of thoughts, ideas, and perceptions. How are you going to halt the revolutions of time? How are you going to halt the movements of the mind? Well, I don't know.

[32:24]

This seems like one of those things which you're not going to do unless you simply have to. It's like, I mean, how can you do it? I mean, how can any of us do that? Well, there's only one way we're going to do it, and that is when there's no other way but to do it. The only way we're going to do it is to do it. There's no method that I can think of. except that the time may come in the middle of this session when it happens. Now, when this stuff stops moving around, it doesn't mean that nothing's happening. It doesn't mean that nothing's happening. It doesn't mean everything goes blank. It just means that you're sitting still mentally. Now, sitting still, halting the movement doesn't mean that things stop changing either.

[33:28]

It doesn't mean that the mind goes clump, and that one thought's sitting there, and that that one stays or something, or that all of you go away. It means that you realize that the mind, it's always still. It's not moving. It changes. But this thing doesn't move into that thing. You've got this thing and this thing, this mind, this intellect, this idea. It's there. That's it. It doesn't move. It just goes away and another one comes. This is what's been said for 2,500 years about the mind. It doesn't move. So why don't you stop moving? Why don't you stop seeing it moving? The basic definition of the The communist yoga system is that yoga is to stop the movements of the mind or at least curtail the movements of the mind.

[34:38]

Sitting still, take care of this. Sitting still doesn't mean just your body sitting still. It means everything sitting still. That's what I think, anyway. This is all just me talking, all right? This isn't true right now. This is not true, OK? This is just me talking. And then he says, in the later version of the , the one we usually deal with, he said, do not intend to make a Buddha. Now I've been saying, again, I've been saying over and over that the basis of Zen practice is the bodhisattva path, the bodhisattva vow.

[35:50]

In other words, to help all beings attain awakening, freedom, to become free from afflictions, to understand all the different Buddhist teachings, and to accomplish the unsurpassable awakening. to have this vow to attain awakening for the sake of all sentient beings. And what Dovi is saying here now is that with that vow in the background or at the heart of the matter, protect that by not intending to make a Buddha. Protect the aspirations for the liberation and happiness of all beings. Protect that aspiration in many ways, but one way to protect it, don't try to make a Buddha.

[37:04]

And then he says, much less be attached to sitting still. OK. This tradition now putting tremendous amount of energy into encouraging us to wholeheartedly give ourselves generously, carefully, patiently, enthusiastically, concentratedly to just sitting still. And then saying, and don't be attached to sitting posture. Don't be attached to sitting still. So he's putting all his weight on sitting still and also saying don't be attached to it. Thank you.

[38:21]

If you ever can sit still for a moment, it's just for that moment. And in the next moment, you cannot depend on the fact that you sat still for a moment. You have to start all over again. When you sit, spread a thick mat and use a cushion on top of it.

[40:04]

Then sit either in the full cross-legged or the half cross-legged position. For the full position, first place your right foot on your left thigh, then place your left foot on your right thigh. In hat lotus position, simply rest your left foot on your right thigh. This is what he says in his text. But the secret transmission in the Soka Zen temple is switch. Don't always do it the way he said it. Sometimes do it the other way. Yes, the people are sitting.

[41:16]

For many years, a yoga practitioner said to me, Why do people always do it the same way? Why don't you switch? People at Zen Center will get kind of deformed. I said, yeah, but Dogen Zenji said to do it now. What can we do? And then I studied more, and I found a lot of Indian Buddhist texts where they say to do it the other way, to put the left foot on the right thigh and then put the right foot on the left thigh. You have the right foot on top. You can sit in half lotus to put the right foot on top. And then I saw some actually, I studied an iconography book and I found out that there's two different lotus postures and that they have different qualities. The one with the left one on top is called demon subduing.

[42:26]

The left on top is more of a subduing posture. And the right on top is called a merit stone, a good fortune stone. position. In other words, you get more active at getting out there and doing things. So when I saw all these Indian texts that many of them recommended the other direction, and I saw these iconographic representations, I started to ask around more. I found out, yeah, that actually it is okay. And I asked one very conservative Soto Zen teacher, and I explained him the situation. He said, oh yes, you can switch because actually in the Hokkyoku, in Hokkyoku, Soto Zen, he said it's okay to switch.

