I thought I might start with some appetizers. One is somebody mentioned to me that there's a rumor going around that the people who are close to the teacher don't talk in class. And that this person, because of hearing that, doesn't speak in class because then, you know, that would kind of be a alienating process, right? But the thing about the people close to the teacher not talking, although it may be true,

[01:05]

It's kind of a disease. OK? So although that may be true, you shouldn't copy that in order to get close to the teacher. Are you using close, meaning they're sitting near you? No. No, close relationship. Senior students. Senior close students, they don't talk in class. And then I thought of, you know, it's kind of like, Suzuki Roshi gave Zaza an instruction and he said, he said, hold your fingers, you meet these two thumbs here, into the mudra, hold them just, you know, just so that they would hold a piece of paper up. What he means by that is they should touch lightly.

[02:08]

This is several pieces of paper. There's one piece of paper. Hold them together like this, just enough to hold the paper, not too much more. Like probably, if there was a good-sized hand between your fingers, it wouldn't get hurt much. What a lot of people, several people, what they understood that was is that you should have your fingers just this distance of a piece of paper apart. I thought you were supposed to be able to slide a piece of paper between the fingers. Right. This makes it a lot easier. It's very difficult to keep them just that far apart. A lot of people have gone insane because of that. I can't do this practice.

[03:13]

It's too difficult. That's a misunderstanding, actually. It's not that difficult. It's just that they're lightly touching. So then some people see, well, the senior people don't talk, so if I want to be a senior person or I want to be a close teacher, I better shut up. Although it's true that they do that, that's not good that they do that. I'm not being ironic. Although it is ironic that they do that. There's various reasons why they might do it. One reason is if they don't say anything, everybody probably thinks they understand. Right? As a matter of fact, some new people come in here and they assume, since everybody else is sitting there quietly, that everybody understands but them. So then they drop out, right? Because they think, God, this is really advanced. All the people understand they aren't saying anything. Especially the senior people don't say anything. They must really understand, because they're completely silent.

[04:14]

I don't get it at all. So I don't know exactly why they don't talk, but it's been that way for a long time, that the senior people don't talk in classes and lectures much. But it's not good. They should be asking lots of stupid questions. You know? If you look in the sutras, the senior bodhisattvas ask these really, not always, but they ask them real dumb questions, and then the other senior bodhisattvas who are being asked, or the Buddha says, kind of like, it's really nice of you to ask that question. It sounds stupid, but, you know, you're asking for the sake of other people, so you ask the questions that they need you to ask. So I really appreciate you asking that question, even though I know you know the answer. That's more colloquial than the way the Buddha talked, but in many times they do ask these questions that obviously they've given lectures on.

[05:20]

They delivered sutras on those questions themselves. So they're asking for the sake of everybody in the room. They read the minds of the people in the room. They realize that people have these questions, so they ask for them. Because, you know, In fact, in a lot of these big sutras, only the big wheels get the chance to ask questions. They're the only ones who do ask questions. So those of you who have been holding back because you thought that your progress was impeded by asking questions, it's not true. And the senior people should start asking questions, too, for the sake of the junior people. Nobody's asking any questions. It's like conspiracy. Our next thing is related. And that is... Sometimes you can meet somebody, have an interaction with somebody, maybe a teacher or something, or a friend, and you may not say much.

[06:45]

Like sometimes, like some men may ride in a car together for a long trip to the mountains, people fishing or something, not saying anything to each other. They both may be sitting in the car saying, this is really my good friend here with me in the car. And they really feel like, my friend really understands me. And he really knows me. And I know myself, too. And that's true. Your friend really does know you. And you really do know that your friend knows you. However, you don't know how your friend knows you unless you talk. So those men just start talking on those trips a little bit more. even though they don't know how. How are you feeling driving here over the road? What? And then right along with this is this person told me that in the Psalms it says,

[08:03]

Because I'm silent, you think I'm like you. Something like that. There's a lot of good stuff happening in silence. Silence is really golden and all that. It really is. And so we have quite a bit of it around here. But in the classic situation, it's good to talk. And don't assume that because other people are talking, you should not talk because they're not talking. It's OK that they're not talking, but don't think that that means you shouldn't or that it would be sort of inappropriate. kind of some problems you did. Actually, it's good. I encourage people to ask questions. And so some people do, but I would like more people to do that.

[09:13]

And I think it would be wonderful if senior people could do it more. Even, again, if they ask any kind of stupid questions or beginning questions, it's not because they really don't know. They're just doing it for your sake. Or to test you. And you've heard of beginner's mind, right? That means that you get to ask these beginner's questions. all the way to the complete end of enlightenment, you can ask beginner's questions. That's the ultimate, right? So don't worry about asking beginner's questions, like, oh, everybody knows this but me, so I'm not going to ask. That's not our way. You should really be able to ask, like, the most beginning question you ever thought of. When you first thought of Buddhism, that first question you can ask any time.

[10:15]

And maybe somebody might say, oh, what's asking that beginning question for, you know? I want to get on to some really advanced stuff, and this person's really bringing us way back down to the pits. A beginning of... That's good for that person, really. You're doing that person a big favor. Those are the hors d'oeuvres. See, she laughed. She's the only one who laughed. She thought probably it was wrong, right? So we have this case here. And this case brings up a lot of stuff. It brings up, well, it brings up sickness.

[11:19]

It brings up a particular type of sickness, not ordinary sickness, but the special kind of sickness that happens to people who practice meditation. As a matter of fact, sickness that happens to people who practice meditation fairly intensely, and actually people who practice it intensely and have considerable success. It's the sickness that happens to these people that is being addressed in this story. So what we'll be doing here is looking at what are the different kinds of success here and what are the kinds of sickness that happen in those successes. This is a fairly condensed presentation of this kind of phenomena, namely Success in meditation or success in awakening, yes.

[12:25]

How do you measure success in meditation? Well, I guess towards the most successful is when the light, according to the way he's talking, when the light freely or thoroughly circulates, that's the most successful state. What is light? Light is, you know, being awake, awakening, or enlightenment. Okay? So, in some sense, the more and more success is more and more complete circulation or homogenization of the light, of the awakening, that it becomes more and more completely reaching and pervading.

