I heard there will be a cook’s jundo after lunch today, when we can thank the people who worked in the kitchen during this practice period. And I also want to again say, that I really appreciate the wholehearted sincerity with which you have all practiced during these three weeks. I have noticed and appreciated your presence and kindness and enthusiasm and patience.
Given a lot of attention during this sesshin to training in tranquility and some discussion of what the state of tranquility is like. And how it is in the Yogachara tradition how it is considered to be a necessesary foundation for successful training in wisdom. And I was going to talk a little bit today how to turn; how the mind can turn then from the training in tranquility, where we give up discursive thought, where we are giving up involvement with the images that are appear before us. And in giving up involvement with the images before us we are actually attending to the image maker, the mind which is contemplated by all minds. But I also just want to mention that, it seems that in the – in some places in the writings of Dogen, you find expressions like this; - you find expressions like. I believe in this text I have before me, the ‘Zazenshin’ the acupuncture needle of Zazen is an expression: ‘the vain programs for suspending considerations, suspending discursive thought and congealing in tranquility. Vainly endeavoring to cease thought and become absorbed in serenity.’
So that sounds like that he is putting down tranquility practice, but I guess what I would interpret that as meaning that to think that this is the full program of the Buddha way, that would be in vain. So he is saying that in the context of ‘we must go on to develop wisdom’.
And also I just want to say that Dogen doesn’t say much about the breathing process. And again it is not because he thinks such meditations of attending to the breath as a way to give up discursive thought are not important, but rather he is emphasizing and promoting - rather then the teachings about how to use the breathing process to develop tranquility – he is interested in presenting teachings which promote higher wisdom and higher understanding of the nature of breathing. Rather then using breathing in connection with tranquility, but of course – not ‘of course’- but I think that he – can I have Sutra book – I think he… Of course we are practicing tranquility, but we are not just doing that. And so I would say, I actually wanted to chant us Fukanzazengi this morning but I forgot to mention that to Rev. Owl. In the Fukanzazengi Dogen says, this translation says: “Cast aside all involvements cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad, do not administer pros and cons, cease all movement of the conscious mind the gauging of all thoughts and views” – in other words give up discursive thought. Give up all involvements with objects. Give up all the measuring, calculating, examining functions of the mind. So here is right his basic instruction on giving up discursive thought. He also says, “Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words and following after speech and learn the backward step, which turns the light inwardly.”
So that is some instructions on giving up discursive thought, and then he talks about setting the body up and then he says, “settle into a steady immobile sitting positing’. So again I would read that as short for ‘sit still’ and ‘sit still’ means in body in mind. Give up the wanderings of discursive thought. Realize Samatha. And then he says: “Think of Not-thinking or think Not-thinking. How do you think of Not-thinking? Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of Zazen.” So he is saying the thinking is the essential art of Zazen. First he says you should give up thinking and then he says, once you have given up thinking and settled into a steady immobile sitting position. Your mind and body are still and quiet and calm, now let the mind turn, let the mind pivot and start thinking again. This thinking process which just has been described is ‘the essential art of Zazen’, but it is based on tranquility. And this essential art then which is based on tranquility is then also cooked in tranquility. Once we learn how to think of ‘Non-thinking’ and think of ‘thinking’ and think of ‘Not-thinking’; then we let that understanding cook in tranquility. This teaching is based on a story. Where a monk asked the ancestor, the 36th ancestor in our tradition; a monk came up to the teacher and teacher was sitting still. The teacher is Yaoshan; the monk comes up to him and says: “What kind of thinking is going on there, when you are sitting so still?” The Zen teacher is sitting and the monk says basically: “What kind of thinking is going on? Are you thinking? Are you thinking or are you just giving up thinking?” And Yaoshan says, he doesn’t say ‘I am not thinking.’ He just doesn’t, I guess he actually, he is calm, but he is very steady, very still, immoveable, dynamic, alive, flexible. He is in a state of shamatha, but he is thinking. So when the monk says, ‘what kind of thinking are you doing?’ he can tell him. And he says: “I am thinking of ‘Not-thinking’.” Now right away, I’ll just interpret that for you, when he says I am thinking of ‘Not-thinking’, I think he is saying: ‘I am thinking of the thoroughly established character of phenomena’. ‘I am thinking of suchness’. ‘I am thinking of emptiness, that is what I am thinking about. I am meditating on emptiness. You just happen to catch me at a time, when I am meditating on emptiness.’ So he says in a poetic response, rather then saying I am thinking of emptiness, since the monk asked what kind of thinking he is doing, he turns and plays with the word in his meditation on emptiness, where he doesn’t perceive any thinking. And he is thinking about not perceiving any thinking, like in chapter five. So, monk asked about thinking, ‘I tell you about thinking, I am thinking about ‘Not-thinking’.’ And the monk says, “How do you think of ‘Not-thinking’?” and Yaoshan says: “Non-thinking”. So this is an instruction about how to practice insight, I would say. Let’s say the monk is quite calm, so he gets to ask the teacher a question rather then being told to go back to the zendo and shut up, this monk is very calm he can ask that question as an insight. He is asking him about insight instruction, teacher gives it to him. ‘How do you practice thinking of suchness, of emptiness, of the thoroughly established character? How do you think, how do you use your discursive thought to think about ‘Not-thinking’, like you are doing teacher?’ ‘Non-thinking.’ So the first instruction here is you start with ‘Non-thinking.’ You think about ‘Non-thinking’.
