I looked this character up, and she's written correctly. So, I could tell the story that the Zen tradition is cared for by the oral transmission of stories. So, there's birth stories. I could tell some stories about the birth of Buddha, and there's other stories about the birth of Buddha.

[01:07]

Like, you know, that Buddha was born in India 2,500 years ago, and so on. But then there's also the story that Buddhas are born all over the place, and the way they're born is they're born from a wish. They're born from a wish, which is completely free of any conceptual claim. So, when we are having our wishes, and our wishes have conceptual claim, they're different from the type of wish that would give rise to a Buddha. But when there's a wish to open and demonstrate and awaken beings to Buddha's wisdom and help them enter into Buddha's wisdom, when there's a wish like that, with no conceptual claim, then that's the kind of situation, that's the main condition.

[02:28]

That's not the only condition, because, of course, the sentient beings are a condition too. Innumerable sentient beings are conditions for the arising of the Buddha. What we say the one great condition is when you have a lot of sentient beings and then you have a wish arising among them, or in relationship to them, this kind of wish free of any conceptual claim, which means an emptiness. Which means a state of awareness where there's no conceptual claim, that's an emptiness. Which is also an emptiness joined with a wish, then the Buddha is born. That's the story of the birth of the Buddha. And then there's a story that the Buddha who lived in India, that that Buddha taught that there's rebirth, so there's stories of rebirth, and there's stories of past lives, also those are stories.

[03:39]

And all these are stories, and stories are conceptual narrations. So the stories are not the same, or the story of the arising of the Buddha, free of conceptual claiming, is not the same. It's not the same kind of thing as the story. The story is a skillful device coming from those who are free of conceptual claiming, to help them realize freedom from conceptual claiming, joined together with compassion. Freedom from conceptual claiming is a kind of knowledge. It's a knowledge joined with wisdom. Is it a cognitive knowledge or an intuitive knowledge?

[04:55]

It's not a dualistic awareness, so it could be called an intuition. So anyway, there's all these stories, and then there's the issue of understanding them. And I talked about this on Sunday, but I forgot to say, in my efforts to make the talk not too long, I forgot to say the first... ...is to give up all involvement with stories. So if you hear a story, whatever the story, from anybody, anytime, or if you've got a story in your own mind, no matter what the story is, the first step...

[06:04]

...well, not the first step, but the first step in meditation, after listening to the story, is to give up all involvement with the story. And give up all involvement with all other stories while you're at it. And thus enter into a deep, sincere serenity. And then when you have this deep, sincere, flexible, ready mind, then you can turn your attention away from giving up involvement with the story, with a particular story, with all stories... ...and turn your attention towards looking at, examining, analyzing the story. The story of the Buddha, the story of how Buddha was born, stories of the self, stories of all the teachings that you can hear about.

[07:08]

So that's a short story about how to understand stories. Give up all involvement with them, enter into tranquility, get involved with them again. And when you understand them, then give up all involvement with them again. So you join your involvement with them, which has come to fruition as wisdom, and you give up your involvement with them, which was based on giving up involvement with them, and the wisdom which arises from that, then you rejoin that with not being involved with them. So you rejoin the wisdom, which was based on the tranquility, you rejoin it with the tranquility,

[08:13]

so that the wisdom and the Vipassana and Samatha are joined, and then you enter into the full, direct realization of the story, direct understanding. If the story was a story of delusion, you would be understanding it, and you would be realizing it too, because you would be realizing the non-duality of the story of delusion and the story of enlightenment. The story of delusion and the story of enlightenment are non-dual. But the story of delusion is that the story of enlightenment and the story of delusion are dual. And the story of enlightenment is that the stories are not dual.

[09:13]

And in the actual enlightenment they're not dual, and in the actual delusion they're not dual either. So that's instruction, not so much about the teaching, but more about the teaching of the meditation practices. And another way to speak of it is that you make efforts in tranquility, and then you achieve tranquility someday, and then you give up the training in tranquility, and then you might, for example,

[10:21]

you might feel like you notice some relationships, like you might notice the relationship between mind and objects. So then you might examine and study that relationship between mind and objects. And study means something like, you know, like you're aware and something happens to you. You didn't necessarily say you were going to study it, but you do. You cope with it, you interact with it, you notice it and you're aware of your interaction with something. But you're in a state of tranquility, so your coping is actually insight work. And you didn't necessarily make the decision,

[11:32]

you did make the decision when you, and the story is told, when you realized, or when you thought and confirmed and maybe discussed with your meditation teacher that you were fairly tranquil, then you stopped making the kind of effort that you had been making. You abandoned certain aspects of mind. Is that how it goes? That's how it says in the sutra? You abandoned certain types of mental attention, which you've been able to be continuous at. So now you're standing there without your previous training, without your previous discipline. In a state of calm. And then you start being aware of your interactions. You start to become aware that you are involved with things. And now you've entered into wisdom work. The type of awareness, being aware of your relationship with other beings

[12:36]

and being aware of the relationship between your mind and objects is the same kind of thing that you'd be involved with in insight work, just that if you are not calm, it's not insight work, according to the sutra. But once you're calm, when you start to become aware of these relationships, you're actually doing, you're actually analyzing and examining and becoming more and more aware of your relationship with other beings or your mind's relationship with the things it knows. And this is insight work. But it's sometimes good to consciously notice that. That you consciously notice. I'm practicing shamatha. It's starting to come to fruit. I talk to the teacher. The teacher says, OK, you can give up the training now for a while.

[13:37]

And then just move. Should I do anything particular? Maybe not. And some people don't talk to their teacher. They just enter into tranquility. And although they've been kind of continuously attentive to, for example, the uninterrupted mind, they've been continuously attentive to giving up discursive thought. And they become calm. And in their calmness, they forget the practice that they've been so good at remembering. Somehow they just stop practicing continuous mental attention to non-discursive silence. They just... the discipline breaks. And they look at something. Like a peach blossom. Or they hear something.

