Not grasping what? What? Not grasping what? Anything? Sorry, not grasping anything. And I also suggested not to grasp that instruction. And I was afraid of what would happen. But here you are, somehow. I guess without grasping all that time, right? And somehow you found your way back here without grasping the yoga room. Right? Or did you grasp the yoga room to get back here? No, great. And it related to what I was just talking about. Another way to put this is you receive what's given. And sometimes we say take what's given. but actually i think receives in some sense better like receiving what's given without grasping it when you're playing baseball you know catch a ball sometimes you catch it and you grasp it this is like catching it or receiving it without grasping and um

[01:32]

That is also the way that the second grave bodhisattva precept is stated. It's stated negatively as don't take what's not given. Positively it would be take what is given and only what's given. So a precept could also be seen as meditation instruction in stabilizing the mind. So another way to put this is you receive without grasping means you receive, and as you receive an experience, you receive it at the same, and right as you receive it, you relax. You don't exactly drop the ball, but you receive, and it turns out that when your mind receives something, it won't fall off your mind if you don't grab it. because your mind arises when touched by what it experiences.

[02:39]

So the experience won't fall off the mind. If the experience falls off the mind, the mind will also fall off. So as soon as the experience falls away from the mind, the mind falls away, and then a new experience arises, which means something comes and it's known and there's a new experience. So the mind actually doesn't have to grasp what it knows. However, with the knowing, with the cognition of an experience, other aspects of mind can grasp. And what we're doing here in the stabilization practice is to train the attention such that this grasping capacity of the mind is relinquished. So, letting the grasping go away and letting the mind... Well, it already is just knowing, but not letting the attention get involved in grasping what doesn't need to be grasped.

[03:54]

This grasping, in addition to receiving, destabilizes and kind of makes the mind unwhole. And did I mention last week? I didn't want to mention sort of because I did a workshop and Patty went to it the week before about healing. But the word heal, the root of it is, you know, it's an Anglo-Saxon word and the root of it is of heal means whole. I think it's H-E-E-L. And it means whole. So the word whole actually originally doesn't mean total. It means to heal. So unhelping means unwhole. So by training the attention in this way to let knowing happen, let the mind receive what's given and know it,

[04:59]

and loosening up this relaxing, this grasping tendency, the mind is healed. When the grasping comes in to the knowing, it tends to wound or make the mind be like unwhole or split into parts. Like, the knowing and the known doesn't necessarily have to make a heavy separation in the mind. The grasping, it kind of goes along with this thing, we're going to lose this thing if we don't grasp it. And that kind of like says, this mind has to be held together, and I'm going to hold it. And I'm going to just take a big step now, but then I'm going to ask you to let go of the step after you hear it.

[06:03]

Because it's kind of maybe too big a step to take, but I just can't resist parenthetically taking this big step. And it's a step from tranquility meditation to insight meditation. And it comes up here. for me because in discussing the precept of not taking what's not given, the bodhisattva precept of taking only what's given, in a commentary on that, one Zen master says, in the suchness of mind and objects, the gate of liberation opens. The suchness of mind of objects means the way mind and objects are actually working in the actuality of the relationship between mind and object, or knowing and known, or knowing and experience, in the way that actually works

[07:16]

In that situation of seeing how it actually works liberation opens. So this practice of taking only what's given which means you receive something and there's a you may not say thank you very much you may not feel tremendously grateful but you act like you're grateful and when you're grateful to receive something at least for a moment there you don't say thanks a lot it can I have some more maybe you say thanks a lot and then and then after that you you try to get more and But the moment you receive it without asking for more, there's kind of gratitude in that. And you're not asking for more or trying to make more of it. You're just taking what's given. And in that way of being with objects, one enters into the actual relationship between mind and experience.

[08:22]

And that understanding is liberation. And it's also that understanding then makes it so that you don't have to train yourself anymore not to grasp at things, because you don't really see that it's possible to grasp things. You know that there's just knowing, and grasping is extra. So first you train yourself in trying to relinquish grasping anything, You calm down, your mind becomes bright and flexible, and then insight opens up such that you see that it was really an illusion, that you needed to grasp things, or really that they could be grasped, because all the things can be known. They can't be grasped. You can barely say grasped after you say it a few times. Try it. But somehow, even though it's hard to say over and over, the mind has this ability to grasp, grasp, grasp.

[09:25]

In other words, the mind has the ability to not take only what's given, but actually whatever is given, to make more of it. Whatever is given, to elaborate it. Whatever is given, to give a discourse on it. So now I'm back away from the insight which I just brought up But there you see how close insight can be to the simple practice of stabilization. The opportunity to see reality, see the way things actually work, is very close to this way of being with things. I'm not sure how you're doing with this kind of practice. Maybe I could say a little bit more about it and then ask you how you're doing.