[13:41]

Reaching and pervading what? Well, yeah, reaching and pervading what? That's what it pervades. It pervades what? OK. Does that make sense to you? It also pervades various this's and that's. But all the this's and that's are contained in what? Is that all right? We talk that way? This is developing a common language. Can what mean that for you? No. No? Well, we're talking about the patient, so it pervades your thinking. It pervades your thinking? Yeah. Yeah. Not the world, which you might call that.

[14:50]

Not the world. Okay. So... that's then a limit on the circulation of the light that you're drawing. So that's fine, but that's a less thorough circulation of it than to circulate it also through the objects. So complete circulation, thorough circulation, circulates into what, which includes subject and object? But you could have this circulation which includes the realm of subject. That's also possible. There are states like that. Those aren't even mentioned. They don't even get on this chart. They're not even mentioned in this thing. All these states are states where the light is pervaded, not just subject, but subject and object.

[15:56]

All right? Yes? In the case, it talks about different kinds of sickness, two different kinds of sickness, and it also talks about two kinds of life. And I couldn't find anywhere where it explained what those two kinds were all. Okay. Oh, when we get to there, let's talk about it. Okay? Is it the same thing like you talked about? As far as I know, there's basically one kind of light talked about here, the light of being awake. So anyway, so we're talking about awakening, but also we're talking about delusion, and we're talking about, in a sense, demons.

[17:03]

And in the Surangama Sutra, the Buddha teaches how to do various kinds of meditation practices, and then when he finishes, he gets down from his seat kind of walks away, but then he kind of remembers that he forgot something, and he gets back up in the seat and says, I forgot to tell you that now I told you how to meditate and how to do all these practices, but I forgot to tell you that in the process of doing these, as they start to work for you, various demons can arise. And then he goes through and talks about basically fifty types of demons. that can happen to you in the process of meditation. But in summary, so I'll just sort of tell you the summary before we can start.

[18:11]

Maybe we'll get into some of the examples later. But in summary, most of the times after he tells you these demons that may occur to you, these kinds of things that occur to you, he says some of this stuff is kind of nice and some of this stuff is kind of horrible. Some of these things that happen to meditators as they start to become free of their experience, some of the things are kind of scary. And they say over and over again, not for all of them, but for the scary ones they say, but it's harmless. Say over and again, over and over again, it's harmless if you see it as it is.

[19:12]

In other words, if you see it as a demon or you see it as a delusion, it's harmless. It's harmless. And that's for the sort of horrible things. For the good things, after they tell you this good thing, they say, but this is still not the, they use the term saint, this is still not the adept stage. And they say, and if you see it as such, then there's no problem. But if you take it as a final attainment, then you become possessed by that particular type of demon which goes with that nice thing. So there's all these demons which go with all these insights or all these kinds of light, all these kinds of insight, all these kinds of wonderful experiences.

[20:18]

There's a demon with each one of them. And the demon is what happens to you when you grab it. when you hold onto it. So the two main things that you need to do in meditation, basically, are to be humble and to be unattached. To not say that such and such a thing is some special state. To say you like it, it's okay to say you like it. It's okay to say you hate it, or afraid of it, I guess. But to say that it's some final attainment is not very humble. Now, that's one thing. The other thing is, whether it seems lofty or wonderful, or whether it seems horrible, don't hold on to it.

[21:23]

So the two things are, be unattached and be humble. Because you could be unattached to it, right, and say, well, there's this wonderful thing and I didn't hold onto it, so. And generally speaking, if something wonderful happens to you in meditation and then you don't hold onto it, you just made it more wonderful. You elevated it. And as many people know, when they have a wonderful experience, If they grab for it or hold on to it, they lose it. I've heard this story many, many times. I had this thing and I grabbed for it and I lost it. This is flowers fall in the midst of our attachment. Right? So a lot of people have had that experience of they just, everything was fine and then they saw that everything was fine and then that was the end of everything fine.

[22:28]

And then a demon came because it punched himself in the face for grabbing onto it and losing it. Now, that's not really a bad demon, though. The bad one is to grab it and get a hold of it and not lose it. See the difference? What do you do if that happens? At that particular moment, you are just you are helping the demons. You're demon-possessed and you're a demon-helper. So I would suggest you enjoy being a demon-helper at that time. Say, hey, finally, I'm a demon-helper. I mean, yeah, I used to be just a regular Zen student, and now I'm a demon-helper. And as soon as you realize you're a demon-helper, you won't be a demon-helper anymore. You'll be back to being you know, whatever you want to call that or feel about that. You can go back to your zazen then.

[23:29]

Okay? That's sort of the basic thing about all these things. Detachment and humility. Is becoming attached to an experience unavoidable? Is it unavoidable? Yeah. Nearly. As these sicknesses show. These are very advanced states, right? I mean, yes, I'm telling you that they are. And so this kind of, the sickness happens at this very high level of subtlety of development. So imagine at lower levels where things are more grossly wonderful and more grossly horrible. it's there too difficult to not attach.

[24:35]

However, ironically, again, paradoxically, the disease is not so intense to hold on to a lesser state. It's not such a strong disease to hold on to a lesser state. In other words, to hold on to ordinary life is exactly what ordinary life is. So it's not really such a sickness. It's just a basic human situation. Like to hold on to your name, for example, or your telephone number. It's not such a big sickness. It's kind of like just ordinary functioning, isn't it? That's not Zen sickness. That kind of activity is the basis for all more severe sicknesses. In the way we're talking tonight, the funny thing is that the more acute sicknesses are the sicknesses that go with holding on to, managing to hold on to more and more subtle states.

[25:37]

So people, generally speaking, I mean, they hold on very firmly to ordinary states, but they don't know any better, so it's kind of like it's sort of normal to do so. And we really don't call that sickness. It's just ordinary functioning in the world. But as you start to become free of your attachments and things start breaking loose, then to hold on to what happens then becomes more and more kind of a sickness, a kind of a sadness, because you're You're counteracting your good works. You're undermining all the effort you've made. So it's kind of like, it's kind of more sick, it's more weird to be fighting against yourself. But if you say, well, I'd like to, my name is Colin, and that's my name, and so what? Then to go around saying your name is Colin is not that big a deal.