So in this presentation by Dogen I would say that there are three stages of meditation here. Only two are explicitly pointed to. First stage is ‘Non-thinking’ or using discursive thought to think about ‘Non-thinking’. Next stage is I would suggest is to use discursive though, to think about ‘thinking’. Next stage will be to use discursive thought to think about ‘Not-thinking’. Three stages, I will put that in parallel to ‘think about the other-dependent character, think about the imputational character and think about the thoroughly established character’. So in this instruction by Dogen and also in this Sutra, the wisdom work starts with thinking about dependent co-arising. With thinking about the other-dependent character of whatever. In this case: yeah; whatever.
‘Non-thinking’ could also be translated as beyond thinking. ‘Think beyond thinking’ or think about how all phenomena are beyond thinking. Everything is basic character or basic nature is that it is a dependent co-arising. Everything that exists is a casual entity, a dependent co-arising. So you start wisdom work by thinking of that teaching and contemplating how whatever you are experiencing, whatever seems to be happening; first of all in your calm state, listen to the teaching “this is a dependent co-arising’ which means: this other dependent character is beyond my thinking about it. Because my thinking about it is to think about it in terms of images, which make it seem like it is not other dependent.
So, at the beginning of wisdom work, somehow you like: ’Ok, you are ready to start wisdom work?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Would you be willing to sign this waver or this agreement or this affidavit which says, that you understand the way you see things and the way you think about things does not actually characterize their basic nature?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you understand that all your experiences are basically beyond the way you think about them?’ ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘Ok, now think about that. Every time you see something remember, what is here actually is not just what I think it is. And what I think it is is based on something that is not what I think it is. It is based on something which is not how it appears to me. And what is it based on? It is based on some kind of other dependent phenomena, which I do not know directly, but I only know it through my thinking about it. And being an other-dependent character, that means, whatever I am looking at, even so it looks kind of permanent, and looks kind of stable; and I bought this thing, because it was supposed to be reliable. Actually, I am listening to a teaching which the implication of which is: whatever this is, no matter what it is, it is unstable, impermanent and not worthy of confidence. So the first part of wisdom work actually strengthens the basic practice of ethical discipline. But now, by meditating on this teaching, you will naturally be, you will naturally be virtuous. You no longer, as this teachings sinks in, need to keep reminding yourself of the precepts. As the teachings sinks in, you will actually naturally, naturally not try to be possessive and not try to get things to be the way you want them to be. Because you don’t try to get impermanent things to be some way, because you know, it doesn’t make sense. So that is the basic insight practice, which is taught by Dogen, when he says ‘Think of ‘Non-thinking’” and it is taught in the Sutra, when the Buddha says: “I start by teaching a lack of own-being in terms of self-production, I start by teaching the basic teaching in wisdom” which is: whatever you are experiencing, even so it looks like it keeping itself going, it does not produce itself. Even so we think we keep ourselves and we are surviving; we are built to keep this going, we think that is possible. This teaching says; ‘You do not keep yourself going. There is one thing that doesn’t keep you going, and that is YOU’. That is what the teaching says, and other people don’t keep themselves going, so what they are: don’t blame them. And also what they are, it is not really, it is not, you know: it is wonderful that people are the way people are, but the way they are is not because they made themselves that wonderful way. They are that way, because the universe made them that way. So, they are wonderful, that is true, but they didn’t make themselves. So if they are wonderful in the form you find obnoxious, don’t blame that person. And if they are wonderful in the way that you find wonderful, don’t blame that person. And you, too.
This list, the enchantment of our thinking starts to lift, by letting this teaching sink in, by practicing Non-thinking. And then the Buddha says, after he teaches this dependent co-arising/lack of own being in terms of self-production, he says all this wonderful stuff that will happen, which again, I am not going to tell you about that, because I don’t want you to get all worked up about all these wonderful things that you will attain if you practice this way. But anyway, he does tell you about this really tremendous positive evolution of the practitioner as they let this teaching of this dependent co-arising sink in, as they practice Non-thinking. They will practice virtue and give up non-virtue. They came into this practice, trying to practice trying to practice virtue, but now by their understanding, they will naturally practice virtue and they will become liberated from affliction. The actual percentage of liberation has not been specifically determined by the text, but it is tremendous liberation, much happier life, when you are practicing Non-thinking, when you are meditating on dependent co-arising with continuous mental attention; based on tranquility. So tranquility is a very happy state and now you are going to even deepen it, because you are not only be tranquil; you are going to be more and more virtuous. Of course - practically speaking - if you think of this teaching just once in a while, its not going to sink in as fast. However, if you are tranquil it will be easier for you to think of this teaching a lot, because just as you -, if you are able to continuously attend to giving up discursive thought, then once you are calm, you are going to be able to be continuously attend to the lack of own being in terms of self-production, to the dependent co-arising of phenomena. But again, if we don’t do it continuously it sinks in more slowly. If we do it continuously, the transformation is more unhindered. So then Buddha says all this wonderful transformation occurs, but then he says: “But there are not completely liberated. In order that they will be completely liberated I teach them the next two topics of meditation, the next two kinds of own-being. So we have to go on from meditating on dependent co-arising/the other dependent character to meditate on the imputational character and the thoroughly established character. Which in the Zen version, we go on from Non-thinking, but not – when I say go on, I don’t mean you stop Non-thinking, you continue to practice Non-thinking. And then based on the practice of Non-thinking, you now add in another layer of wisdom meditation. So you have tranquility, now we take on the wisdom meditation. We are living in an impermanent unreliable world that is our – that is where we live. We are living in a dynamic, dependently co-arising universe, this is our home, and therefore, virtue is the name of the game. And now take on another kind of wisdom meditation, based on the tranquility of the first wisdom meditation. So first is ‘Non-thinking’ then comes ‘thinking’. In other words, now we are gonna think, excuse me: first is ‘thinking about Non-thinking’, now we are going ‘think of thinking’; we are going study ‘thinking’. Or we first we start by meditating on the other dependent character and now we are going meditate on the imputational character. And that is where the study of signs starts. Were the actual analyses of signs starts. So people are coming and talk to me in Dokusan about how they are practice with signs and I am talking to you about it, and I am happy to talk about it; but I also give you this caveat, this warning, that I do not recommend to start to do this vipashyana practice, which is mentally attending or continuous mental attention to signs. I do no recommend you do that until you have a basis in tranquility and meditation on the other dependent character. Just like when the monk asked Yaoshan “How do you think of Not-thinking? How do you think of the thoroughly established character? How do you meditate on emptiness? Yaoshan didn’t say “Let’s meditate on emptiness. Just look at emptiness.” The Heart Sutra says ‘look at emptiness’. - But it doesn’t really say it, I don’t know what Avalokiteshvara would have said, but anyway, it sounds like he was saying “Ok, you can directly look at it.” And he didn’t really say he also didn’t’ say: “Study thinking” He said: “Study Non-thinking”. So again, I suggest you start by immersing yourself in tranquility and then immerse yourself in the teaching of dependent co-arising, and then start studying signs. Then start studying ‘thinking’. Then based on studying ‘thinking’ you can study “Not-thinking’, you can ‘think of Not-thinking’. Based on studying the thoroughly established character, excuse me, based on studying the other dependent character and the imputational character, then you are ready to study the thoroughly established or to investigate the thoroughly established.