[43:37]

And I said, what about the hands? Did you switch the hands too? And he said, no, you don't switch the hands because he didn't say you could. But I actually think you switched the hands too. I think you should have switched the leg than switched the hand. And again, during Sashin, you've got one way you can do it, right? And just barely getting by doing it that way. The other way is even harder, so you don't have to switch. But it's the best time to switch. But still, be careful, you know. Be careful. You can smelt yourself in this sashi. You can melt yourself down into a whole new person. You've got a lot, tremendous amount of things working for you.

[44:44]

You can do things you don't think you could ordinarily do. Again, there's another irony that when you're really having a hard time, the most difficult way to . The way that seems most difficult under ordinary circumstances is often the easiest and the more difficult circumstances. Did I say that right? Did I say the reverse of the usual thing? In other words, sitting up straight under ordinary circumstances seems like a lot of work. You know, because it's easier just to sort of go like this and go like that, right? But during Sashin, it's much harder not to sit up straight. You sit up straight. compared to how hard it is to not set up straight. And again, you realize that by feeling how hard it is not to set up straight.

[45:46]

You find yourself straight just because it's the only way you can survive. So I hope, I hope that these are difficult enough for all of us. After you settle, after you're sitting still, after you stop wiggling, at least in a moment, at that moment, think of the unthinking. How do you think of the unthinking? Nothing. This is the essential part of zazen. And then many translations then say, the next thing they say is, the zazen I'm talking about is not meditation. It is the door to great bliss and peace.

[46:55]

Reversing the mind this way, learning this backward step, is not meditation. Meditation. Of course there's concentration in there. But this is not a meditation practice. This is the gate to bliss and peace. It's not meditation. Another translation says, after it says, think of that which doesn't think. This is the essential art of Zazen. That is why we say that zazen is not meditation. It is the gate to the bliss of the dhamma. My experience over the last few years of studying Zen teachings is a very strong impression at the core of the Zen meditation practice, from Bodhidharma to the first five ancestors and the sixth ancestor, and now from there on to the present in Dogen Zen U.

[48:33]

One of the core things about it is this teaching of turning your mind around. That this is the gate. This is how to go in the door. Or again, I don't know if it's how to go in the door or in the door. I'm not sure about that. What's the best way to put it? He says it's the gig. The Donald gig. And this is the

[49:41]

the essential art that we need to learn. It's not all arts of Buddhism. So Ahulapitaskara, holding the vase and the lotus, this is a further art. This symbolizes innumerable, innumerable other parts There are many, many, many skillful arts that help people. This is just one. However, this is the essential one. This is the one that you use to get in the door where you can play without a local touch bar. As long as we are still dealing with objects, as long as we don't turn the mind around, we're just doing the best we can messing around with objects.

[50:42]

And if we have lots of good karma in our background, great. We'll survive pretty well for a while. If we want to actually do something helpful in this world for ourselves or others, it looks to me that the Zen teaching is saying the essential gate, the essential art is this. And how to do it is a mystery. It's a mystery. On this idea of being a mystery, if you are dealing with sort of presenting this as turning around or this is sexual, but then

[51:44]

It's sort of like something entirely different. We should be looking for something really different. No, no, I'm not saying you've never done it before. I'm just saying it's totally different from the usual way of mind to make objects. But I think probably many people have already done it. That's part of what's mysterious about it is that it's not something you've never done before. You might have done it many times. You might have done it thousands and thousands of times in this light, and not to mention the innumerable past lives you might have done this. Whatever you think, for example, whatever another person's well-being is more important to you than your own, in a sense, you're doing it. Whenever that's happened to you, you did it. Well, I'm not saying you never did it before. I'm just saying right now how to do it is kind of a mystery.

[52:48]

And there's many ways to talk about it. But still, what do they mean? How do you do it? How do you not have obvious support? People have trouble understanding this. And I can't understand it, and you can't understand it all by yourself. We're doing this together. We're doing this by serving lunch, by sitting zazen, by being in a sasin together. We're doing it by innumerable little techniques that are offering us an opportunity to turn around, to think of that which doesn't think. I'm not saying you never did it before. It's more complicated than that, more mysterious than that. If Dogen is there are parts of Dogen that seem to emphasize that, in other words, it should sit in the initial alignment, it's best that everybody who's sat will hit, for instance, whatever, because that will be an electric thing.