[26:41]

You haven't freed yourself from it yet, so the fact that you're holding on to it goes right along with that. So it is very difficult to free yourself from clinging. Clinging happens almost automatically and to everybody all the time. It's part of the path. I mean, that's what it is. I mean, a pleasant state arises and pretty much we cling to it and then That clinging, that's where we work, that's our practice. Yeah, but also not clinging is even more of our practice. Yeah. So whether you have kind of ordinary, kind of, I don't know what to say, kind of woeful, unfortunate states, or kind of fancy, wonderful, elevated states,

[27:47]

To not be detached to either is the way. So some people are more on the way with lower states than some other people are with higher states. But the kind of sicknesses we're addressing here are the sicknesses that people who have these higher states. So it's kind of like the state that they're in or the way they are, is more and more like detachment itself. I mean, the way you get to be and the way you get to experience the world starts to be like detachment itself. So rather than practicing detachment with what your experiences are, By practicing detachment with your experiences, your experience starts to become more like detachment itself. In other words, you realize that nature of your experience is non-attachment. And then the nature of your experience is humility.

[28:54]

So by the fact that your experience has become more and more humble and more and more detached, you're more likely to attach to them. Because before that, you were practicing humility and practicing detachment. Right? You were making an effort to be detached. So now when you are attached, when you are detached, you might sort of kind of say, hey man, and just sit right down in that. Does that make sense? Are you following this? become attached to detachment? You can become attached to detachment, right. You can dwell in non-attachment. And then non-attachment, which is really good stuff, becomes... The non-attachment doesn't become a sickness, but dwelling in the non-attachment becomes a sickness.

[29:58]

But at an earlier stage of development, you weren't dwelling in non-attachment, You are driving towards non-attachment. You are cultivating non-attachment. You are encouraging non-attachment. You are trying to figure out what a non-attachment would be. You're drilling at non-attachment. You're thinking about non-attachment. You're reading about non-attachment. You're discussing non-attachment. All your energy is compulsively going towards non-attachment. And as you become successful, then you've got to sort of put the brakes on your compulsion and say, Oh, wait a minute now. This looks good. So then you've got to sort of, aha, what am I going to do now? This is good. Maybe this is a demon that says it's this good. Oh, I'm in trouble now. Yes, you are. This is trouble. This is scary. This is dangerous time. Yeah.

[31:02]

Are there different levels of holding on to attachment? I mean, like remembering your name seems kind of different than some. That's not that much of a hindrance as some other attachments seem. Remembering your name, did you say, or holding on to your name? Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't seem like much of a problem. No, it doesn't, does it? I agree, it's not much of a problem. However, to walk around trying to remember your name is a problem. And some people do that, and they have a hard time, right? They walk around saying, God, I'm going to forget my name. And my telephone number, too. Oh, no.

[32:03]

Well, I don't mean to make fun of these people, but some people are that worried and that frightened that they think they'll arrive in some situation and not be able to remember their name. Now, sometimes it only happens to them when they're applying for a job or something. But the remembering your name, the mechanism by which your mind does remember your name spontaneously... that's not much of a problem, that's right. When you try to remember your name, and then sometimes you can't, like sometimes you try to remember your telephone number, somebody's telephone number, you can't, if you notice that if you just relax, the name or the number comes, right? Do you know that experience? You just got to forget about it, and it pops right up, usually. Unless you're just kind of kidding to forget about it. Do you know what I'm talking about? It seems like trying, if you do anything, then, is the cause of the attachment.

[33:10]

Trying to do something is a cause of attachment? No, attachment is the cause of trying to do things, I would say. It's the other way around. Attachment's the basic. Or trying, probably, is attachment. Trying is attachment. I think people just naturally try. I mean, like we were talking about last week, I think we just work. We're workers. We're very energetic. And then if you have attachment, your energy goes along these lines of attachment. But anyway, attachment... Remembering names and remembering how to see objects and stuff like that, all that kind of stuff is basic mechanics of a human being, and it's not so much of a problem. And if you practice meditation, even though those things aren't a problem in themselves, people are, generally speaking, enslaved by those things.

[34:26]

people generally speaking are scared to operate without that stuff. Even though the stuff isn't a problem, there is an attachment to that stuff. So although it's not a problem to remember your name, it is a problem to be afraid whether your mind is going to keep functioning that way or not. And you notice that certain kinds of attachments cause you suffering. So then you practice Buddhism, and you practice meditation, And again, as you achieve some relief from these attachments, that's when the type of instruction that this case is bringing up come into play. But again, I'll say it again, that the The way of detachment, which means detachment from higher states or achievement and also detachment from what you consider to be degrading or setbacks or whatever, that detachment is what joins you to the way, which leads to more detachment.

[35:48]

And as the detachment becomes more and more cultivated... you start to become more detached, so that your experiences also have more of a quality of detachment, until finally you start to see that the nature of the way you're experiencing is a detachment of itself, and that goes through various levels of subtlety. But then again, it's hard not to start to sink into or settle down in these attainments of detachment. I'm not sure I even understand the word correctly. Detachment? Or nihilism? Is that when detachment is a problem? Are those connected? Nihilism is basically to make nothing into a thing.

[36:52]

That's one definition of nihilism. When you take the... and you take non-existence or no thing and make it into a thing, then that causes a psychophysical effect and also a philosophical psychophysical effect in the person who does that, which we call nihilism, which is, generally speaking, seems to cause them to be disturbed and it seems to undermine ethical conduct, and just seems to be kind of an unhealthy state. Is it one of the dangers of... Is it one of these places that detachment as you're progressing and your cultivation of it, where that's a potential problem? Or are they unrelated? I would... I guess I would say...

[37:58]

just to sort of not stop the flow of the class too much, I would say that there's probably lots of different varieties of nihilism. In other words, lots of different occasions when you could say that there's nothing around something, when you could realize the nothingness of something and make that into a thing. In other words, you can't make nothing about nothing. I shouldn't say you can't, but these people who are nihilists make nothing about their life. which is fine, because in fact your life, there's no-thingness to your life. And to see the no-thingness of your life, to look at your life, or to look at your experience, and then see the no-thingness of it, that's fine. But then to make that into a thing is not fine. So there would be, in a sense, that nihilistic tendency of mind to concretize the no-thingness of some things, that could happen a lot of different ways.