So, applying it to, for example, if one were calm and ready to do it right in the Zendo and use your sitting posture as something that you are studying, you start by this sitting posture, this breathing body, sitting in this posture, this thinking, breathing body is a dependent co-arising and listen to that teaching until you develop a more and more unenchanted wholesome attitude towards the body. Where you really feel like this is a drifting wreckage. And you are not trying to fix it, because that is its nature. And you are approaching this awareness with a calm, joyful body and mind. You can try to take care of it, you know; be kind to it, be devoted to it. But you are not going think that - that zafu there and that particular support cushion is going to make it all ok. And then you start to look at the signs and I feel that - that I am going to skip over that point right now.
But anyway, I mean, skip over going into detail at that point. So I am just going to say, that you are then start looking at the signs. The signs of the body, the form of the body, the image of the body. The way your mind is interpreting the other dependent character, which actually presents immediate experience, which is not known to you. What is known to you about your body sitting there is your interpretation of the immediacy of your body. Your body is actually immediately moment by moment arising and experiencing the immediacy of its being. The immediacy of its other dependent nature and then it is gone. Then another opportunity arises. It is happening. The sense organs are functioning interdependently with mind. However, at this level nothing is identified. In this immediate experience in each moment, things aren’t identified. In terms of location, like I am sitting next to that person or that person, or I am here or not there. There is no identification. But, ‘there is immediate physical experience’ and ‘this is a physical experience’; that is a thought. It is thought that has a physical quality. Immediate experience, which is a thought that has a physical quality. It is an experience, it is a conscious experience, it is a conscious bodily experience, and it is immediate. And it doesn’t make itself happen. It is a dependent co-arising. But you can’t identify it in its immediacy. You sit and actually be aware of the immediacy that you do not have the ability to identify, unless you interpret it as an image. And you do interpret it as an image, and that is how you know it. So what you know about your body is your interpretation of the immediate; that is going on. And being aware of this process is starting to study the signs. So the signs you are aware of is the mental sign, is the mental image, is the conceptual image based on the immediate physical body. A body which is joined to a mind. A mind which knows a body, but not in an identifiable way of knowing. It is a feeling. It is a thought that is a feeling, it is a feeling, but it is an unidentified feeling. If we interpret this feeling as referring to an object, then the feeling has meaning, but it is not the original immediate feeling, it is a conceptual image of the feeling. This is a little example, if I could say a little snippet of the process of studying signs. But it has to be based on the other two meditations, tranquility, and the first basic level, an ongoing level of insight. And then the next step is to meditate on how it is, that this image is actually absent in the immediacy. Or the other way around, if we have the image we loose the immediacy. The image is not in the immediacy. The way the immediacy really is, is that it is not touched by our images of it. But it is also influenced, also not touched by our images; it is influenced by our confusion of our images with it. So that once we interpret the immediate as being this image, that interpretation then becomes physical.