[14:42]

Like a pebble hitting a piece of bamboo. Or they hit their toe on a rock and it hurts. And they see the relationship. They didn't mean to, but they have insight. So, it follows the same structure as the teaching, but they didn't consciously sign up for that exercise program. And yet it occurred. So, sometimes somebody might say that's spontaneous. Somebody might say it's spontaneous insight. And I would say it is spontaneous, but not uncaused. It's spontaneous in the sense that there's not some outside intention coming in to do the practice. It just arises because the conditions are there. Well, maybe that's enough of that kind of story about the practice of meditation.

[16:05]

And then, now, I'd like to say something about how one of the main teachings of this chapter and of this sutra is teaching of... what's it called? It's called cognition only. Is that what it says in this translation? Huh? Cognition only? It could also be called concept only, or consciousness only, mind only. And in this sutra it's written vijnapti matra vijnapti matra means concept only or conscious construction only. And then sometimes you have this tra on the end.

[17:11]

vijnapti matra means actually attaining that mind only situation. You realize it. Could you repeat the translation again? Translations? The translation is vijnapti matra. It could be concept only. Vijnapti matra would be the mastery, would be the state of, actually there's vijnapti matra siddhi also, the mastery of the state of concept only or consciousness only. And I think to erase the shamatha, vichartha, vicharatan, there we go. And then we have, what I'd like to suggest to you is that this teaching emerged,

[18:17]

it looks like this teaching first emerged in the world in this text, because in terms of writing, this is the first text this teaching appears in. This is vijnapti matra in chapter 8. Where does it come from? And so I think an interesting story, this is a birth story of this in a way, is that it comes from Buddhas and Bodhisattvas interacting with living beings. So in one sense you could describe it could be, well, the Buddhas interact with the living beings, particularly humans, and then the humans write this down in some language that they can write in.

[19:29]

That's one way to say it. But a slightly different way of saying it is that the relationship between the Buddhas and living beings is a reflection of this teaching, which also would then lead human beings to write this teaching down. But this teaching is not just like for example, a Buddha could teach people that 2 plus 2 is 4. Well, it not falls into this category, but anyway, maybe there's something you could teach people which wouldn't be the same as your relationship with them while you're teaching them. But in this case, this teaching of conscious construction only is like the relationship between Buddhas and sentient beings.

[20:38]

It's the way the Buddhas who have realized nirvana enter into samsaric existence. It's the way those who have realized what's beyond birth and death interact in the realm of birth and death. This teaching is a reflection of that relationship. It has, you could say, the same structure. So I've been using the term menju, menju, face-giving, face-to-face transmission, so face-to-face transmission of dharma, the face-to-face part. This just says menju, it just says face-giving.

[21:40]

It doesn't say menju-dembo. Dembo is like transmitting dharma. The dembo is contained in the menju. So the structure of menju is the structure of dharma. Dharma is about things meeting and supporting each other. So, number one, I suggest that Vijnampimantrata is a reflection of the menju relationship between Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and sentient beings. The way Buddhas and Bodhisattvas meeting with people and realizing dharma is reflected in this teaching. Another expression like this is called ji,

[22:49]

in Japanese or Chinese, ji-ju-yu. This is self, ji, receiving, yu, you, employing. So self-receiving and employing is another way to describe the relationship between a person who has a self, but the self is not something that exists by itself, it's something that's received, and then it's not something that's held on to, but something that then is given away. In the process of giving away, you support other selves to receive, to be received. So this ji-ju-yu, this self-receiving and employing, which is also called self-fulfillment, this self-fulfillment, this self-receiving and employing, this self-receiving and giving,

[23:52]

is basically the same thing as menju. This is the mode in which dharma is transmitted. So when beings meet, they receive self from each other and they give their self to each other. That's the way people meet, and that's the way Buddhas meet sentient beings. So that's another expression for this that relates to and leads to the appearance of this cognition only. That's what we're teaching. There's another expression, which is kano doko. Kano means inquiry or request or invitation, and do means response.

[24:53]

And doko means... do means path and ko means cross or meet. So it means that sentient beings' request for teaching is responded to when the path of the Buddhas and the path of the sentient beings cross, and they cross at the request of beings in samsara, being responded to by beings who have realized nirvana. And these beings who have realized nirvana are not interested in staying there, so they actually interact with samsaric existence. The path of those realized ones responds to the unrealized ones, because the realized ones have this wish, which is free of any ideas. So they have no idea that they should stay in nirvana,

[25:57]

or that they should help somebody rather than somebody else, so they just naturally, because of their wish, which has no limits on it, it naturally crosses paths with suffering beings. And that is another important idea which leads to conscious construction only. And also conscious construction only, once it appears, leads back to and tells you about menju, and tells you about jiju, or self-receiving and employment, and it tells you about inquiry and response crossing paths. And there is another term for this called avabhada. And avabhada means receiving and delivering,

[27:00]

or receiving and giving. And this avabhada also describes the relationship of receiving and delivering between sentient beings and buddhas. And this description of the relationship between sentient beings and buddhas, and also I told you about this, I don't know if I can remember the Sanskrit for this, but I think it's P-R-S-T-L-A-V-D-O-A-V. I think it's a... Is that right?