[39:09]

And so some kind of nihilistic thread or nihilistic flavor in some sense probably runs through a lot of these demons that arise to people as they start to realize the insubstantiality of their existence. Yeah. Are these states of mind or consciousness predictable? It sounds like that, you know, throughout the history of human beings there have been these, you know, experiences coming up for people who reach these subtle states of practice and meditation. Yeah, they're predictable in the sense that, I mean, the Buddha is predictable in the sense that if you're working with these five aggregates, right, in the Surya Ganasutra, the way the Buddha talks about these demons is he talks about in terms of which of the aggregates of existence is kind of loosening up.

[40:12]

So if the aggregate of form is losing some of its, if you're losing some of the kind of habitual ways or attached ways you relate to the, to the form aggregate, then that produces certain kinds of experiences. As you start to loosen up around the feeling or the sensation aggregate, that produces different types of experiences. You start loosening up around the conception, the perception one. You start loosening up around the emotional one. You start loosening up around the consciousness one. As these aggregates start to loosen up and you start to realize they're not so much what they appear to be, as you start to realize their insubstantiality and tremendous potential and sort of unlimitedness of them, simultaneously with that, in relationship to each one, different types of phenomena will come up.

[41:15]

Different types of light, you might say. Oftentimes it is lights that come up. Different types of lights happen in relationship to these different things. And those are predictable. And you can tell by the experience which one of these aggregates is the one that's breaking up. And then, basically as I said, no matter which one of them it is, the practice is basically the same. Namely, number one, don't claim that this is enlightenment. Be humble. Number two, don't attach to it. And sometimes the lights are horrible lights, they're frightening lights. Sometimes meditators get very anxious and depressed, and it's predictable in relationship to certain things. So there's two reasons for studying that, or twofold. One is to see that always the instruction is basically the same, namely, don't claim it's enlightenment, and number two, don't attach to it.

[42:19]

Then in addition to know that these things have been explained before, that also gives you some comfort. So that's nice to know. But even without reading this text and memorizing these things so that you know, oh, that's that and that's that, even without that, basically the instructions are always the same. So at some stage is this all mental fabrication, seen as mental fabrication, that this actually is happening? that I'm actually reaching a state where all my experience is detachment, that I get attached to this state. Does this all become just mental fabrication? Because if not, it sounds like something permanent, like we can always predict throughout the history of human beings that this will always be this way. unchanging, that people will reach these states and have these experiences? Oh, there is a possibility that in the time since Buddha and also in the time since Mahayana scriptures, it is possible, very much so.

[43:22]

I will admit that some of these states may actually be changing because of evolution, that we may be actually, that our species may be changing as meditators. and that some of these experiences may not happen so much, or they have changed, or we have new varieties. That may be the case. Yes. But in the time of Buddha, he was basically saying that given which aggregates are breaking up, you will have different types of experiences. And in some cases, you might be frightened by them. But generally speaking, when these things break up, again, it's... It's as a result of the effectiveness of meditation that you have in these experiences. All these experiences are experiences that are happening because you're being effective. So generally speaking, the problem is that you have to be humble. Once in a while you have to not be proud. Some of them are kind of proud. Some of them what you have to protect yourself from is pride. A lot of them you have to protect yourself from pride.

[44:27]

Some of them you have to protect yourself from as getting discouraged. A few of them, some of them are negative from a certain point of view because you feel anxious or afraid. In those cases, you have to just mostly work on, you don't have to work on being, well, even in those cases, if you read in the book that that was supposed to happen, you still might say, hey, I'm pretty good because I'm having these negative experiences because this scoundrel's loosening up or whatever. So you always have to work on that and not get discouraged, but mainly not attach. But there may be varieties. Like, if you look at some of the meditation practices, some of the basic mindfulness practices of early Buddhism, it looks like they were a little bit directed towards men, or a lot directed towards men. I've studied these meditation practices with women, and women sometimes say, you know, I really don't understand. This really seems to be weird to me, to be meditating.

[45:30]

Like some women have said, I really feel it's weird to be meditating on the repulsiveness of the orifices or the orifice of the body. I just don't get that, you know. And some other women have had problems with some of the other sort of repulsiveness meditations. They just didn't get it. And it may be that those practices were made mostly for men, because it may be that sexual arousal for men is more visually oriented than for women, or that it was at the time of India. And that a lot of the practices that Buddhism puts forth to quell passion or lust, the standard ones, may not be the appropriate ones for women to quell lust. It might work better for women to have different kinds of ones. So some other ones for quelling lust are, for example, to imagine

[46:34]

You know, one of them is, you know how when sheep, sometimes when they're walking around on the hillsides, sometimes they, particularly pregnant sheep, sometimes they fall over on their sides or on their back. You know about that? And they can't get up. or they fall down next to a fence, and they get kind of wedged in, and they can't get up because of being pregnant. I think sometimes, I'm not sure, I think maybe they roll over on their back because they get gas or something, and they roll over on their back to sort of squeeze the gas out of their body, and then sometimes they get stuck on their back, especially when they're pregnant. And then what happens is that the crows come down and peck out their eyes, And then, of course, then they die.

[47:40]

But what also happens is sometimes when they're pregnant, when they're delivering the baby and they're incapacitated to protect their babies, when the babies come out, the crows come in and peck the baby's eyes out. I've seen this happen in England when I was there. That's a meditation that's recommended for people to quell lust. If you're meditating and you're thinking about sex a lot, that's a meditation that cuts through people's sexual daydreams. Particularly it's, I think, for somebody who has a mother's heart, the picture of baby lambs having their eyes pecked out at delivery time, it snaps you out of it and helps you get serious again. So that's a meditation that's, you know, not just for men, that women probably also could find as sort of deflating sexual imagery off the charts from the point of view of earlier descriptions.