The interpretation separates us from the immediacy, but once we have this interpretation and this knowing, this meaningful experience, which separates us from the immediacy, that immediate – that interpretation then becomes another immediate experience. So our immediate experience is transformed by our indirect interpretive experience. And it is transformed in a different way, if we are aware of what we are doing, then if we are not. So the interpretation can be more or less conscious, and that interpretation transforms our physical bases, and our physical bases offers us another then immediate experience which we feel a kind of an unknown way, and we wish to identify it, because that is also part of our immediate experience, that we feel the immediate experience ‘I would like to identify this’. Also we don’t can’t really identify that what we would like to, we do. And then it becomes indirect again. Studying this process is part of studying, - is an expansion of studying signs, when the Sutra says in the beginning, studying signs is mental. – Studying vipashyana, cultivating vipashyana by itself is mental attention to signs. And then this is an expansion of that study, and then as you get more and more skillful with this and understand the other dependent – the imputational character in relationship to this, because you see that now you have a meaningful experience here, because you have an image of what is going on, so it is an ‘meaningful’ what is going on, and this image can be connected to a word, and also you can notice you can find, you can realize that you are also projecting an own-being on to what? Onto this immediate experience which you just interpreted as this image and connected to this word. And now you are learning about the imputational character, you are learning about the process of fantasy, where you are interpret and project things that aren’t there at all. And then the next step is to think of how this process is actually not going on in what you imagine it to be going on in. And that is the most profound, that is the meditation on the thoroughly established character, on suchness, on –it says in the sutra: cognition only. But I was talking to Rev. Owl, I think it is better to say ‘concept – only’ then ‘cognition-only’. ‘Concept only’ or ‘idea-only’ or ‘image-only’, rather then cognition. The nature of cognition is that it is concept only. Anyway, all these deep teachings then are available to study, based on these three levels before: tranquility, meditation on the other dependent and meditation on signs or the imputational character. So then we can understand that actually this imputational character is actually absent in what is going on. It is absent in the immediacy of our life. It doesn’t, it really doesn’t characterize what is happening, except to the extent that it characterizes how imaging goes. But the actual projection of the essence is totally absent. This realization is similar to what we call removing signs. Removing signs means removing the image by which you interpret. You are then having immediate experiences with no way to make them meaningful. So that is part of the process that is talked about. So one way to talk about it is we are ‘removing signs’, another way to talk about it is you are ‘meditating on suchness’. Before you can remove signs and meditate on suchness or before you can meditate on suchness and remove signs, you have to understand signs to know where to apply the meditation on suchness. And that is learning to think of not-thinking. So you see it requires all of this. But again, although I can talk to you and we can listen to these teachings about studying the imputational character and the thoroughly established character, remember always we have to be always meditating on the basic teaching of dependent co-arising. This promotes virtue, which keeps the virtue practice going right in the middle of the wisdom practice, without even attending to thinking about the precepts. Just the wisdom practice at this level maintains the virtue practice. So you don’t have to turn away from your wisdom practice to go back to ethical discipline. It will be cared for in this meditation called ‘non-thinking’. Before you meditate on non-thinking you have to think of this ethical discipline.
And one more big thing; this is an example to meditating on what you call objects. So the Sutra talks about objects and it talks about meditating on teachings. Or meditating on – sometimes it says meditating on ‘objects and teaching’, and sometimes it says meditating on ‘meanings and teachings’. The Chinese translated a certain character, translated a certain term as ‘meaning’ and the Tibetans translated as ‘object’. And that word is ‘artha’ in Sanskrit. ‘Artha’ means both an object and it means a meaning or truth. So the Chinese translation we have translated that artha as ‘meaning’, if you look at the Tibetan translation you find object. So what you are moving the signs on, what you are meditating on is these ‘arthas’, which are objects or meanings and dharmas or teachings. So you are meditating on all kinds of objects and teachings. So we are going to remove those signs of all these ordinary objects of experiences, but we’re also going to remove the signs of the teachings. And the signs again are these images we put on things so they can have substance, so we can talk about them. And we need to do that, to talk about teachings, we need to project, we need to imagine these signs and put them on the teachings so we can talk about them. So we need to remove the substance from the teaching and we need to remove the substance from all objects. So just as an example of this, which is kind of over our head, but I just thought I conclude with this anyway. There is a chapter in the Shobogenzo where Dogen brings up this teaching ‘Three worlds are just one mind. Outside mind there is no separate dharmas, no separate things. Mind, Buddhas and sentient beings, these three without distinction.’ And then he cites a story, where student and teacher are having a conversation about this. In this case the teacher is named Xuansha, Chinese Zen master named Xuansha and the student is a Chinese Zen master named, the name we usually call him by is Dizang. There are a number of cases of Dizang in the Book of Serenity. Dizang means Jizo. So he is named after this Bodhisattva behind me because his temple was called, it was the temple of Jizo, the temple of Dizang. So his nickname kind of was Dizang. So these two Zen masters are talking, student and teacher. And the teacher says to the student ‘How do you understand this teaching? How do you understand…? (Turning the tape- the transcriber). And Dizang says, points to a chair and says – I am looking for a chair to point to and all I can see was this platform, but then I realized, these people are sitting on the chairs. You are blocking my view of the chair, get up. He pointed to chair; yeah right we got some chairs here. People hiding the chairs from me, I knew we had some chairs. He pointed to a chair and he said “I call this a chair.” The teacher says to Dizang “How do you understand: three world’s only one mind?” Dizang points to the chair and says ‘I call this a chair.’ – Oh, sorry, I got it wrong. He points to the chair and he says “What does the master call this thing?” That is right. The master says to the student, Xuansha says to Dizang, “How do you understand, ‘three worlds just one mind’” And Dizang points to the chair and says “What does the master call this thing?” And then the master says: “A chair” That part is easy, huh? And then Dizang says “The master does not understand ‘Three worlds mind only’” And Xuansha says, “I call this thing made out of bamboo and wood, how about you?” And Dizang says, “I also call this made of bamboo and wood” and Xuansha says “I searched the whole world for someone who understands the Buddha dharma, but it is impossible to find one.” So what is this story about? I don’t know. It could be a story of two calm people contemplating this teaching at the level of dependent co-arising. And this is the conversation they have. It could be two calm people contemplating this teaching at the level of studying thinking. Studying mental attention to signs and this is what comes. It could be two calm people discussing this teaching at the level of suchness. It could be two not calm people talking about this teaching of the level of the other dependent character and so on.