[28:01]

Maybe there's an A in here. Maybe it's prishtalabdha-jnana, which again, this describes this mind that wishes to teach, but that has no conceptual claim. This non-dual wish to teach. The wish to teach sentient beings without thinking that they're separate from the wish, or from the knowledge. The wish to teach sentient beings, which is free of conceptual claims. These concepts about the bodhisattvas and the buddhas lead to the emergence of this teaching of Vijnapti-matrata. And Vijnapti-matrata is that mind and object are non-dual. So, these actual processes, well, I'm telling the story now,

[29:04]

is that these actual processes between the realized and the unrealized, the actual relationship, is also the relationship of the mind of all beings already. So the mind of all beings is such that it is receiving and giving. And when you realize that mind, you want to join into that giving and receiving. And when you join into that, that leads beings to make up teachings which describe the way the mind works, but the way the mind works is arriving out of the way the living being who has a mind is related to the entire universe. So our relationship with the universe, including our relationship to the parts of the universe that are trying to help us wake up to our relationship to the universe, is the same. The way we are is the same as the way we're helped. The way we are is the same as the way we're made.

[30:04]

And the way we're made is that we also make everybody else to be made in the way that we're made. We make everybody, all the living beings in the universe. So the universe makes us to be something that makes the universe to be the way it is. And it makes us have a mind which has the same structure as the universe. And in particular, it also makes us have a mind which has the same structure as our relationship to those elements in the universe which are helping us wake up to that. And so this story, which can be unfolded further, of course, is a story that one could meditate on and analyze and think about and talk about, converse about, argue about, test out in many other stories in the state of tranquility, which is what actually has been happening

[31:09]

right under your nose for quite a while. And so now, in a sense, I'm telling some more stories about what you've been going through all along. I more or less rest my case. Yes? The wish that you talk about, is it... does that lie just for the Buddhas, or does it... do you imply that it's the wish of the universe, the phenomenal universe, and that things for everything like that? It is the wish of the entire universe. But it's also the wish of the entire universe to make beings, to make living beings. And in a sense, the story of the birth of living beings

[32:10]

is a little bit different than the story of the birth of the Buddhas. Living beings have a different birth story, which is also another story to... Are we looking at windows and stuff now? Anybody who is willing to open a window near them is like, you know, Bodhisattva par excellence. So the universe... it is the wish of the universe to have... Again, it always opens people's hearts to say it is the wish of the universe to make darling little grandsons and granddaughters who are really... who are born according to a slightly different process from the Buddhas. They are born not from the mind... they are not born from that same wish. They are born from the wish to get something, and so they are born as sentient beings, not Buddhas.

[33:12]

But the universe also wants these sentient beings because without sentient beings we don't have any Buddhas. So part of the overall twist of the story is that in order to have Buddhas you have to have sentient beings. So the universe actually had to make sentient beings in order to really wake up, but the sentient beings are not awake. So the universe had to make unawake living beings in order to make fully enlightened living beings, or fully enlightened Buddhas. So the universe... You could say, well, the final thing is the Buddhas because the sentient beings come first, but not really because a Buddhist teacher that's first and second is a conscious construction. It's not exactly first, it's more like... it's more like interdependent. It's more like the other. There's no Buddhas without sentient beings. So...

[34:13]

the wish of the universe is to have sentient beings and Buddhas, but there's a possibility that someday the Buddhas would finish their job and there would be no sentient beings. But that would be, you know, a big adjustment for us. But the universe, I think, the will of the universe is to have all living beings wake up and the will of the universe is also to have living beings. And if I think about it, it seems like it was a big effort for the universe to create living beings. Living beings are really amazing, amazingly rare things in the universe, you know. Even on this planet, if you just go up into the mountains or something and look around and look at the sky, and now you don't go to the mountains, just look at the sky and you don't see that many living beings out there. But there are living beings out there, but they're rare. And then among the living beings, another rare thing

[35:16]

is to have an awakened living being. But one awakened living being sets the whole mass of living beings on... sets them all... Living beings are created by the will of the universe but they're also... because they're created by the whole universe, they're very fragile, very unstable, very precious, very rare. And they can all be transformed into Buddhas. And I guess I would say I think that it's going to happen, that they're all going to be made into Buddhas because it seems like another part of the situation is that the universe not only wants all living beings to wake up,

[36:19]

but it pressures them to wake up. And it pressures them by making them uncomfortable in their unawakened state and tells them and it makes them uncomfortable that other people are unawake. So it tells them if you want other people to be awake and yourself to be awake, here's the path. Yes? It seems like it's one step to say that for a human being with a mind everything that's been and now is only mind. And it feels like it's another step to speculate whether there is only mind or there's no things out there. And I'm wondering, it seems like some texts make that second speculation and others don't. And I'm wondering how you see this Well, one thing I would say,

[37:20]

I think the easiest thing to say first of all is that it's not that if I say that there's nothing I don't really think I'm stating that there's like there's a thing that actually is a situation of nothing. And I wouldn't want to say that myself. I feel more comfortable saying that all things, all phenomena, phenomena are the are what we call the things we sense. So all phenomena I feel comfortable saying are dependent on mind. So everything that we know about is dependent on mind. But it's not to say that everything that is and again we use the word thing which is related to phenomena but it's not to say what is or or what might be beyond things. It's not to say that there is no such thing,

[38:22]

that there is no such reality as something beyond mind. It's just that all phenomena, everything you know is dependent on mind. So I kind of like the quantum mechanics thing is that the world is before interacting with consciousness the world is is a probability distribution. There's lots of possibilities for everything. So there's possibilities for all things plus there's possibilities for the states of all things. There's possibilities for you and me but there's also infinite possibilities for you and infinite probabilities for you at a given moment. But when you're not a probability anymore is when you interact with the mind. And there's a lot of minds interacting with you so you get precipitated as a as a particle as a

[39:23]

something we can know and minds make you into a knowable thing. So to say that there's no knowable things outside mind I feel comfortable with that. But there still might be all kinds of possibilities unmanifested all the time all over the place but as soon as mind interacts with them they can be known and then they aren't possibilities anymore they're actualities. That's kind of the way that I conceptualize it now and that the universe is both probabilistic and manifested. And this dynamic universe has made beings who can know things and what they know occurs in this interdependent way and always dependent on mind. So there is this debate in Buddhism that a lot of schools say there are no external objects