[10:28]

So again, in the stabilization of the tranquility kind of meditation, whatever comes you don't discourse on it. You just know it. Which means you... Discursive thoughts about it might arise. Comments on what's happening might arise. Judgments about what's happening, opinions about what's happening, preferences about what's happening might arise. thoughts of future about what's happening might arise. What's the future of this thing? That thought might arise. What's the past of this thing? That thought might arise. So all these kinds of concepts, all these kinds of thought, all these kinds of images can flood in immediately following any experience.

[11:35]

In the training of stabilization, in the training of tranquility, When these things arise, they're seen as the next event that you receive. Rather than getting involved with them as a discourse on what happened, rather than getting involved in the judgment as the judgment about this, you just receive that judgment without grasping it. So you see the difference between something happens and then a judgment arises and you grasp the judgment about this thing rather than something arises and it ceases and then a judgment arises and it ceases. You receive a color, a problem, a sound, a concept. You say, thank you.

[12:40]

It's over. And now a judgment comes. And that judgment could be seen as about this thing. But you receive the judgment the same way. You just accept it. You don't say, get out of here, I'm not supposed to be making judgments about that thing. You just let the judgment come, but you don't grasp it. Just like you didn't grasp the original experience, the first experience. So you don't grasp the second one. But if you grasp the first one, and then you grasp the second one, and then you're grasping a thought about this, so you're engaging in discursive thought. And then you can have another thought about the previous thought and about the previous two thoughts. So you can have a judgment about the previous thought, and then you can have a judgment about that judgment. And so you can go off in this discourse and run back and forth. And this is quite normal. People do this all the time, and it creates it promotes a kind of agitated situation and it also promotes a tightness or stress because there's grasping and then grasping on top of grasping and then grasping on top of grasping and the more grasping there is the more it seems like it's necessary because once you start it's very embarrassing to stop

[14:05]

because all the other times when you were grasping because you thought you had to, finally to admit that all that was really unnecessary is kind of like a big confession which we'd rather not get into, so just keep grasping. So it's easy to continue, but it creates stress, it creates inflexibility, it becomes heavy, and it's painful, and it's not relaxing. So the training is partly training and relaxing. So I said, receive whatever comes. Another way to say that is receive whatever comes with complete relaxation, with complete means, with complete gratitude. But again, if some pain comes, it's not exactly thanks for the pain, but thanks.

[15:19]

In other words, I receive this because it's not that I'm really happy that I have pain, but I'm glad to be grateful because if I can receive, just receive the pain, I can calm down with the pain. I can see the pain and I can be free of the pain. But if the pain comes and I fight it, if I say, no thank you, get away, or even if I make up some excuse, some reason for the pain, like I'm a jerk or blah, blah, blah, or somebody else is at fault, these kinds of discourses on the pain just make more pain and more destabilization. So in this side of meditation, we're just trying to train this real respectful way of dealing with everything. Maybe that's enough for me then to ask you, do you have any questions about this stabilization, this shamatha meditation, this resting meditation?

[16:38]

Yes. We're not fighting with what's coming, that's right. Yes. Right. I don't know about that. Just saying. Dogs with our sizes, dog users. We didn't really lose it. We just kind of lost touch with it. It's here all the time, but we kind of like...

[17:42]

I heard the example. It's kind of like you come to the yoga room, you happen to walk in here somehow, and then you come in here and you say, where is the yoga room? Because you don't know that this is the yoga room. You know it's a Julia Morgan Center maybe, but you don't know it's the yoga room. Actually, they do have classes in other parts of this building, yoga classes in other rooms in this building, right? Like downstairs they have classes in yoga. Is that the yoga room? That's the yoga room too. So you see the yoga room. The yoga room is really not a room. It's actually a vast estate. So when you arrive, you know, in this vast estate, you don't know where the yoga room is. So you say, where is it? They say, it's right here. You say, oh. So your natural mind is right here. We haven't really lost it. We just don't know that it's right here. And so, be careful that you don't reject any minds that come to you because you might be rejecting your true Buddha mind.

[18:57]

I mean, you know, don't say, like, get this mind out of here. Get this state of consciousness away. Because you might be rejecting the Buddha mind. Because the Buddha mind is not located some other place from here. So yeah, we don't fight it. And in not fighting it, we settle down with the way the mind appears, and we see more deeply what the mind is, and then we realize the way the mind really is. And the way the mind really is, is what we sometimes call enlightenment. to be in accord with the way the mind is, the way the body is. So actually, the way the mind is right now is enlightenment.