Does this make sense that this conversation could be happening at various levels of meditation. Again if it is the highest level or the deepest level, it is based on the previous three levels. They are all there, at the highest level they are all there. At the beginning level there is just tranquility, just giving up discursive thought. But probably, excuse me at the training, at the first level of training; they are just giving up discursive thought. But they could be calm. But once they are calm and they start talking they are starting their wisdom work, unless I would they, unless their conversation disturbs their calm But maybe we could just for now in terms of exploring and investigating this story, because this story is a story, about people meditating on a teaching. Now we are meditating on a story, which is a teaching about people meditating on a teaching. Does this make sense? So we are also now exercising our discursive thought to look at this story about people who are using their discursive thought to examine their understanding of this big teaching. And I have a - what do you call it, the destiny of having some very interesting things written down here, but feeling like it is too much and the practice period is going to end pretty soon and you know, that is where it goes. I am really kind of like having to adjust to this, but there is not, you know, there is just, it is out of scale to go into this what I have here. But what I can say is that, what we have before since the possibility of basically this: that this story about these monks investigating this teaching, or forget the story and make a new story called you and perhaps me, investigate this teaching. That we make a story of you and I, investigating this teaching. Or you and I investigating your body. And then the question is, are we calm and are we meditating on dependent co-arising and are we meditating on – is that as fare as we are going? Or are we calm and are meditating on dependent co-arising and using discursive thought in this calm state to talk about dependent co-arising of our body or this teaching or this story. Or are we move on now to look at the signs of the way we interpret this body or this story or what are we doing here? So rather then going through all those things I was going to say, I just offer you this way to make a current version of that in the time we have left in this life. And so rather then go through this story to show you how they did it, which would be interesting, and I thought it was going to be really interesting, fascinating and all of that. But I think there is not time and it better to like see if you have any questions about how to practice it in your own life, if you want to. Yes.
Student: You said you are talking about immediacy here being a feeling and the image –
TR: No it is not a feeling or an image – immediacy is a thought that is a feeling.
Student: I think what I heard you say, it is an image that we don’t interpret, or can’t interpret.
TR: Maybe I misspoke then, it is not yet an image. At the level of existence where we have immediate experiences, the mind which is engaged in this immediacy, in this teaching here is called Alaya. The mind which connects to the body in which immediate things are arising, it has all the seeds for images. But none of those images are identified. So in that sense it could be a seed of an image for this feeling. But there is feeling in this realm of immediacy and this feeling is a mental thing, it is a thought.
Student (not audible)
TR: It is not connected yet, no. It is not connected to Manas and Manovijnana. At the level of immediacy we just have Alaya, the transformation of consciousness; the transformation of mind called Alaya is the immediate part. And Alaya has a physical quality; it is connected to the body. So at that level, our thought is feeling, there is feeling there. And there is samnja, too, but samnja is not operating fully, it is not activated. All the possible images are there, but the images are not being identified with the impact, the immediate impact. In order for to move to the next level, - but that is a sign.
Student (not audible)
TR: Removed? She says at that level can you remove signs? And the answer is, yes. I might just ask how the signs get remove at that level of immediacy. Anybody want to say? Yes.
Student {not audible}
TR: Yes, that is true, too, but at the level where they are, how do you going to remove them? What?
Students (not audible)
TR: That is part of it. Basically, once you interpret the sign, which then now Manas and Manovijnana, the defiled thinking mind and the regular thinking mind are activated, then these images can be interpreted, and these interpretations we use/Alaya use as seeds for their interpretation. Once that occurs, what usually happens in that interpretation of the immediate signs as an interpreted image sign, what usually happens is a consequence of that, more seeds are laid down, for more signs. But if in the process of identifying of interpreting this immediacy, there is understanding that this interpretation is actually totally made up. Although what this interpretation is, does not exist here. If there is that understanding that understanding transforms the seeds in Alaya.
Student: The new seeds or the old seeds?
TR: Well, the old seeds go, but then you have new seeds arising, but now there is a new seed with the other new seeds, which are connected to the old seeds. Now this seed is connected to the insight of the emptiness of this process of interpretation. So that is how the basis consciousness where the physical immediacy of the signs is, that gets transformed, too. We can remove signs at the interpretive level by seeing through them and seeing meditating on how they don’t have the nature of how they appear. They don’t really exist. That understanding transforms the basis consciousness. Or rather that new interpretation becomes a new sign. Now it becomes signs which are not signs anymore. So in that sense they are removed at the immediate level and at the interpretive level.
Student: At the same time?
TR: The interpretive level is removed right in the midst of interpretation; the immediate level is removed in the next moment. It is removed later as a consequence; as a consequence of insight your immediate experience is transformed. As a consequence of delusion, your immediate experience is transformed, too, into more seeds for more delusions and more tendencies to interpret things as being substantial entities. But I kind of want to see, that the main thing is, do you understand now, how to practice this? Rather then- and you can try to clarify things, but do you understand when you are clarifying, what level of practice, what way of you are practicing as you do what you are about to do whatever it is. Give a try at that. Basically what I was going to say is, the basic thing is given all of this what happened during these three weeks and also the previous numbers of moments prior to the three weeks that you have existed and what you have been practicing during that time, given all your practice for this life and innumerable lives, now at this point, given all that, try to express something, and then that is basically how to precede in this study. Try to express something about your understanding, where you are at in all this ocean of Dharma. How are you going to proceed in this practice is the main thing now to go forward with. And that will happen, right. But are you there to express something about this teaching or whatever teaching, doesn’t have to be this teaching, whatever teaching or whatever experience, try to express something for yourself that is basically the upshot of all of this study. Ok?
So now if you have questions, please have it be like that, that you are now expressing yourself.