[40:24]

and no objects external to the senses and to the mind and that's an idealistic school and some people try to say well the idealistic school isn't really that idealistic and some people say well yes it is and the softer version is nominalism but then some other schools say there are external objects but even the schools that say there are external objects still say that those objects depend on mind. So all the schools of Buddhism say that phenomena exist depending on mind and some of them are full-scale idealism and others are not. Some are realist some are not. So and they're all stories and not all of them agree that they're all stories though. Some of the early schools of Buddhism although they they agree that things don't have self

[41:25]

they haven't gone quite so they haven't gone quite as far as the Mahayana into fully exercising the consequences of non-duality. So some schools would say that some of the stories they tell aren't just stories. So is there another comment up there somewhere? Yes. Could you stand up please? Some days ago Polenta was burnt at breakfast time and Polenta was burnt?

[42:28]

Burnt. Yeah? Polenta burned? Yes. My mind That's your story? is not it? Is that a story? This is a story and I'm making sure. It's a story. It's not a It's a story. I just I tried to follow my mind and observe that he goes to the kitchen and or the person was late I didn't know who she was he made the Polenta and then he said oh she was late and then or forgot to spare the Polenta and then I just I made the story he was late and then I had some compassion or maybe what was his age or he was tired or then I just

[43:31]

I tried to give up of that and come back bring my mind back to I cut all the story about and my judgment about the burning Polenta and then oh no first I blamed him how come he just so careless and then I had compassion for she or him and then forgive him and then I cut all this story and he just comes back but I got to the point is that the stove was so high the temperature of the stove was so high and after cutting all of these pages it was burning Polenta and my question is is that the state of smelling just smelling or seeing just seeing is that when the mind gets to the point

[44:32]

because I couldn't still separate the burning and smell it was burning was with the smell it wasn't just the smell and my question is when is just the smell is just the smell without all this judgment so you smell something and then you you feel like very quickly you think burn is that what you're saying yes well if you just if you had like smell and burn and they were very very nicely together like that and you just let that be that would be a pretty good training I mean that wouldn't be you wouldn't be going as far as you as you went in your story just and actually you could say well the smell was actually the smell was burn

[45:33]

the smell was burning or smell it's charcoal smell so you could just say well you did identify the smell as something burning or burning or burnt burnt smell so just burnt smell rose smell chlorine smell painful smell pleasant smell if you train your mind to smell that way you're moving towards in the smell there's just a smell you're moving towards training your attention onto non-discursive silence so almost not saying anything

[46:37]

there's no naming it but you do know it and people think when you get back to the sense perception level that that would be like training in shamatha giving up the stories about the smell but that's not where you train on shamatha because at the level where you can't do any discursive elaboration on something if you can't do the elaboration you don't train your mind it's just not happening so the times when there just isn't any conceptual elaboration it's just not happening but not because you're giving it up your mind doesn't get trained in tranquility because you're not really attending to it so you're not really abandoning that habit the habit the habit is still sitting there the habit of conceptual elaboration

[47:39]

is that clear what I just said? no? I don't think so so you're having some experience like there's some gas floating around the valley and it touches your it touches your nose and you have and a cognition arises but again most people in that in that very fast little thing when that gas molecule touches the sense organ in your nose and a consciousness arises most people do not notice that but it does happen and then another one happens and another one but each one happens it's a different molecule and a slightly different sense thing but a lot of them are the molecules coming from the burnt polenta so there's some series there then there's a mental cognition of the smell and then there's a mental cognition of the conceptual type and then you say then you can say

[48:40]

you don't have to but then you can say burnt you do say something at this point now you need to label it burnt or bitter or sharp or even burnt polenta that's the place where you train the shamatha the fact that at the sense perception level you couldn't name it the habit the disturbing habit of addiction to discursive thought it hasn't been touched it's just sitting there waiting to go into operation when you have a chance to use it is when the conceptual cognition comes up because you build your conceptual palaces on top of concepts and when you abandon that then you start changing your mind to be more tranquil but you see I don't think you can train at shamatha in direct sense perception

[49:41]

until you're already in shamatha when you're already in shamatha then you could then you can then you can see these individual flashes of sense perception and then you could pop right from a sense perception into into a conceptual cognition right from the sense right from the sense cognition you could go directly from direct sense perception into conceptual cognition but most people who can do that don't do it won't do it they'll just reap in the information without commenting so is that getting clearer? yeah actually I've heard in purpose I follow my mind unconsciously I wanted I wanted to see what happened because this first response the first thing happened was shamatha so it was that simple and I follow it

[50:42]

to see how I can make this you want to see how far you can go yes and you went pretty far you could have gone farther you could have gone farther but you didn't but you didn't have time but it ended up but it still even when I come back and but it still was labeling meaning that is now that's my question still there is some labeling there's still some labeling yeah the simpler it gets the shorter the story and the shorter the story the closer it gets to giving up the story but even even if the story even if there is a story the stories can happen very fast like you can like history you can just say very quickly you can think of almost without saying it you can think of you can have a vague sense of the history of the universe

[51:43]

just like that kind of like the history of the universe has a certain hmm to it you know and so you can have that big extensive concept happening very rapidly and then you can you can let go of it and let go of it and let go of it and let go of it so the main thing is that you're constantly renouncing the stories your basic response even though stories can pop up and be pretty big pretty fast it's the more quickly and the more wholeheartedly you can renounce them the more continuous your attention is to the in some sense the mind which contemplates all minds and the mind which contemplates all minds you could say is the mind of renunciation because the basic mind is just knowing it has no trips it is