[20:03]

But to realize that, to understand that and be completely one with the way it is, is the realization of the enlightenment, which is the way we are. And if we somehow, we have the ability by fighting what's happening to then magically dissociate ourselves from what we most want to be intimate with. So the training, we're trying to train our attention to give up that deep-seated habit of alienating ourselves from that which is our greatest resource. Any other comments or questions about the practice? That's Nancy. Does it carry over into what?

[21:12]

Hopefully, yeah. Well, the fact that you notice how hard it is to grasp, how hard it is to not grasp might be that you notice how easy it is to grasp. If you could notice the grasping, if you could spot the grasping, And then in the spotting and the grasping, you would just actually let yourself, like Rana was saying, you'd let yourself just see, I accept that there's grasping here. And you might feel like, I have a very deep habit in this kind of situation to grasp. Because, you know, like this is my job or this is my... welfare of my loved ones or something i just i just have to grasp it i mean happy means i almost always do but when you notice that if you could just notice that and not sort of punish yourself so i'm such a bad meditator because i'm i just noticed there's grasping and to receive that just as it's given okay

[22:35]

and be relaxed about the fact that you're grasping, and not wish that you weren't grasping, and not make a discourse about how wonderful it is to grasp, how necessary it is to grasp, how bad it is to grasp, but just say, okay, there's grasping. In that simple receiving of the grasping, that's not grasping. That's not grasping, that's just knowing the grasping with no elaboration, with no discourse on it. It's receiving the information, the awareness that there's grasping. It's receiving that and nothing more. Of course, you also can like notice the grasping and then to give a discourse on it. That also can happen. But again, if you notice, here's the grasping and now there's a discourse on grasping, which I'm grasping. If you notice that, there's recovery.

[23:37]

Then that's a moment of simple knowing the sequence of events. That moment, if it stops at that, that's a moment, that's a type of moment which you're trying to train yourself at to stabilize. And maybe during a day at work or during a conversation with your family, maybe a few of those happen during the day. Somebody said to me, which I think I've mentioned here too, somebody said to me that usually when things happen, He says the mind has these strong suction cups that just go onto everything. They just completely zap onto everything and just totally hold it. And he says that's the way it is 99.9% of the time. And sometimes there's just like knowing something without that grasping happening.

[24:42]

Or maybe he told me the other way around. Actually, I think he told me the other way around. He said, sometimes I see that a mess is just a mess. In other words, what do you get? Congratulations? Here, here's a mess. And sometimes a mess comes to you, and you say, oh, we've got a mess. And there's various things to do with a mess. But first of all, sometimes if a mess comes, you say, a mess is just a mess. When you receive a mess... and just let it be a mess, you're basically just receiving what's given with no elaboration. You're experiencing a mess and you're resting in the mess. You're relaxing in the mess. And it's possible to actually rest in a mess and actually feel tranquil in a mess because you're resting in it, because you're not fussing, arguing, rejecting.

[25:46]

It's possible. And to be quite stable and have the mind become healed right in the middle of the mess because you're not fighting the mess. And then once the mind's healed by that simple way of being with it, by that relaxed and grateful way of being with the mess, You might, in your healed state, think, you know, it would really be fun to clean house. And you might start cleaning the mess. And the mess might get cleaned up, and then you might say, now we have a non-mess. But it's also possible that in the process of cleaning the mess, someone might come to you and say, would you please give me a kiss? And you might say, if I don't need to say it. Rather than, no. I'm sorry, I can't because I'm cleaning this mess. And I become totally fixated on cleaning this mess, which I was able to do. I started out doing it very nicely after I sort of gave up trying to clean the mess and just accepted the mess.

[26:54]

But now I'm back on this trying to get the... You see, it can happen. But then you notice it and rest in that, and you're free again. So this guy said, sometimes I can just let the mess be a mess, which he understood. That's the way of tranquility. Having a mess isn't tranquility. Having a non-mess isn't tranquility. It's accepting the mess or the non-mess with no lip that's tranquility or that realizes tranquility. And this guy said, I can do that, but 99% of the time, whatever comes, these strong suction cups goes out there and they grab it. And I said, Okay, well, you know how I feel? I feel like I'm so grateful that one hundredth of one percent of the time you don't do it, that you're free of it. Because that one moment is the beginning of this practice.