Student: When I am sitting and trying to drop the train of thought. And what I am doing to dropping the signs and I got an idea, something comes up in my mind, instead of holding I let it go, -
TR: Start from the beginning of what you said.
Student: I am sitting: a thought comes up and I drop it, I don’t pursue it, is that dropping the signs?
TR: No, that is practicing, that is training in tranquility. That is part of our practices to train in tranquility, just keep dropping these thoughts. Don’t get involved in them. And if you can have continuous mental attention to the dropping of these thoughts, this will develop tranquility. Then based on that you can move on then to start using your thoughts again. So, when they arise, the thought arises, is this a thought, which you can either use, that thought is this a thought which wishes to look at the teachings, and is it a thought that arises ‘I want to look at some teachings now’ Or if it is not a thought that wants to look at a teaching, it is just thought like ‘its Monday’. Then when that thought arises, if you are going to drop it, let go of it or let go with getting with it that would be training in tranquility. Training in insight would be “I think I apply some teachings to this thought, that it is Monday. And the first teaching that I am going to apply to this thought is that this thought is a dependent co-arising. This thought has been brought to me by the very process with Buddha was mainly concentrating on.” That would be an example of setting the stage for meditating on signs. Still not meditating on signs. You are meditating on the other dependent character, namely that whatever arises, before whatever arose you gave up getting involved with. In tranquility practice, something arises and that’s it. Something arises and that’s it. Something you hear and that is it. Something you see, and that is it. You don’t get into any discursive activity around it, you don’t buzz around it and you don’t take chains of buzzing all over the place with it. You give up that. But now, when you are calm and something arises you can sort of say “I think I am going to think about this”. You already did. “I am going to practice insight with this. I am going to apply a teaching to this. And the first teaching that Reb says is apply the teaching that what is arisen is a dependent co-arising. That this thing did not make itself happen, this thing did not make itself happen, and this thing did not make itself happen. Now it looks solid, but it did not make itself happen. It looks like it made itself happen, but it didn’t. That is another little conversation I can have with myself, which is related to the first kind of meditation on the other dependent. That the other dependent character, I just read in this Sutra, the other dependent character is known by misconstruing it as my images of it. So I have images of this thing called Monday, but those images are just the way I know this thing called Monday now, but I also now remembering the teaching, this actually is beyond my thinking about it. So I am thinking of Monday, but I listen to the teaching, that Monday is beyond my thinking of Monday. This kind of conversation can occur in tranquility and if it occurs in tranquility without disturbing the tranquility, it is probably insight discursive thought. If other kinds of discursive thought, or if even that discursive thought happens in tranquility and it disturbs the tranquility, probably there are some other kind of corrupting elements coming into the analysis. Like you try to get something out of it or something. Rather then, “I am just joyfully the skillful activity, the wholesome activity of investigating the appearance of the phenomena called Monday, the thought of Monday’. Or ‘I have pain in my knee.’ Stopping there and giving up any discursive thought is kind of training for tranquility. Now if I am tranquil, pain in knee arises, I say “it is a dependent co-arising”. And the dependent co-arising nature of this pain in my knee is beyond, is the bases of and beyond my image of the pain. So I have an image of the pain, by which I am grasping it, but also I am remembering the teaching that this actual pain has a nature which is beyond my thinking about it. And if I can talk to myself that way, and continue to be calm, then I continue to be able to do this and continue to be calm, then I am doing insight work, in this particular way. And the more I do that, the more this teaching of dependent co-arising sinks in to me. And I am transformed by the teaching sinking into me. And it sinks into me, when I am calm and using my discursive thought to bring the teaching into my mind and let it live in my mind and take over my mind. So I gradually become taken over by Dharma and transformed by the takeover. Once this is well done and you feel like you can continue this level, then you can add on the next level of studying the signs, which is now and I mentioned a little bit about that before, now when this is well cooked, this level, then now you can add on to this, another ball. You are throwing the Samatha ball up and down, now you are throwing the Samatha and the discursive thought – You throw the Samatha ball up and down, now you attained Samatha, now you give up the Samatha training and now you start using the discursive thought again thinking of dependent co-arising, and you are flipping back and forth. Can I think of dependent co-arising and Samatha and doing both at the same time? Or do I loose the Samatha when I think of dependent co-arising? If you lost the Samatha, put the dependent co-arising and get the Samatha back. Ok got the Samatha back to dependent co-arising. And throw them back and forth, yet. Ok, got those two. Now, can I add in looking at the signs, which I have been seeing all along, but I haven’t been analyzing them. I just have been bringing, using my discursive thought to apply the teaching to the dependent co-arising to these images. Now that that is well established, I can now start looking at the signs of these things and understand these teachings we have been talking about before that, this signs is an interpretation of the direct experience. There you have all these teachings to help you, chapter five, chapter six and chapter seven, to help you understand and analyze and investigate the relationship between the image of your knee, the image of the pain, the image of Monday and the direct experience of Monday. The actual causal condition that impacts you to make you feel like it is Monday. All the causes and conditions, you know, the Ino posting those things on the board saying, now the practice period is going to – one more day of Sesshin – all that kind of stuff that gives rise to actual something happens to you that makes it to be Monday. Various conditions for it and then there is an image of all that, which is indirect and identifiable. So you meditate on all that and the more you study that the more you get ready to see, well actually there is also this imputation of essence in this whole process here, So now you start to be able to see, “Ok got these signs, which are interpreted, which are based on uninterpreted in connection with words, and then there is this projection of self in there, and I see the image, there it is, there is this image of essence, I can see it. And if I take it away, it breaks down; if I put it back it works. You start to see all that. You go into the devils workshop, or you can say you go into Manas workshop where Manas is kind of feeding stuff to Manovijnana and they are bouncing of a lot, you get in there. But you can also call it the Magicians workshop, you get in there and you study this. You illuminate the process of delusion. And the more you get to see it; you can say “Actually it is just an illusion that actually is not there. That essence part. And when you see it is not there, then everything looks different. And then even when it appears again, you won’t belief it, you say it is not true, it is an illusion, I am not going to fall for it. So that is the - in actual conversation with each other about this I am telling you the course how it is described in chapter eight and the teachings that feed into chapter eight in this Sutra, but we have to be careful that basically it is a good criterion that do not precede into these insight works, unless you are calm and buoyant and all that. And if that deteriorates, it is a signs that perhaps the insight work is not being done quiet probably and it is good to put it aside for now calm down again. And try it again in such a way, that it doesn’t disturb your calm. It changes your calm a little bit; it makes it a little bit more lively. But I also have noticed, that many people who actually have trouble practicing giving up discursive thought, certain types of discursive thought, if they do, they are actually are more successful in giving up discursive thought. So some people insight work calms them down more then literal tranquility work. When you actually are tranquil if you are doing insight work really well, it deepens your tranquility. And if there is some gaining idea threaded in with your insight work it’s going to disturb your tranquility. So that is not the proper way of being doing tranquility anyway. Same with tranquility work, if there is gaining idea mixed in with your trying to give up discursive thought it undermines the giving it up. Ok?