[48:46]

I guess I was thinking from the... But I'd like to say one more thing. You said mental fabrication, and I'd like to point out that we have to be careful there because to me mental fabrication is a technical term which can be discriminated from and differentiated from conception. In what way? In the way that, now this is really a digression. Are you ready for a digression? You want to hear the answer to it? Or do you want me to postpone? Hear it. Vote. Is this the first digression? But this might be a major one. Do you want to hear, do you follow this up now or do you want me to talk to him about it later? Let's follow it. If you imagine, like if I imagine Jim here, actually I do imagine Jim here, let's say I go out of the room and I talk about Jim and I imagine Jim

[49:56]

In my mind, I think of Jim. I can see a picture of him, sort of, in my mind. There's an image of Jim. I can also imagine a unicorn. I don't have to go out of the room to imagine a unicorn. Even without closing my eyes, I can kind of see a blue unicorn right now. Can you see it? Also, now I see a white one and a pink one. It's a kind of a horse with one horn. Do you have those in Germany? They have a lot of them in the Netherlands, too. So now, can you see the unicorn? What you see there is, what is that? Huh? What? No, it's not fabrication. It is a concept. It is an image. Now, can you see Jim's face?

[50:59]

Can you imagine Jim's face while looking at it? What is that? What? No, it's a concept. Same thing, same answer. I've never seen his face. Have you ever seen a unicorn? Oh, I've never seen a picture of one. I've never seen a picture of John. Anyway, whether you see his face or not, but particularly if you have seen his face, that's why I said to choose his face, if he leaves the room, or you go out of the room and you think of his face, what you're thinking of is an image of his face. That's a concept. Like Abraham Lincoln, okay? Can you see Abraham Lincoln now? That's a concept you see. You don't see Abraham Lincoln, right? You see a concept called Abraham, what you call Abraham Lincoln. And I can make a few scratches on a blackboard, and everybody can say, that's Abraham Lincoln. Most people say that's Abraham Lincoln, right?

[52:00]

Because you have a concept which can vary quite a bit, and all of them will be Abraham Lincolns. Even if you haven't seen his face, you still could imagine what it was. Those are Abraham Lincoln, the image of the unicorn, And the imagination of his face are all images I propose. They're all concepts. And they all have names. And you can look at his face a lot and then imagine his face. Similarly, you'd just be imagining his face. Now, when you look at a person ordinarily, just straight on, you're doing the same thing. basically. What you say that the sensory input is closer to the time when you made it up than... But basically you're imagining a concept. However, that is what I call conceptualization or image making, which we do every moment you do that.

[53:04]

And there's no moment when you don't do that. You're always doing that as part of your perceptual process. Whatever you're aware of, that you know about, is a concept. Now, what most people do is they also do a thing called mental fabrication, which is where they actually believe that there is such a thing as Jim. or that there was such a thing as Abraham Lincoln. But people don't necessarily believe that there is such a thing as a unicorn, really. So in the case of a unicorn, you can imagine a unicorn. It's possible to imagine a unicorn, but not have the mental fabrication that the unicorn exists. It's with fabrication and the denial of emptiness.

[54:11]

The denial of emptiness is that. I'm not ready for that. Could you wait on that one for a little bit? Just hold it. OK. Now, if you look closely, you might be able to tell the difference between imagining a unicorn and believing it exists. Just like if you imagine, for example, somebody you know quite well, look at the picture of them, and then see if you can also see that right near that picture of them is a mental fabrication, is a mental gesture, is a mental construct, and a separate thing which attributes suchness or which attributes existence to the image. Where you actually believe, yes, there is a, like if you look right here, there is something there. You actually see it there. This, by the way, well, I won't tell you that. So you, those are two different things, though. Now, there's another thing is that the image of Jim, image of Kitty, image of Jim, and where's the other Jims?

[55:17]

Anyway, these images are all different. are all due to different causes and therefore are emptied in different ways by virtue of the causes. Okay? The way you realize that the thing that appears as a column, the way you'd realize that that would be empty would be different than the way you would realize that grace is empty. Do you understand? If you study grace and you think about grace a lot, you realize more and more what makes grace appear to you moment by moment. Okay? Things that make up grace, you realize that what grace is is basically all the things that grace isn't, is what makes grace. Grace is not a doctor.

[56:18]

Being a doctor is not grace, but grace is a doctor. Being a woman is not grace, but grace is a woman. Being a certain height and a certain age and having a certain background, all these qualities, having these kinds of eyes, this kind of hair, this weighing this much, all these qualities, all of them, none of them are grace. Grace is the sum total of all the things she isn't. She isn't Martha. She isn't Denise. She isn't Joaquin. All those things are what make grace. Take away one of those things, you don't have grace anymore. And the same for everybody, that the sum total of all things they aren't. That's how you realize that a person or a thing is empty, by studying all the causes that make them, right? And it's different for each person. However, the way that you attribute suchness, the way you attribute existence to something is not different for different people. It's not different. Because there's no difference in the way you do that.

[57:23]

It's empty in a different way from all the other things in the world that are empty. It's different in a different way from the way concepts are empty. You see that? Watch the way you attribute existence to a unicorn. Watch the way you attribute existence to yourself, to your mother, to your friends, to your cup, to your life, to your education. Watch the way you attribute existence to pain and pleasure, and notice that you can never come up with a different way that you do that. It's empty in a different way from all things. And yet, In fact, it always accompanies things. And the fact that it's different, I wouldn't even say the fact that you see that it's different, because there's nobody outside there seeing it's different, but the actual difference between those two is what we call accomplishment, which is bliss.

[58:26]

These things actually are always separate, and the fact that they're separate, their being separateness, the separateness of them, is accomplishment. Okay? It's not you out here seeing that they're separate. You're totally in the mix, that separateness, okay? One's called mental fabrication, the other one's conception. So what are... All the Buddhist teachings can be just taken out just as conceptions, just as conceptions. So dharmas and fariscandhas and bhidra conceptions. They can all be taken as, as you experience them and you know about them, they're all conceptions. To attribute suchness to them is mental fabrication. To attribute some category of existence to them is mental fabrication. That does not need to be compounded with it, although you may do it to see them as separate. When I teach you something about Buddhism, as I say it, there's no mental... I may be attributing some kind of existence to it.