[27:57]

That is the practice. That's the actual practice, the one moment you don't do it. And also to receive that and be grateful for that and be encouraged by that That's, you know, and that kind of thing can gradually spread. So if it's, if you can do it like in this class, like I said, if you can like follow one exhale, be with one exhale, which is actually several moments of exhaling. And I even take that back, if you can be with one moment of an exhale. And just let one moment of an exhale be something that you receive without any elaboration. That's the practice. And then if you can do it like for a whole exhale, that's a whole bunch of more experiences of the breath that you received without making anything more of it. This is the beginning of the exhale. This is the middle of the exhale. This is towards the end of the exhale. This is the end of the exhale. All these things just like that.

[28:59]

Just very simple. Just what's given. Just what's given. And to do that for a whole exhale is quite a feat and quite an accomplishment. And you can say, I am a successful meditator. Now, I could be more successful, like I could do this more often, up to the point of being able to do it maybe someday, all day long. But some of the greatest masters have said that At the age of 65, after 45 years of practice, they finally had unbroken meditation this way. So it may take a while for it to really pervade your daily life, but that is the ultimate possibility. And that's sort of what Buddha is. The Buddha can go various places and say thank you to whatever comes.

[30:01]

can receive what's given only and stabilize and see. So if you can give a little bit during work, great. And by what you just told me, it sounds like if I're doing a little bit, because you've noticed that thing and you can tell me about it, that's simply noting it. And then You might also sometimes see, it might also sometimes happen that something happens which you know from experience. Your memory tells you that usually when such and such happens, you grasp it and you may notice, and I didn't, it didn't happen that time. You may notice that too. And that may spread. May that spread. May the practice pervade the entire life. Anything else?

[31:09]

Yes, Steven? Thank you. You have a great name. Yes? Yeah, yeah. That's a little bit like what Patty was saying, is that sometimes when she doesn't grip certain things, she feels like she's getting kind of wimpy. You know? An aspect of this type of meditation is that I guess what you're doing here, to some extent, is you're withdrawing your defensiveness. Because when something happens and you receive it with tension, or when things happen and you interpret or discourse on them, that discourse and that interpretation, to a great extent, is to protect yourself.

[32:24]

And when you give up that discoursing, that commenting, that judging, and experiencing things without judgment, there's a certain juice and tension that goes away, but that attention is often associated with defending yourself. So, as you become more settled with your experience and receive it in this more intimate way, this intimate, non-grasping way, and you start to relax, you also This is scary to hear. You also become more aware that you're vulnerable. You're not really more vulnerable. You're just open to your vulnerability. You're not more vulnerable. You just feel more vulnerable. You're always vulnerable. We are vulnerable creatures. We're all vulnerable to death. We're all vulnerable to sickness. We're all vulnerable to accidents. We're all vulnerable to aging.

[33:28]

We're all vulnerable to other beings. We're vulnerable. But in the midst of our experience, we often do this discoursing on it as a way to push our awareness of our vulnerability away. So as you relax more, you often simultaneously feel more vulnerable. And then, when you feel more vulnerable sometimes, then you start tensing up again and go back to discoursing to protect yourself from that frightening sense of vulnerability. So then you feel tense again, which is, you maybe don't like that, but then you feel less vulnerable, because you've got this tension to protect your I am, this tense. So then again, you sort of say, well, yeah, but you know, I'm not protected again, but I'm not tense again. And maybe I'll go back and try the meditation again. So you go back and relax again. And little by little, you've become more convinced that actually you're not more dangerous when you're aware that you're vulnerable.

[34:33]

You're actually more dangerous when you're not aware you're vulnerable. Like this country western song goes something like, When I have six beers, I think I'm 10 feet tall and made of iron or something like that. So, you know, if you numb yourself and protect yourself with whatever, with discourses, whatever, you feel, you know, impregnable. No. Is that right? Impregnable? You can't be impregnated? You can't be intruded upon. You can't be broken. Indestructible. And when you practice this kind of concentration, you open up. Your defenses move away. You start to open up to the world. But that's exactly what needs to happen in order to see the world, is you have to open up to it.

[35:38]

If you're defending against the world, you can't see it. So the price of wisdom is to not be more vulnerable, but to see how vulnerable you are, to see how all things come forth to give you life. But that's also scary, to see how dependent we are on the whole universe. That's why the bonus of this kind of meditation is that it's relaxing and healing. So although although you feel more vulnerable, you also feel healthier. So you say, well, you know, every year I feel more unhealthy. I mean, I feel more fragile and healthier. And that's how I feel. Every year I feel more fragile and healthier. I feel healthier now than I did when I was 20. But when I was 20, although I wasn't... I was still pretty healthy then, too.