[52:44]

it is deluded somewhat but it's just knowing knowing knowing it doesn't necessarily know correctly but it's non-discursive and it's quiet it just knows it can know sounds it can know stories but it's not it's not the stories so you're training yourself the simpler you get and the more you're willing to give up whatever stories but sometimes you have to tell a few more stories before you can give I'll just tell two more stories and then and then I'll take a break for forty minutes well, maybe three and then and then I'll try to give up stories for the whole rest of the period and then maybe sometimes you're successful yeah, that was now I have a story now that it's over I have a story that there was a lot of a lot of stories the possibilities for stories arose and I let them go I don't know how many

[53:44]

I didn't count but I just sensed that I just had a kind of a memory that that there were a lot of stories a lot of possible stories arose throughout the period and just there was a lot of renunciation and I don't and part of the renunciation is I didn't keep track of all the renunciations of what I was renouncing but I think I think I'm getting the feeling for training and concentration and I feel I feel that was a good period of training for the mind and a number of periods like that you may start to notice some changes you might start feeling like what you heard tranquility is like and then you can continue that okay yeah to follow up with Simone

[54:44]

I'm a little confused about and what so you know you know seeing the zen dome following my breath and a thought arises or a sensation arises and so like so then I mean do I want to like label that I mean is that is that extra or is that like part like is that a good training because like I usually don't do like I would smell burnt polenta and then I would I feel like I've been trying to condition myself to say not even like burnt or anything just to to feel that like what is that beyond like like or dislike to experience that or is that not that sounds good that sounds good yeah and that's not that's you know that's that sounds like giving up you know discursive thought getting close to it getting you're getting close to that non-discursive silence there

[55:47]

but for some people sometimes it helps labeling one of the good things about labeling is that it stops the story of labeling so they say pain they feel pain they say pain and then maybe that's all they say is pain rather than some other things they could say you know zillions of things they could say besides pain right so a lot of stories could pop out of feeling the pain but if you just if you feel like I'm labeling the pain and that's all I'm doing and maybe you snip the story at just pain which is a lot of the renunciation around that so many stories that you just renounced when you just said pain so for some people labeling is a way to to practice shamatha then also when you start to calm down because you've been renouncing all this storytelling and all this discursive

[56:49]

thought and all this conceptual elaboration by just saying pain pleasure neutral restlessness anger whatever because you've been being very simple and giving up stories with that then as you become calm now you can now when pain comes up you can say when you're calm you can say well what is it you can look at it what's the birth story of the pain should I do that or should I just I think feel something I think that that's when you shift into vipassana that's when you become so shamatha you feel the pain you just feel it you feel the pain just as the pain as much as possible in the pain there will be just the pain in the painful sound there will be just the painful sound in the painful sight there will be just the painful sight so it says in the scene there will be just the scene in the herd there will be just the herd right but when you see things

[57:51]

they're often it's often there's a feeling with whatever you see there's a pleasure and there's a feeling with whatever you hear there's a feeling with whatever you touch and there's a feeling a mental feeling with whatever you smell and a mental feeling with whatever you taste so painful touch is still pretty much getting close to, in the touch there's just a touch. So then you become more and more tranquil that way. So that teaching you heard, you know, in the scene it'll be just a scene, in the herd it'll be just a herd. You heard that teaching before? So that's the teaching that Buddha gave, and Buddha gave that teaching in this form of menju, face-to-face transmission. He says in the scene there will be just a scene, in the herd there will be just a herd. And that first of all can be seen as tranquility instruction. So in other words, when you hear something, see if you can get that set of script, what you hear is

[58:55]

pew. All there is in what you hear is the herd. And you can calm down with that instruction. But then that instruction can turn into an insight instruction. Because then you can see what he's also saying, that in the herd there's just a herd means there's not a hearer in the herd. There's just a herd. The herd doesn't have a hearer separate from it. When you start to look at it, after you've calmed down, you look at the herd and you've heard this instruction and you've been using it to renounce making stories about what you hear, and you calm down because you renounce the storytelling around your hearing and seeing, and so on. Now you're calm. Now you hear, and you also hear that instruction, in the herd there's just a herd. Now you say, what does that instruction mean? And what does that instruction say about what's heard? So first of all, following the instruction I calm down. Second of all, the instruction tells me the nature of what I'm hearing. That it's just the herd. It's not the herd by the hearer. So then, when I start to meditate on that, I'm doing vipassana, I'm doing insight.

[60:23]

And then I start to realize, then I don't identify the hearer with the herd, or dis-identify. And then there's not like the hearer over here and the herd over there. So in that instruction, actually, you could say that the Buddha taught Samatha in the first part, of where the person hears it, and in the second part he's teaching Vijnapti Matrata, because he's teaching the people that what you see is not something that you can identify with or dis-identify with. You're not the same as it, and you're not different. So this teaching of Vijnapti Matrata was in that early teaching of the Buddha. You can see it there. I mean, I can see it there. Can you see it there? But the first part of it can be seen as just basic tranquility instruction. Once you're tranquil, then you would naturally start telling stories about the teaching. Then you would get discursive again about the teaching.

[61:28]

You would say, what I just said, you know. Well, what's the relationship between my awareness and this thing? Well, he just told me that they're just a seeing, so that's saying something about the seeing process. The seeing, the seen, and the seer. There's just the seeing. There's not three different things there. The seeing, the seer, and the seen. There's just the seeing. I can't find the seer. I can't find the seeing. And actually, I can't find the seeing, because it's not out there separate from it. So you start to realize Vijnapti Matrata. You could realize that in that first instruction. But also, this teaching, and this nature of mind which the teaching is about, is the same as the relationship between the student and the Buddha. Their relationship is actually translated into the instruction.