Student1: Yes, thank you.
Student2: Clearly laid out the separate stages for this shamatha practice.
TR: They are separate in a sense, but they depend on each other.
Student: One doesn’t start to look at the immediate (uninstigated – unclear word) sign without – the removal of the sign – there is a lot of ways to talk about the further stage until this Samatha practice.(everything wasn’t quit understandable – the transcriber)
TR: That is what is recommended. Do not try to look at the thoroughly established character without being well grounded in the conventional. Otherwise-
Student: Can you talk about starting the shamatha practice which will bring up the thoroughly established character? It is talked about. (Again – the transcriber)
TR: If looking at the thoroughly established character, if you look at it in a way that basically helps you give up discursive thought; I guess it is all right. But then you are not really studying – what Nagarjuna says is that the thoroughly established character the ultimate should not be taught until one is well grounded. But to just look at the image of emptiness as a way to help you give up discursive thought, that is not the teaching of emptiness, that is just an image of emptiness, maybe that is ok, perhaps. If you hear the word emptiness and that helps you let go of discursive thought that is ok. The Buddha is not teaching you emptiness at that time. He is just saying emptiness and you go like, woof and discursive thought drops away. And Buddha says emptiness and discursive thought drops away. So if that word or that image emptiness, the word-image combination either side of that combination and even the essence of emptiness, which is in there, if that helps you give up discursive thought, that is fine. But you don’t really like studying emptiness. You are not meditating on emptiness. You are using emptiness as a device to give up discursive thought. There are other strange things, that you are not really study, which help you give up discursive thought. Like, I can’t remember, but I saw this movie one time called ‘Bull Durham’ and this guy was teaching, training this pitcher. And he had this pitcher – he a male pitcher a male homo sapien, and he wears a bra, while he was pitching under his baseball outfit. It helped him give up discursive thought. We also say sometimes, put your mind in your hara. There are various kinds of instructions, if you let these instructions in they help you like let go of your discursive thought. So emptiness could be – the word emptiness could help us. Or void.
Student: I guess the question comes from, it seems like a lot of outside like additional activity thoughts and processes and activities that one needs to do, that transform the seeds or transform the bases, there is a lot of this teaching that says that is, that always has been and that always will be the fundamental truth of your life and all you need to do is just open. And that all this activity takes away from it.
TR: You can just open to it if you want to, but then after you open to it, you should be able to talk to people. So then somebody comes up to you and you are open to it. You got two people, one of them is open to it and the other one is open to it, you go to one person and you ask what kind of thinking is going on there and he gives this response and the other person you go up to and they don’t know what to do with that. Which is similar to, when I was talking with Owl the other day is in a way when you are doing shamatha you are actually does open to the way things are, because you are not distracting yourself with discursive thought. But you do not know what it is, but you are open to it. Ok. You are actually open. We are actually open to the truth all day long. The immediacy of what is happening is going on. We are intimately related all day long. And opening to that is definitely ok, and that is part of shamatha practice. But there is another part of the Bodhisattva practice and that is being able to like, when somebody comes up to you when you are open to the way things really are, and asks you what kind of thinking you are doing, you can respond then in a way, that people talk about sixteen hundred years. And then they’ll stop. This openness to the way things are fine, and then how about some analysis. You don’t have to do the analysis to open to it. But if you can’t do the analysis then it is going to be hard for you to expound these teachings. Unless you would open to this and apply that what you are open to, to all these teachings. In other words, take the open to signlessness and then take that openness to signlessness and put it on top of all the stuff that has signs. Because your mind is still generating these signs, even though you have open to a place where there is no interpretation going on. To open to that is fine, but now that you are open to it, please expound the ocean of Dharma. And that is fine.
There are stories of Zen students who basically have finished their basic training and they are basically Zen masters, you know, the teacher is perfectly happy with them, they are done, and now go to school. And the student says, what for, didn’t you finish, aren’t I am done? Teacher says; yeah, now take this finished product and take it to school, so he can like learn all these teachings and apply your realized state to these traditional teachings, so you can help people. Yes.