[59:35]

But as I say it, the message is not coming to you with any existence attributed to it. It's just pure conceptual material. Perceptual material, which you can turn into concept. You're the one who attributes such existence to it. Is the mental fabrication delusion or both concept? The concept is delusion and mental fabrication is delusion. They're both delusion, but one is conceptual. It's something that we can share in. That's another thing. We can share in concepts. We can discuss them, like Abraham Lincoln. Oh, we don't all see the same. When I say Abraham Lincoln, we don't all see the same thing right now. Still, there's some commonality there. Everybody can sort of deal with this tall, thin thing, you know, and stuff like that. And we can empty Abraham Lincoln together. But we can't empty this mental fabrication together. That's an individual thing, there's no way to discuss it, because it's the same for all phenomena.

[60:41]

So they're both delusions, they're both processes of delusion, they're both delusions. However, they're a little bit different in that you don't grab mental fabrication, you use mental fabrication to grab things. Mental fabrication is not a thing, it's what makes things. And this is built into us to do that. That's why, as things get more subtle, this same process of attributing something to this process becomes more subtle. And if you attribute something to the process, then of course it's hard to resist grabbing it. If you can keep them separate, then you have more chance of not grabbing anything. Yeah. The middle way. Yes, sir. It's a concept.

[61:43]

It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. It's just a concept. And not even that. If it exists, it's not in the middle. If it exists? It's not in the middle. Wow. But it doesn't exist, so it is in the middle. You want to do this thing about emptiness now, Stuart? Does it fit in at this point? Stuart asked this question before, which I felt was sort of like it had to wait. And I don't know if it still wants to come in. Do you want to bring it in, or does it not fit now? The question was, is there the definition of mental fabrication, the denial of empty?

[62:49]

Is there a definition of mental fabrication? I'll have to think about that. It sounds a little bulky. Pulled it bulky myself. Huh? What? Pulled it bulky myself. Yes. Well, if you meditate on the subtle body of the Buddha, and the subtle body of Suzuki Roshi, and the subtle body of Reb Anderson, are these, because I've never seen the Buddha in his lifetime, And I got a glimpse of Suzuki Roshi in his lifetime. And I've seen a lot of you. So, the Buddha is, the historical Buddha is dead. Suzuki Roshi is dead, and you're alive. So, does that change whether one is a mental fabrication and concept?

[63:57]

The fact that, you know, meditating on the subtle body of the Buddha, is that a mental fabrication, or is that a concept? Are you a concept when I'm meditating on the subtle body of Rev. Anderson? When you know me, when you have a kind of experience of me, which is in the realm of knowledge, I am equally a concept as is a Kurukshetra to you. In both cases, you're dealing with a mental concept that you know. However, I'm still, there is actually a living being, which again, I don't belong to any categories of existence anymore, this is a theory she does, now, or ever did. But still, I'm over here saying, I can say I'm alive, and he doesn't seem to be able to say that anymore. So it's a difference.

[64:58]

But in terms of you knowing us, you know, an image of me produced by this thing over here, which you convert then into mental images, from the point of view of your processing, it's the same as you sort of somehow cooking up a Suzuki Roshi. Now, is the subtle body of the Buddha different than that? Well, I don't know what you mean by subtle body of Buddha. I guess the subtle body of Buddha is the separation of conceptual objects and mental fabrication. That's the subtle body of Buddha. Well, we're stuck, at least I'm stuck, with the concept of the subtle body of Christ, which is... talked about in ways, in my youth it was talked about in ways that made it seem like something different than another man might be, although the subtle body of Buddha somehow doesn't seem so different to me as when I was taught as a young person about the subtle body.

[66:19]

Christ. Being able to bring Christ into your life, the way I was taught in confirmation class, for instance, is nothing like I can see bringing the subtle body of Buddha into my life. You know, it seems, well, it is something like it, but it's different. I don't feel I'm going to be saved by the subtle body of Buddha being in my life. Well, what I just said, which I just said that, you know, that that was a subtle body of Buddha. If that subtle body of Buddha is in your life, you'll be saved. You'll be saved at the moment that it's there. Plus, if you can get, if you can, that's like, right now we're training at that. Try that on, you know. As a matter of fact, some of you might have done it tonight. But to be able to sort of like have that be the way you sort of Have that be the way things are, that's accomplishing, that's being saved.

[67:26]

And that's really the way things already are, it's just a matter of somehow letting that way that things are be accomplished in your life. That's the subtle body of Buddha, as I see it. The things are already saved. Of course, I'm making that up too. No, it's not so much that things are already saved. Things are already the way they are. They're already the way we're trying to realize that they are. Saving is someone when you realize that they're that way. They're already just that way. And to be in accord with the way they are is to be saved. Can we have another vote about whether we want to continue this? How many people want to end the digression? This is the end of the digression. What is the... Since we turn for this mental fabrication.

[68:50]

Nirvikalpa. N-E-R-V-I-K-A-L-P-A. Wait a second. Maybe it should be... I'm not sure it sounds good. Maybe it is vikalpa. Vikalpa. And the realization of the separateness of these two is called vijñaptimatra-siddhi. Siddhi means to accomplish. Vijñaptimatra means to realize that everything's merely concept and that that's all accompanied by this attribution of substance to it.

[70:03]

This will be related to these things here. So now we have this introduction to this story. A bodiless person suffers illness. A handless man compounds medicine. A mindless man ingested I sense this man is well. Tell me, how do you rest from an immortal disease? So these different types of persons, They're a different way of talking about these different kinds of sicknesses.

[71:06]

Okay? We don't have a headless man, do we? We have a bodiless person, right? You have a handless person, right. So these are four kinds of persons. First kind of person is called a bodiless person. So this bodiless person is, this is a state of attainment, this bodily, bodiless person. This is a person who has dropped his or her body and mind, which is a big relief to drop.

[72:08]

Doesn't mean they don't have one, but they're just called nicknamed bodiless person because they're no longer attached to body and mind. Yeah. Does that mean that the physiology of the body is no longer living in concept? It's just being itself, without concept. So it's just totally working in truth. Are we talking also about bodily physiology that's happening whenever we let go of claiming or different levels, it all is actually what's happening in our body, on a physiological level, on a cellular level, on all the levels of the body. And so for the body just to really know itself, then there would be no cleaning for the body. A body and mind dropped off here would certainly have bodily ramifications.