[36:43]

And when I was a teenager, I was pretty healthy, too. I wasn't a very sickly kid. But I was not nearly as healthy as I am now. Not nearly as whole. But I was indestructible. I thought. You could just say, well, see that room over there? That's a very dangerous room. There's lots of dangerous things in that room. I would think maybe for you, but not for me. I would walk into situations where I thought, you know, so what? It's not going to hurt me. But as I have gotten older, now I feel like I could break any minute. in various ways, but I feel more alive and more healthy and vital and grateful for every experience, even though I almost always feel like any minute I may disintegrate, you know, I may die.

[37:58]

I feel very fragile, very vulnerable. So the feeling of health allows me to tolerate the feeling of vulnerability more and more. The feeling of vulnerability doesn't make me feel healthy. The feeling of healthiness allows me to open the vulnerability. And also, the relinquishment of the attachments and the letting go of the tensions feel good, but they also open to the vulnerability. The vulnerability doesn't really encourage me to open up. It actually challenges me to stay open. So I open up, and I feel more vulnerable, and then sometimes I think, oh, you know, is this really worth it? And I often say, well, yeah. Yeah. But it's sometimes hard to feel really vulnerable because you have to walk so carefully, you know, because you might break.

[39:06]

You can't just, you know, go wherever you want without paying any attention. You can't be careless when you realize that you're vulnerable. So if you're, you know, but if you realize that caring is actually part of being healthy, then it's not so bad to care. You don't mind not feeling indestructible. Funny thing again is indestructible, people who think they're indestructible also are tremendously frightened often because, of course, It's an illusion that you're indestructible. So, anyway, that's part of the problem of... And indestructible is one word, or vulnerable is another word. Another way to put it is you lose some of your power. So that if you grasp your ideas and grasp your opinions, you feel more powerful about them. But if you relinquish your judgments about things and just feel things,

[40:14]

You don't feel so much charge on you. You don't feel as electric. So the funny thing is that you actually, as you relax and relinquish grasping, you move more and more into the actual vitality and freshness of life. But that freshness, to some extent, it's vivid, it's vital, but it's less gaudy, and there's no heavy metals, so to speak. It's more subtle. So if you're used to these very, very bright, very, very strong sensations, which are actually quite stale, we have some difficulty making the transition to the freshness of our life, which is simpler.

[41:15]

Like my grandson, you know, he eats pretty simple food, and he likes it. You know? He doesn't know what this stuff would taste like if you put that other stuff in it. So he eats like a banana, just a banana, you know, and apple and rice crackers and oatmeal. He likes it. And mother's milk, you know. He doesn't think, could we have, could we put some salt on it or pepper on it, more sugar. Now once he starts tasting that stuff, then things will be different. But right now he's got this very simple diet, which some of us might find rather bland. And I'm not saying that it's so terrible to put things on. Things can make them taste good. But actually, sometimes it is terrible to put things on to make them taste good. Sometimes people take some kind of vegetable, which is actually very delicious, and they put a bunch of stuff on it, which actually ruins it.

[42:21]

That can happen. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes they put something on it, and it doesn't ruin it. Sometimes it even seems to make it even more delicious. It's possible. But the point is that before you put anything on it, it already is something that's being given to you. And if you can accept it without thinking, this would taste better with... Before you get into that culinary discourse, just to accept it as it is, you calm down with the food. But It's scary, too. It's a new world, and you're more vulnerable. So part of the encouragement is you're doing the work of opening to your vulnerability, you're opening to your anxiety, and this is also opening to beauty.

[43:25]

If you're close to your vulnerability and close to your anxiety, you're close to beauty. And beauty really is truth. Truth and beauty set you free if you can open to them. So your ultimate freedom depends on opening and being vulnerable, or rather, to realizing your vulnerability and not running away from it. And then all this truth comes to you, un-repeated, by your defenses. Of course, we're not trying to defend against truth necessarily. We're trying to defend against being harmed, because vulnerable means able to be harmed or hurt. So we're protecting against being hurt. But protecting against being hurt doesn't make you invulnerable.

[44:28]

It just makes you stressful. And actually, if you're calm, you're in much better, if you're relaxed, you're in much better position to protect yourself, if you can. Sometimes you can't, but if you're being relaxed, look at martial artists, the really good ones are very relaxed when they're moving, they're dancing, you know, and they're not getting stressed out, even though they're being attacked. And they know they're vulnerable. But they're adjusting to their vulnerability and doing a skillful thing. They're accepting. They're not saying, this person isn't attacking me. They say, I'm being attacked. Thank you very much. They relax. And then they do the appropriate response. Sometimes they get hurt. They get hurt less than almost anyone else would. Except maybe like a baby wouldn't get hurt. Because they were just like,

[45:31]

look up and go, and the attacker would stop, you know. Like again, if you walk up to a baby, sometimes you're all happy and puffy, you walk up to a baby and you just relax, you know, because you just, they wake you up, you know, with their, with their vulnerability, with their, they don't know yet. So you see that their joy is they're very vulnerable. They were very vulnerable, easily hurt all the time, and so lovely. And they haven't yet learned to say, no, thank you, which they will learn pretty soon. But, you know, as a while there, they have those moments of just, Receiving what's good.