Student: (Don’t want to write this half understandable expression down – the transcriber.)
TR: Well to know whether you are doing it or not is getting kind of discursive if you are doing it consistently, you will attain a state where you won’t be controlling. Another approach to shamatha practice is just relax or as Oscar was saying, just open. Just open to what is happening without trying to do anything with it. And then you might say, how do I know if I am just opening what is happening without trying to do anything with it in a controlling way or not. Because you can make that into, control myself into not doing anything, control myself into being open. Yeah you might do that, it is possible. And are you relaxed about that? Yeah, but maybe I am trying to control myself into being relaxed? That sounds a little tense. But maybe that is relaxed, and you say: Yeah I think that is relaxed. And maybe you are right. And if you are right and you consistently do that you will be quite sure that you will be relaxed at a certain point. I mean, you will be definitely like relaxed. And you will feel like, what do you call it, taken over by relaxation and energy at the same time. But being to concerned with making sure, that I am not trying to control is not really, that doesn’t sound like giving up trying to control. Like “I am willing to give up trying to control what is happening, I am willing to control what is happening, I am willing to relax with what is happening, I am willing to drop what is happening and I am even willing to drop my monitoring and calculating of how I am doing in this practice. I am willing to give up the constant discursive checking on how I am doing giving up constant discursive checking. I am giving up calculating in how I am doing letting go of calculating. Yes:
Student: This is also related to tranquility practice. The thoughts are objects, and chains of thoughts are objects.
TR: Thoughts are objects and chains of thoughts are objects.
Student: And sense experience are objects, so when I somewhat let go of thoughts of objects and lets say am more experiencing the sense objects. When I am somewhat able to drop discursive thoughts then there are the sense hearing seeing or body sensations to me that feels very intimate, that feels more present, but it still is being involved in images and objects. But it still seems like it is in the right direction.
TR: What is in the right direction?
Student: Feeling the sense object as opposed to the thought object.
TR: No, that is not the right direction that is discursive thought to choose which object you are going to look at. But if you feel more comfortable with images of sense, then you do with images of mind objects, then that feeling of more comfortableness is a mind object, which you then could not be discursive about; just stop there. But it is – the images of sense objects is for some people to give up discursive thought about, then the images of certain mind objects. Like they see the images of blue, it is easier for them to give up the discursive thought about the blue, than when they see like hate or judgment. But the image of judgment and the image of blue, both of them are things to just let them be like that without discursive thought. And to just like start saying to try to learn non-discursiveness with images of colors and sounds then it is to learn non-discursive thought with images of mental phenomena, I think that is not conducive to tranquility. But to notice that opinion is another images and not get discursive about that, that is conducive to it. To follow that idea, is getting discursive with the idea that different types of objects are better. But there is lots of levels of grossness and some people feel like, you know, I’m just going to get discursive about those things, so I am not going to think about them. Ok fine. And these things I am not getting discursive about, so this is why some people like to think about the breath, because they don’t get so exited about the breath as they do about some other images. So if they want to get exited, so think about certain images. But that is not tranquility practice, tranquility practice is not to go look around for what images are going to make you most discursive, that is more like how do you make yourself wake up to practice in terms of getting jazzed up, right?
Student: so could you repeat again in the case you just described to get less discursive at certain objects, and then? But yet, having that opinion is discursive. (…) Having that opinion is more discursive?
TR: No, having that opinion is just another mind object; it is just an image it is just another concept that sense objects are easier to give up to, then mind objects. That is just another mind object, that that is easier for you and that is hard to not get discursive about, that one. Because I am about to make a big complicated plan about how to avoid those things and how to implement this opinion. So I am proving that this is really like difficult for me and I would say, you proved it to me, you are getting discursive about that, it is discursive thought and you are right you are being discursive. And Samatha would be to give up getting involved in the idea that these kinds of things are easier, then those kinds of things. But the idea that this is easier then that, that idea that concept that image “these are easier then those” that concept in tranquility practice you are giving up being involved in that concept. You are just going: Hmmm. Like someone else is coming up to you and says “Now I have an easier time giving up discursive thought with those things and those things’ and you go: Hmmmm and that is it. That calms this person down. But if I say, ‘Ohh now that is not true and you shouldn’t do that, and then when I get involved in that, then I am anti-Samatha training. But again, if people get super involved about something and they find a way to calm down with, that sounds like different from giving up ordinary discursive thought, it is possible that certain kinds of discursive thought with some people who are extremely upset, certain kind of discursive thought will calm them down, as I said before. But basically we try to give up all discursive thought, rather then use discursive thought as a way to calm down. It is more giving up discursive thought that is going to really calm you. But again, some people are so upset, that discursive thought calms them down. Like for example, just the idea that I could decide which things I am going to look at because some easier to give up discursive thought with then others. That might calm me down. Ok fine. Now when that is settled we can go deeper later maybe.
If your mind gets activated around a color it maybe easier to see then when it gets activated around a judgment, that may be so more subtle in the second case. But some people get more activated around colors then I do around ideas. Like I told you the other day, some people see yellow and they just totally freak. They really get worked up and I just of like “Gezz, it is amazing that you can have all those feelings about that color. But I saw that yellow and that one next to it and to me they are both yellow and yes. Where as that person if they hear about, - but maybe I said that wrong, maybe I get more discursive around mind objects and they would look at the mind objects and say ‘so what’ you know. We have our predispositions. Some areas are more challenging to not get discursive about then those areas. But it isn’t shamatha to like then get discursive about what challenges you are going to be dealing with. But if you want it, put your foot down-

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