[53:53]

And so it's not just to look for something that's really weird and difficult to get it done. They should also pay attention to booking for something that you, Yeah, maybe just not looking. Yeah, maybe not looking. I don't know what it is for each of us. I don't even know if when you do it, you're going to get a Vincent Slaughter for closing bliss right away. to confirm that you did it right. And yet, somehow, if you express yourself on the point, I have some sense of whether you're still dealing with objects or not.

[55:00]

Like a lot of people say, they're trying to do it, and then they tell me what happens, and they think that what they're into is something different, but really they're still dealing with objects. That is possible to ascertain. Namely that you shift into some unusual objects, ones you've never dealt with before, and you think that this is now turning the mind around. But actually you're still pointed out that way. But what you're seeing out there sounds like something back there, but it's actually back there are also objects. So when you find objects back there, then turn around behind those objects to keep turning around on the objects and stepping back from them. I said this before, and I'd like to say it once again.

[56:24]

In one sense, if you just put 60 people in a bundle early on in the schedule, something will happen. And some of them will get pretty calm. And most of them will learn quite a bit without any talk about turning their mind around. And some people will probably turn their mind around spontaneously just because they have to to survive. They'll just stumble upon that technique spontaneously. I think that might happen. I think it has happened at business end. But my general impression is, over the years, So I've been here. People have been chanting and reading the Fukanza Zen and other instructions of Zen and have not been dealing with this type of teaching and don't actually devote themselves to the practice of it.

[57:36]

So people have done very well over the years, Many people have been very sincere about concentrating on their posture and breathing and have found how useful that is. And in the midst of that, have actually turned their mind around and experienced great benefit from that practice. But still, the majority of people at Zen Center had not faced this challenge, the difficulty of this issue. And so I'm partly apologizing for exposing you to a kind of thing that will cause, if you pick it up, will cause some struggle. It might cause some struggle. It might make things more difficult for you. I'm sorry about that. And I might be wrong in bringing this all up.

[58:38]

But my experiences over the years that We've been running into that thing, that instruction. This is the essential art of zazen. Again and again, we've said that hundreds of thousands of times. Think of that, it doesn't matter. And people have not been dealing with it. They've been saying, oh, that's interesting. So I'm dwelling on this. until I'm sure that it's not a good teaching for people. Because I think it is an essential teaching as far as I can tell. And again, I've seen many people try it and get discouraged and give up. And I've seen many other people never even try it. So I'm trying to encourage you to try.

[59:48]

And also, I'm not so much explaining how to do it. I don't think I can really explain how to do it. I'm mostly trying to get you to try to do it. And then if you try to do it, then we can figure out how to do it. We can't really talk about it. I can't explain to you how to do it. You have to try to get some data. And everybody that tried immediately gets some data. They don't necessarily know what the data means or like the data, but they get some right away. As soon as you try, you get something. And the most common thing that people get is they don't get anything. And then a guardian of text?

[61:15]

Yes. Uh-huh. Would you say ? Yeah, it is. However, although you may switch back and forth between them, or you may do one and not the other, I think This text is recommending that you do the calm abiding practice first. And once you have settled, then do this discursive practice. However, I really don't think that this is, I would even take back what I just said and say it's not discursive practice.

[62:23]

It is the balance between discursive practice and calm abiding. It may seem like that, but if you look at this instruction, it's so simple. There's almost nothing to just be discursive about. It's a little bit different from most of the other kind of discursive meditations, analytic meditations. It's simply to turn the mind around, or simply to not have objects of thought, or simply to think of the unthinking, and so on. It's not really that you have to keep saying that over to yourself. It's just a turning.

[63:28]

It's just a turning. Just a turn. That's all it is. So it's not necessarily a word or anything? It is a word. Well, it's not necessarily a word, but it is a word. It is a concept. It is a feeling. It is something that you're turning around on. You don't turn around in mid-air. Turn around on something. And that something you turn around on, you are completely settled on. So once you're settled, then you've turned. That's all there is to it.

[64:05]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_83.13