[46:36]

Anything else about this focus? Anything else? Yes. Ginger? Do you ever not... Yeah, sometimes one does not have discursive thoughts. Sometimes they get a break, sometimes. Well, like, in special situations, like if you're doing something really complicated, like, I don't know what, you know, like doing a double backflip off a 10-meter tower or doing, you know, jumping off an air and spinning in the air and landing on the ice again, during those times, of really being challenged to perform certain tasks, this cursive thought doesn't even arise.

[47:40]

It's like your mind's totally involved in calculating how to do this feat, and your body and mind don't actually generate the sense of you doing it even. But under a lot of other circumstances, your body and mind are churning up the idea of ginger doing things, and ginger picking and choosing. There's a luxuriant thing called the realm of you doing things. It's on top of its basic physical action. But sometimes physical actions are so completely challenging and engaging that there's no discursive thought for a while. Like I mentioned one time, in an article about this kind of meditation, is that if you watch these very good ice skaters, when they're skating around on the ice, just doing various things, you know, for them, that's like just walking. If you were skating like them, just skating around, you might be very concentrated.

[48:45]

But they can do daydreaming and chatting with each other while they're just skating around. But like in the Olympics, when they try things which they might fail at, which they don't try usually in their professional exhibitions, because they don't have to. They're not competitions. But when they push themselves to their limit, and they get interviewed later, and they ask them, what were you thinking about at that time? I haven't heard them ever say anything about what they're thinking about. If you watch them before they do these things, they're skating along, and then they... They're kind of skating, you know, but they're kind of just, like, getting ready to do this thing. They're doing something pretty interesting, but they're getting ready for the test. At that time, they probably think... They're probably discursive of us. If we were doing what they're doing, there wouldn't be any discursive thought for us, probably.

[49:47]

But they're probably, like, thinking, you know... I wonder if I have enough energy to do this, this, and here we come, this is a big one, you know, blah, blah. They're probably talking to themselves like that, or maybe they're saying, Mama, or something. But anyway, they're probably fooling around at that time, just because, you know. But maybe they're not. Maybe in the great moments, even during then, they're not doing it. But when they go up, and they spin around six times, and, you know, come down successfully, during that time, there's nothing going on but that activity. And you ask the most happy at the time, they can't tell you anything. They weren't there anymore. They couldn't afford to have somebody there. It's an illusion, really, that somebody's there doing that. It's really just an incredible feat of the body and the brain. Nobody could think fast enough to tell themselves what to do. Now, when they're learning how to do that stuff, They hear stuff from their coach, which they translate into the motions, right?

[50:50]

And the coach may try it. So it gets into their body. So there are times like that when there's zero, which is fine. I mean, those are wonderful moments. And oftentimes after they come down from those things, they burst into tears. They don't even know what happened until it's over. And then they realize that they've just done one of the greatest things in their life that just happened. Whether they win or not, they're not necessarily into that yet. They just know that they have that moment. And that's one of the great things about the Olympics is that these great athletes push themselves into realms which they won't do. They'll do it in practice, but they don't have people watching them while they're doing it in practice. They're not being judged, you know. whole world's not watching them so they're doing this thing with the whole world watching this is like if they think about anybody watching them they won't be able to do this they think that the people in the audience or the judges if their mind goes off and that they won't they won't be able to do it have you ever done anything like that you know you know you do not have to you cannot think of anything else but it and so those are great moments but

[52:08]

when the discursive thought is available, without having some special physical challenge, we have a meditation challenge. And if you felt, if you gradually can convince yourself that it's really important, almost as important as winning the Olympics, that you learn how to do this, you gradually, in a gentle way, encourage yourself to give up that discursive thought. Because those athletes too, some of them do go into that thing and still hold onto the discursive thought, and you watch them and they flinch, they flutter, they lose it. You can see they go, oh, can I do this? Right while they're doing it, and then they lose it. they are also training themselves to let go of what thoughts that aren't helpful there's many things you can think of while you're trying to dance or something that don't help the dance they just make you tense so you let go of that stuff and feel the experience just as it's being given to you you as you go into the movement you give up your idea about the movement and you see what's being given to your body at that time

[53:21]

And so if we train ourselves in daily life, it's possible that we could enter into that way of being, such that we're so intimate with what's being given us that we just don't get off into the discursive thought. And sometimes what's being given to us is a discursive thought, but we receive it so cleanly and so purely that we don't go with it. It's just a comment, it's just a judgment, but we don't make it into a train of thought. So then we can learn how to do this little by little. Okay? Yes? Copy your name again? Marjorie. Yes? I think, you know, it is very helpful because we, by paying attention, the body itself doesn't, although discursive thought is generated by the body, when we look at the body, the body's not doing discursive thought.