[73:28]

What we mean by body in Buddhism is fundamentally being affected in certain ways. The body's not like a thing either, you know. The body's not like arms and legs. I'm just, just a second, I'll just tell you what it is. What we mean by body is, is being affected by colors, sounds, smells, touches and tastes. That's what the body is, okay? It's the being affected by those things. If you just affect me without me interpreting it in some way, is that, that's not possible? No, definitely you are the interpretation of these effects. I don't attach to the interpretation, but there's no attachment to the interpretation, so the interpretation just takes place.

[74:33]

Well, all the time you're having direct physical experience. We all are. so that when these sound waves occur, they affect the thing called the body. The thing that's affected by these sound waves, that's a part of the body that's called the ear capacity, the ear organ, is what's very sensitive. Of course, other parts of the body are also sensitive to sound waves, but a certain part of the body is very sensitive to these mechanical air waves, okay? And at the first level of interaction there's not interpretation, there's just direct physical effect. However, you don't know about that. And there's no clinging at that level either. There's no self-clinging there. There's just simply direct effect, direct physical register of these sound waves. That's always going on. And we don't have to mess around with that.

[75:36]

That's fine, the way it's going. That material gets converted then into concepts which we know, and then we attach to. Do you follow that? Is the concept also something that just takes place also in our body and our body turns into certain kind of molecules, turns a certain way? Not really. When you deal with concepts which are mental, including concepts about body, like concepts about cells or molecules or arms or legs, when you deal with those concepts, the way you deal with them in the realm of knowing creates karma, can create karma. And that then produces an effect which will affect the way your body is directly affected. So your actual direct physical body of direct experience, the unmediated, unconceptual part of your life, is affected by your conceptual life.

[76:45]

So, in fact, if you, in the realm of conception, if you're rough and ready and kind of not very kind and don't pay attention to what's going on, you actually affect the way you receive these physical data, and you can become physically ill, for example. In other words, the way you process this material can become, you can become hypersensitive and so on, depending on the way you think in the realm of knowledge. As you stop some of these habitual practices in the realm of concepts, your body starts to change. And your body starts giving your mind easier assignments, in a sense. But as it gives it easier assignments, then it, in a sense, has harder assignments because it tends then to start attaching various interpretations to these easier assignments or these more pleasant assignments.

[77:58]

For example, that this is some kind of attainment. If you then interpret these nicer things as attainments, then you start to make yourself, again, your body starts to get sicker again. Does that make sense? I mean, it makes sense as a scenario anyway. So actually what's required is tremendous energy. What's required is tremendous energy? The energy of being present. What's required is tremendous energy of being present because human beings are tremendously energetic. Because we're tremendously energetic, in order to meet ourselves, in order to catch up with ourselves, we have to be very energetic. This person here, this bodiless person, is a person who has pretty much caught up with themselves.

[79:01]

By catching up with herself or himself, body and mind has been dropped. So I propose this person is a person who has dropped body and mind and who now has a kind of significant eye-opening experience by the body and mind dropping. Is there joy here? There's plenty of joy in this state, I would say, yeah. I would say that this person is no longer afflicted by bodily or mental experience. But the example says the body of this person suffers illness. They suffer illness. So what would this illness be that this body of this person suffers? I told you already, what would it be? Attachment. Attachment to this state. The illness is simply attachment to this accomplishment. That's all.

[80:03]

That's at this point. This is a very good state. The light, there's plenty of light in this state. However, the light doesn't circulate completely. Now, there's two reasons why the light doesn't circulate completely. One is, what? That the person attaches. Do you see something? You still see something? That later, that will explain what it is. Right. The light, so now we're jumping into the case, all right. When one, when, no, one is when all places are not clear and there is something before you. Okay. Okay. So, that's the bodiless person. Body and mind has been dropped, the eyes are opened, however, and there's plenty of light, but there's not enough light.

[81:14]

Therefore, since there's not enough light, you think that there's something out there. you almost, I guess somebody might say, you're forced to feel like there's something out there. Why do you feel like something's out there? Because there's not enough light out there. In other words, when you look out there, you're not blinded by what you see. So therefore you have to say something's out there. Think about this. This is the first, this is the bodily, bodiless person. Now, this state has, again, two problems. One is to settle into it. The other is that this state actually doesn't have enough light in it. Are you following this? I mean, this is pretty delicate. The bodiless person corresponds to the first illness that Yunmen's talking about, okay?

[82:24]

He says that there's light, there is light, but it's not clear, and therefore, because it's not clear, because there's not enough light, you see objects still, you have to see objects. Now, think about what it would be like that there'd be so much light that you wouldn't see any objects. In other words, so much in awakening that you wouldn't see any objects. This is not the state here, okay? This state is being criticized because there's not yet sufficient awakening or sufficient light so that you don't see any objects anymore. As a matter of fact, because there's not enough, because the light is not circulating enough, you feel forced to still see objects What if you saw the spaces between objects?

[83:25]

What is that? That's an object. The space between objects? If you see the space between objects, that's an object. Like the space between Nancy and me, this space here, for you this is an object, and you see this. All the space between objects, you can see it. with your mental eye. Okay? So, what we're heading for is a state where the enlightenment is so freely circulated that you cannot see objects. That's not too much light. That's the right amount. there's not too much light, no. There's not too free a circulation of light. The sickness in that case, if you got to that state, the sickness in that case would be simply what?

[84:30]

Attachment to that state, or saying, hey, this is it. That's the last one, right, where he says... What breath is there? Now, that's the last state. And another translation of this is, what inadequacy is there? I'll tell you that right now for your reference. You might write that on your notes. What inadequacy is there? Or what inadequacy could there be? Does that look like the notes can be stopped? Yeah, it's something like that, or who could ask for anything more? To save all sentient beings. Is what like that? Then the need arises to save all sentient beings in that state. In what state? Where there is light and no objects.