[62:35]

So here's the Buddha walking through town, and this guy comes up. This guy wants to talk to the Buddha. He's requesting the Buddha, his story. He says to the Buddha, please give me a teaching. He's making a request in the kind of concrete world of samsara. And the Buddha says, you know, I'm busy. Later. There's not many examples of that. Actually, there are a lot of examples of that, but they didn't write that many down. But this one, there's actually kind of like a little bit of a tussle there. He has an appointment. I forgot what it was. Anybody remember? It was a lunch or something? It could have been lunch. He could have been going around begging, and he was going to lunch.

[63:37]

He wished that it wasn't the right time. It wasn't the right time. For some reason, I think the Buddha said it wasn't the right time. And this guy says, this is a conversation in samsara, right? This is a conversation in birth and death. So the monk says, but I might die this afternoon. The Buddha says, well, that's true. Okay. So he gives this talk. Out of this relationship of request and tussle, there's sometimes a little tussle after the request. Then the tussle is part of the response. Then the response comes, the teaching comes. And this way of this request, making the teaching, and the teaching and the request, the Buddha and this ancient being, not being the same and not being separate. Then he gives him a teaching on how to realize their relationship. And the monk, he's not even a monk yet, this layperson immediately enters into understanding this. And then he asks the Buddha if he can become a monk. And the Buddha says, yes.

[64:47]

And then he says, do you have a roving bull? And he says, no. And he says, well, go get a roving bull, come back, and you can become a monk. And he goes to look for a roving bull, and he is struck down by a water buffalo and killed. Just like he said might happen. And people hear about this, and of course they're sad to see this fine person having perished. But the Buddha says, don't worry, he's doing fine. He had this good understanding, and he's still going forward on the path, don't worry about him. So the relationship is reflected in the teaching, and then realizing the teaching, he's liberated from suffering. And also, liberated from suffering means he understands his relationship with his teacher. We're liberated from suffering, really, when we understand our relationship with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So we've heard that we're not separate from them. We've heard that story, and then when we realize it, we are free of suffering. But it's not just realizing it intellectually, it's realizing it as actually the structure of our mind.

[66:07]

So the teaching about our relationship and the relationship and the nature of our mind are all the same. The truth is all pervasive. It pervades our relationships, our mind, our relationships with each other, our relationship with the physical universe, and the mind's relationship to things it knows. It's all one continuous process of interdependence. And so we can learn socially, we can learn interpsychically, and beyond. Back up to Kimon, okay? If you must. So, if you ask how to speak, I am the one that called the police.

[67:11]

My first reaction was, I need to explain. I went on to write these stories about explaining. My second reaction was, well, maybe explaining is not just out of my wanting to... Oh, I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. Almost like, then I thought, well, maybe also explaining was something like, it was my very first breakfast ever in 4 o'clock in the morning. What I was trying to do, I was trying to do everything, more than precise. I came earlier, almost like all those stories... You started the conundrum earlier. All those stories almost like didn't quite apply. I was stealing every 3 minutes instead of every 5 minutes.

[68:23]

The fire was really, really low. And sometimes, what I want to say is that sometimes, no matter what, something happens. I saw that there were speakers outside. I saw. I said, oh, no. So, that is to say that sometimes, just practicing, dropping the story as you instructed, but sometimes it's also helpful to know exactly what were the conditions outside to receive this explanation. Yeah. By the way, I'm sorry. But that is to say that sometimes, no matter what, the story still goes on.

[69:24]

Also in the mind. I mean, with the polenta. This comes back to my question, which is, the story comes and no matter what, the story keeps coming. Sometimes, no matter what, the story keeps coming. And in that moment, I feel like a child asked to be done something that it's not able to. And just somebody explaining, so it's like, oh, oh, okay. Oh, that's what's happening. All right. You understand what I mean? I don't know if I do, but I heard a lot of stuff there. You stated several opinions. But I just want to say, you said, sometimes it's useful to do something, and you said what it was.

[70:25]

And in some sense, whatever you do is useful. Whatever you do is good in a way. But that story you told about thinking about, well, how does this happen or something like that, sometimes it's good to... I'm just pointing out that if you do that storytelling about whatever, if you do that storytelling based on some training and not doing any storytelling, then that storytelling will be wisdom work. But if you do that storytelling without having, first of all, given up storytelling for quite a while and entering into tranquility, then the storytelling doesn't have as much of a chance of being wisdom activity. But the same storytelling under the auspices of samadhi turns into wisdom.

[71:38]

Same storytelling. So sometimes it's very good to tell a story about whatever. Yes. And even if you're not in tranquility, it's still somewhat good to tell stories because it's good to keep your storytelling capacity functioning. Because you're a human and you need it. You're going to need it to be a Buddha, you need that storytelling capacity. Buddha would tell a lot of stories. So it's good to be able to tell stories, it's good to tell stories. But I'm pointing out a very important type of storytelling or a very important time to tell stories which not too many people have a chance to experience. And that is telling stories when you have previously trained yourself in not being involved in any stories for quite a while. And you're very calm. Then you're in the kitchen and you're very calm

[72:42]

and then if you have a story about cooking the polenta and it doesn't burn, that story can be a wisdom story. And if the polenta does burn, that story can be a wisdom story. And you have to tell the story in order to understand the story. And wisdom is understanding stories. Wisdom is understanding stories. And wisdom is understanding stories which originally you believed as real, which is delusion. I mean you believe them as not just stories but that the story is actually what happened. That's a delusion. But enlightenment is about delusion. So if you want to know about delusion, tell your story. And notice where when you tell your story do you believe your story. So I'm a woman, I was born here and I did that, that's my story. If I believe that story, then it's a delusion. But if I'm calm, I can look at that delusion and see

[73:44]

that's not true, I could tell a lot of different stories and none of them would be any more or less true than this. I mean none of them would be more or less what happened. There are stories which are more or less true but none of the stories are actually what happened. It's the thinking that the story is what's happening that's false for various reasons. So that's part of what I want to respond to what you're saying, that sometimes it's good to tell the story, sometimes it's good to get involved in the story, but the time to get involved in the story which promotes wisdom is when you already have a lot of experience with completely giving up your stories and you become very calm. Then when you tell the story you have a new type of experience called wisdom. Then you start tapping into this process of where you wish to help people with no idea of how to do it.