[54:45]

The body's sitting there, Although discursive thought is arising from that body, the body is not doing discursive thought. So by paying attention to the body, you kind of see the kind of mind, the body's kind of metaphor for a mind that's not grasping things. Because especially when a body's sitting, Although sitting is not necessarily the only way to realize this. A body that's just sitting or standing or walking and not trying to accomplish anything by that. See, walking is a little tricky, though, because sometimes people are walking to get somewhere. But it's possible to sit sometimes without really trying to get anywhere. And that body which is sitting there, which is exemplifying not trying to get something, but just to receive. But just the body is emphasizing just the receptive presence. So it kind of like, it's a metaphor for the mind we're trying to find. The body is actually not attached to the body.

[55:51]

So the body sitting there is showing you what it's like to not be attached to the body. And the body's not attached to the mind. The body's giving rise to the mind, but it's not, it just keeps the mind, the body just generating mind after mind, after mind, after minds. Minds are just, you know, gushing out of the body. But the body just lets them happen, lets them go. The body doesn't say, give me that one back. But the mind that the body is generating is a mind that can say, hey, give me that mind back. I want that one again. Let's have two more of those. The body doesn't think. The body doesn't think. Like, the body's not saying, I want more of that. But it generates a mind which can do that. So if you look at the body sitting, the body's kind of reminding the mind of the potential that the mind has to know things and experience things moment by moment, just as they're given with nothing more, because that's the way the body does it.

[57:00]

So that's why paying attention to the breath and the posture sitting are helpful still sometimes people make the posture sitting they think they think the posture says i'm trying to get something by this posture but it doesn't necessarily look like that and also when people come into a room and see people sitting they're saying what are they doing there what you know what are they getting out of that and if you tell people we just sit there and say well what happened what huh But that body sitting there is like that, and you say, well, we're not really trying to get something, but actually, the people who are sitting there, probably in their head, they are trying to get something. But the body isn't. The body does sometimes sort of do actions to get things, but this posture is not an action to get something. even if it is still there is a body which is the body which is letting go of thought so you train your attention onto the body which is letting go of thought you train your attention onto the body which is just receiving what's given your eyes really don't argue they do receive what's given your ears really you know just receive what's given your nose really receives what's given your tongue they just they just receive and

[58:19]

And also, when those sense organs, which are the body of meditation, when they receive things, they're resting. When the sense organs are not resting, they're not receiving. They're processing. And when they're processing, they don't receive. They're responding. which is part of their job, but when they're responding, the responding part is not the receiving part. So eyes, and when eyes are receiving, they're receiving right after they rest, they receive. They receive and arrest it. So the mind also, when it's resting, is receptive. When it's resting, it doesn't break the precepts. It just says, a mess is a mess. Thank you very much. And then in the resting, there's a receiving.

[59:24]

And then in the receiving of the experience, again, if there's resting, there's more receiving. So these things start to flow. But the mind can say, no, thank you. The eyes don't say, no, thank you. If the eyes are busy processing the last thing that they see, they don't say, no, thank you. They just don't receive anything. But when they're receiving, they're receiving from rest, and they respond, and they're active, then they go into the motor phase. So they can't receive, but they don't argue with it. But the mind can argue with what's being given. So training your attention onto the mind, I mean onto the body, trains the attention out to a metaphor for this receptive way of being. trains the mind onto the receptive nature of mind. Because mind is like that too. There's a mind organ like that too. It just receives with no argument. Training your attention onto this receptive, grateful, non-arguing way of being stabilizes the whole psychophysical complex.

[60:33]

And then again, with stabilization, there's an opening to vulnerability, is an opening to the bigger story about things, and the full truth can start to enter the body and mind. We start to move it to insight. Okay, does that make any sense? Any other questions? Yes? Yes. Right. Yeah, right. Yes. Exactly. Right. So when you're in the class, a lot of people think, well, I came to this class, I didn't come to this class not to grasp anything. So I'm going to grasp what the guy says.