[85:32]

If there's a light and no objects? Yeah. Is that the need to save all sentient beings? Like blankness and... It's not blankness. Well, okay. Yes? Like inadequacy being no communication. I mean, I feel like I'm in a trance or something and I'm not going to come back to communicating anything. Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up yet. I just wanted to tell you that another translation of this is basically... Another translation of what breath is there, another way to say it is, this is not a translation, this is a rendition. How could there possibly be, I mean, haven't I done enough? How could there possibly be any more perfect awakening than this? That's the name of the last one. That's the highest one, that last one. The one that says, what breath is there here?

[86:38]

And that's referring to the last one of these four types? Yeah, that's the non, that's the senseless person. We're jumping around a little bit. I just thought I'd mention that. But what you said about this thing about saving all sentient beings, all these sicknesses, another key about all these, all these sicknesses are simply that somebody, has got considerable attainment here, considerable realization. Case 11 is about somebody who figured out how to practice case 1, 2, and 3. Those first three cases are meditation instruction. Somebody really understood how to practice one, two, and three, and now we have four levels of attainment here, based on the instructions for zazen. All right? But the sickness is always, our sickness related to not saving all, to not, to being personally concerned for your own attainment, rather than concerned for the realization of all beings.

[87:52]

The free circulation, the free and complete circulation means circulating through all beings, through everybody. That's part of what's going on here. Can't you see you can only awaken with all beings? There's no other... Isn't that what awakening means? Yeah. But that's another way to look at these sicknesses, is that you're taking them personally. Okay, so number one, we had the quality of when enlightenment... The light's circulating, but not all places are clear. In other words, there's not enough light, and there's some object before you. Still, the person has drop body and mind, but there's still a light disturbance of this person due to there being an object.

[89:07]

But this is still a great achievement, this state. Yes? Did you have something? No? Did you have something? If you are not supposed to see object, will you be supposed to see just light? Pardon? If you are not supposed to see object, will you be supposed to see just light? Yeah. But light doesn't mean light like this kind of light. Light means, what does light mean? What? No, it's not the opposite of darkness in the usual sense, though. Light means what? What does it mean? Awakening. What is awakening? Seeing clearly, but... Without discrimination? Yeah, well, lots of ideas there. That's good. Is this having anything to do with making a distinction between inside and outside?

[90:19]

This has to do with the fact that you can't help but think that there's something outside. That's right. You still see a distinction between your own mind and body and everything else. No. Even if you're looking at your own body, you would see your own body as an object, or you see your own mental experience as objects. Even if you're looking inwardly, with your eyes shut, you'd still see your mental experience as objects. So is that still an experience of piousness? There still is some subject there, yes. That's right. But body and mind are no longer afflicting this person. This person is free of affliction. Are they free of their own self-will? Are they free of their own self-will? Because my own will, the ability to make choices,

[91:27]

It's kind of annoying, it's kind of distracting. I mean, if there's really no difference between inside and outside. Actually, the next case is one, is a person who has more freedom from that problem than this one does. That's why they call it the handless person. The handless person is a person who uses things who can really use things now, who can pick things up and put them down. Handless means someone who uses things as though they don't have any hands. You know, who uses things so freely it's like they don't have any hands. Handless means, bodiless means free of the body, handless means free of the hands. free of the hands means that when you pick things up, you're using it.

[92:48]

What's mouthless? Mouthless means, as it says, that it eats, it doesn't say, it ingests. Mouthless now means you no longer even need any medicine. And senseless, senseless is related to, you know, another translation of this would be not receiving, the not receiving person. The second skandha The feeling skanda can be sometimes translated as feeling, sometimes translated as experience, sometimes translated as sensation. But the Chinese character means to receive.

[93:49]

Feeling comes in three varieties, positive, negative and neutral, or pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. Those are the three basic ways we receive an object. We always evaluate whatever object we're relating to, we always evaluate it. We evaluate it in those three ways. Every moment we do this. It's the way we receive things. This third person, this fourth person, is the person who doesn't receive things anymore. Of course they receive things because they still have five skandhas and they have a reception skandha, but they're so detached that they don't really receive things anymore, because to receive things means positive, negative, and neutral, and all those three kinds of sensations have suffering associated with them. This person is so detached that they don't receive anything. Therefore, they're always at peace and at ease, the senseless person.

[94:55]

However, this person then has the most acute illness because they have the greatest enlightenment. If they settle down in this, the great peace and ease, this is the most devastating illness because there's nothing you can save, you can't be saved from this one by any elevation in your cultivation because you've reached the top of the line. It is the worst, it is the incurable disease. There's only one thing that cures it. Detachment. And again, this already is detachment, so somehow you have to not at all abide in detachment and not even abide in not abiding in non-attachment. Detachment. Yes. But then you need at some point, as a practitioner, to be senseless, or not?

[96:06]

To be senseless? You mean to not have the second skanda functioning? Yes. The way you're senseless, though, is not anywhere different than other people are senseless. So this is not referring to a particular meditative experience which, though you should not be attached to it, you must have. It is referring to a meditative experience which you must have. But the meditation you experience is not that you don't have that skanda functioning. In fact, everybody's second skande is empty, and nobody really has any sensations. Everybody has the illusion of sensations, but this person has sensations in such a way that they never attach to them as they're having them.

[97:11]

They receive everything through non-attachment, through non-grasping. This person does. This is the most comfortable, this is the highest state on this chart here. And you should not be attached to that. And you should not be attached to it. And you should not settle into it. And you definitely shouldn't say that's enlightenment. But you should have that experience. You should have it. You already do have it. It really is the way you're already functioning. If you have it and are aware of having it, then you're not having it. I mean, people are aware of it and it's not what it is. You're already aware of your feelings. If you have feelings right now, you're aware of them, right? Or if you meditate, if you practice mindfulness of feelings, you can become aware of your feelings. All right? Okay?

[98:13]

And feelings come in these three varieties. Most people attach to these things. A Buddha does not attach to them. But a Buddha does not not have these experiences. Buddhas have these three kinds of experience, these three kinds of feelings, these three kinds of sensations. Okay? But they don't attach to them. The reason why they don't attach to them is because they can't attach to them. They're incapable of attaching to them. The reason why they're incapable of attaching to them is because they're empty. What about other people? Other people can't attach to them either.

[98:54]

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