[74:49]

Then there's the next part of what you brought up. There's something almost like a question. Yes, I already understand that it's under the light of wisdom that we want to tell. If we want to tell a story it's under the light of tranquility. Then the storytelling will be wisdom-provoking or wisdom-generating. My basic question was about... It seems like it's very different the instruction of dropping and turning the light inward to see the mind that reflects on mine. It sounds different than spending a little time with the story to sort it out. It does sound different, yes. It's actually very different. But what I'm saying is that sometimes it's better to sort it out. Sure. Well, like Devin said...

[75:55]

That's what we're doing here, right? Some of us are being discursive about these teachings. We're sorting out these teachings, not in a state of samadhi. And it seems somewhat helpful to have these discussions to get certain things clear, like about how sense perception leads to cognitive concepts of cognition and all that, and where and when it makes sense to apply these teachings at different times. All this can happen before you're in tranquility. We can learn in a somewhat less concentrated state. We can still learn a lot, so that's useful. And we're doing plenty of that, fortunately. Learning languages requires this. Some of that is already happening, and more of it's good. And then the same sorting out can occur after you're tranquil, too. So you can sort out before you're tranquil and after. It's just that sorting out before doesn't have much of a chance of flipping into insight. Because your capacity to see is diminished by your instability and tightness,

[77:03]

and distraction from where you are and what you're talking about. You're telling a story, but you're not really listening to yourself. Or you're listening to other people's stories, but not really. Because you're telling stories while you're listening to their stories. You're saying, you know, they're wrong, they're just stupid, blah, blah, blah. So it's hard to hear the story. Because you're telling stories faster than they are. Let's see who's next. Maybe Charlene, I don't know. Who else? Charlene? On Sunday, during the question and answer, I asked a question to which there was a response. Now is really not a good time? Yeah. Cool. And you didn't say, yeah, but I might die this afternoon. And if you had, I would have said, okay, well, right after this is over, I'll talk to you.

[78:06]

But those people, other people were kind of trapped in the room, and they didn't have the vocabulary. You didn't just ask for any old instruction, you asked for special terms. If you had asked for just annual instruction, you got it. But you wanted to talk about those terms, and I felt those other people would have been stressed if I had started talking to you about the other dependent and the thoroughly established and the conceptual clinging and how they work together. They wouldn't have been able to follow. I think it would have been hard on them. But if you had said, yeah, but I might die this afternoon, I would have said, well, just give me a few more minutes. Just a few minutes more, right? And then you could have done it. Want to do it now? It's okay. What? It's okay. It's okay? You might die. I feel like I'm all sad on my water buffalo.

[79:10]

Yes? We were buzzing around, so we snapped the matata on the buffalo. We were buzzing around, so we snapped the matata. And one way we talked about it, I heard you explaining it, was when Shambhutana and Vipashyana are united, we are entering the one-pointed mind, and that knows that this object, this image, is cognition only. One-pointed mind is another word for realizing this. That's a ta. That's a ta. Is it a ta? No. So the question is, is that a state? It sounds like a state. That disturbs me. There are two states, Shambhutana's state, Vipashyana's state. They are united and another state occurs, and that's kind of strange. I think, in some ways, I feel more like Shambhuta is a state,

[80:21]

and Vipashyana is like an illumination of the state. So Shambhuta is kind of always the same. It doesn't really vary that much. It is kind of like a state, whereas the Vipashyana, the insight, the light can always be different, because it can illuminate the variety around the Shambhuta. The Shambhuta is always the same characteristic of whatever state you're in. So it's actually a state. So they're not both states, in a sense. But the union of them, the one-pointedness, is a special kind of Shambhuta. It's a Shambhuta that's united with an understanding that the object of awareness is cognition only. The object of the Samadhi is cognition only. So it is illuminated by that understanding.

[81:24]

But that illumination by itself is not a state. It's more like a mental factor called wisdom. It's an understanding, but it's not a state. But Shambhuta is kind of like a state, yes. Is there a non-state of non-Shambhuta? Yes, non-Shambhuta is the state most people are in all the time. But we do also say that Samadhi is omnipresent, so Samadhi is always there. It's always there and unrealized in most people. Most people do not realize the one-pointedness of thought. So Vijnapti Matrata is realized when you realize one-pointedness of thought, which means when Shambhuta and Vipassana are united. So we have to go through this process to realize the way we usually are. Is Vijnapti Matrata steady?

[82:29]

Is it steady? Vijnapti Matrata is... The realization of it is not steady, but the fact of it is steady, because the fact of Vijnapti Matrata is our actual relationship with the world and with Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Isn't it uninterrupted? It's uninterrupted. Cognition only is uninterrupted, according to this teaching. All your cognitions are cognition only, according to this teaching. That's uninterrupted. So it's a realization of the uninterruptedness of it? No, it's not so much a realization of the uninterruptedness of it. That's not so much part of this. But the idea of uninterruptedness, that understanding, is cognition only. There isn't an uninterruptedness out there separate from your mind generating uninterruptedness.

[83:30]

That's cognition only, understanding that. But I can say that there would be no interruption, because that's the nature of mind. Like the Buddha said, I have taught that mind is fully... Fully what? Fully what? Fully distinguished, by being cognition only. That's what mind is. You can always say mind is that way. That's what Buddha teaches. So again, the Buddha teaches that mind is this way, but the Buddha teaching is also that mind is this way. So this is the host within the host? This is the host within the host? I don't know. It's 10.30 now, and if we went to Zen Do, we could practice sitting meditation. Want to go? How many people have had enough?

[84:34]

Raise your hands. How many people would like to hear a few more questions? A tie, I think, wasn't it? Maybe the people who would like to go can go and sit, and the people who want to stay, I'll stay a little longer. Okay? What? Does that mean the dog should go? I thought you said, does that mean the dog should go? Are you the dog? I'm the dog. But actually, don't take the dog in Zen. I wouldn't dream of it. You wouldn't dream of it? No, not even in my dreams. Not this time. I took Razi to a Shofan ceremony one time, remember? Yes. In Zen. Where? Here. She went to a Shofan ceremony and sat with me. I remember that. You can dream of that now.

[85:35]

Sorry I missed it. When you're the abbess, you can bring Razi to a Shofan ceremony. That was when Razi was pretty new here. Should I go? I think they can all do okay without the candles lit. For now. Okay, so let's see. Jerry? When you talk about insight and talk about it as something discursive, my kind of experience is... Insight isn't discursive. But you need to use discursive thought to create insight. For example, examining what something is, looking at what something is, actually looking at it, and wondering what it is, is somewhat discursive. It feels sometimes to me that...

[86:43]

But insight... It comes very quickly. Something comes very quickly. It comes very quickly. A feeling or a sensation will come. Things do come quickly. And the insight is non-verbal. I didn't say insight was verbal. I said it arises out of discursive thought. So the discursive is just acknowledging, here's this. It could be that simple. As, here's this. And you actually look at that statement and have an insight. But insight isn't a word. Understanding is not a word. Understanding is understanding a word, usually. But usually when you're practicing tranquility, if a word arises, you renounce getting involved with the word. And then another word arises. And you renounce getting involved with the word. Like blue arises, and you renounce getting involved with blue.

[87:46]

Pain arises, and you renounce getting involved with pain. And that's training in tranquility. In insight, you might say to yourself, that blue is vijnapti matratas, that blue is cognition only. Or when you meet, you see someone, or you see the floor, and you say, that's myself. What I'm meeting is myself. You might say that. And then you might have understanding of what you just said. And also an understanding of the floor, of the wall. You finally understand that the floor and the wall is not separate from you. You understand. But the understanding is not, the floor is not separate from my wall, the floor is not separate from me. That's not the understanding. But you would understand that, maybe. When somebody said that, you would understand that. Or you might say, the floor is not separate from me. You might say that. But I would say that after.

[88:47]

Yeah, after. I would discourse afterwards, and probably tell a wrong story about it. Maybe so. At first, you might be kind of unskillful at describing your insights. And that's part of what sometimes people do, is they have insights, and then they talk about them, and their teacher says, don't you really mean this? And you say, oh yeah, that's better. And pretty soon, with the teaching, you wind up saying it just right to what you experienced. Because you start talking about a new experience, and you use your old language, and it doesn't apply anymore, so it kind of doesn't fit, and you don't notice it, but the teacher notices it. I don't think that's what you mean, is it? Don't you want to drop that, take that pronoun out of there? Yeah, that would be better. Or something like that. So, another talk about this, is this place of conscious conception, conscious construction only, or mendular, all these different relational situations.

[89:48]

In that actual situation, words don't reach the process. Because this is a place, all these processes are places free of conceptual clinging. So no words can reach the actual process here. No words actually reach the place of cognition only. But, this place can talk. All these... Menju can talk, Jiju Yozama can talk, Kanna Dogo can talk, this kind of knowledge of the Buddhas can talk. Out of this relationship, words can come, but no word can reach the relationship. But, you need words to get yourself into a realization of the place, and those words need to come in a state of tranquility. But not necessarily super-deep tranquility,

[90:50]

as I was saying last night, because if it's too deep, you can't use the instructions to get yourself to the teachings. Yes? Can you elaborate a little bit on the concept of the host within the host? Could I? I don't feel up to it today, I'm tired. What am I tired? Go talk to... She has a migraine. I'm tired. Yes? Excuse me. Judy. Yes? Yes, or the other day in the cafeteria, you said that it was... Cafeteria? No, I think cafeteria is better, actually. We should have trays.

[91:55]

I understood you to say that it was possible that I might not have had discursive thought and still not have been in a state of tranquility, in the example that I gave you. Say it again? What I just said, or the example? You don't have to say the cafeteria part. But we were talking the other day, I understood you to say that it was possible to not be in a state of tranquility but still not have any discursive thought. Yeah, right. That's what I was saying earlier about the level of sense perception. Okay? Right. Everybody is doing sense perception but not everybody is tranquil. So how do I know when I'm in a state of tranquility? Excuse me, let me say that a bit more. And the reason why they're not tranquil is because although they're having direct sense perception all day long, not every moment, but all day long, pretty much, they aren't giving up discursive thought. And you can't give up discursive thought

[93:01]

during sense perception unless you're already extremely concentrated. Because you're not aware of sense. You can't be applying a practice at a place where you're not even aware. But you are aware at the level of conceptual cognition, plus at that level you can also hear the teaching to do that. So at the level of direct sense perception you could be tranquil, but you wouldn't actually be able, unless you're already concentrated, to give up discursive thought at that time because you can't apply discursive thought unless you're present with it. So you could be tranquil on having direct sense perception, but you couldn't be giving up discursive thought, generally speaking, during sense perception. You can't give up, for beginners anyway, you can only give it up at conceptual cognition. Okay? Now you can continue. Well, I'm wondering how I would know if I'm in a state of tranquility

[94:03]

appropriate to begin studying the teachings. How you'd know? Yeah. Well, you wouldn't necessarily know until you were fully enlightened. But you might have a feeling that you're in a state of tranquility. Okay.

[94:19]

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