[61:36]

Otherwise, I won't get anything. But actually what I also see is that after you come here and don't try to grasp what I'm saying, you're learning what I'm talking to you about. And then now that, but then later in the week, you realize you heard everything I said anyway. And it registered on you perfectly nicely. And if you're trying to grasp actually, that just interferes with you hearing what I'm saying. You are hearing me and you are understanding me. And you'll understand me better if you don't try to get what I'm saying. Not only will you understand me better, but you'll actually be doing what I'm teaching you. And not only that, but you'll be relaxed and scared. Which means you're into the process, actually, rather than just sitting in class garnering information. But you're getting the information anyway. You're not missing anything, actually.

[62:36]

I mean, whatever you're getting, you're getting, and you can't get any more than you're getting. You can only interfere with it by trying to get it. Okay? You're getting what you're getting. Some of you are missing some stuff, probably, because, you know, you're thinking of something besides what I'm talking about. But anyway, what you're getting, you're getting, and the more you try to get, the less you'll get. But not only will you get more, will it penetrate you more thoroughly and settle into you better, but you'll be doing the thing right as I'm talking. So don't... It's not that you don't listen to me. I think actually please do listen to me and look at me. And I don't know if you smell me or touch me too if you want to, but don't grasp me. Just receive me and that... and then I penetrate you and you don't have to hold on to me because I've registered. It's all over. You're successful. Yes?

[63:36]

Mary? Pardon? Well, because, you know, repeated trials of things do make more impact. That's also the case. So if I say this stuff over and over and over, and I don't mind saying it over and over and over because I realize that people forget what I said. So I somewhat hesitate because I think, well, they've heard this before, but I realize they almost never remember what I say. So it's all fresh to them. And it's all fresh to me too because I'm meditating. So it's like, to me, every time I say this, it's like starting over. I don't get bored. And you don't get bored because you don't remember what I said. And then once you finally do start remembering what I said, then the practice is working on you, so then you're happy too.

[64:40]

Because when the practice starts working, then repetition doesn't bother you anymore. But there is a thing of repeating stuff, and the more you repeat it, the better you know it. But clinging to it doesn't help knowing it better. So we do forget it, so we do repeat it over and over and over and over, because also our habits of clinging have been repeated over and over and over. So they've got like plenty of trial and error on that one. So that was well established. This new thing has to be done over and over and over and over and over until this new practice sort of like starts to catch up a little bit with the huge old practice of cleaning and arguing with what's happening. So as soon as you experience something, this old habit's very strong and the new one's very weak, so the new one has to be like, get this special course of being repeated over and over and over. But again, repeating it over and over without clinging to it.

[65:42]

Even me telling you about this, I try to tell you without clinging to what I'm going to say to you. Because if I start clinging to what I'm saying to you, I get tense and the situation gets stale for me. Although I study and think about these things, I try not to grasp them while I'm thinking about them. Because then I get stressed and tired doing the study. So I try to play with the teachings while I'm studying them and play with them while I'm talking to you. So it's a relaxing thing for me too. So I'm actually not getting hysterical while I'm talking to you about this. I'm actually hearing the advice myself and thinking that it's great and calming down while I'm talking to you if I do the practice, which I want to do because I also want you to see that you can do the practice and talk. that you can actually live your life and do this practice. It isn't like you have to discontinue all activity in order to destabilize.

[66:43]

So we do need repetition to develop these new practices. Like, grafting doesn't help memory. We remember best when we're relaxed. We learn best when we're relaxed. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be challenged. So, you know, the good learning situation is, well, we're relaxed, but also we need some challenge to see if we can relax with more challenge. So you don't necessarily make everything totally, like, relaxing for people in the sense, don't say anything to them that might challenge their relaxation. But try to, like, help them be relaxed, and they have to relax, and give them a little push to see if they can relax with that, and if they can, the reward is more of a push. That's the meaning of Rumpelstiltskin. Well, this girl had to spin a room full of straw into gold. And then she got Rumpelstiltskin to help her do it. And her reward was she had to spin a bigger room full of gold into a bigger room of straw.

[67:51]

So your reward of success is when you get skillful is you get more of a challenge to your skill. And you have to keep growing. So we want to balance the challenge so it isn't so much of a challenge that you feel like, this is so challenging, I have to grasp. This is so challenging, I can't just accept what's given. I got to argue. So there's repetition, and then there's also going on to other things. And there's testing of memory to challenge that too. So there's challenges to see if you can hear the material And one of the main challenges is to present material that's interesting, and that challenges people, because when it's interesting, then they think, this I have to grasp. Whereas if it's a boring talk, then people say, this I do not have to grasp. Matter of fact, I'm just going to think about something else. I'm not going to waste this class listening to that.

[68:52]

I'm just going to daydream, which is much more interesting. So I try to be interesting, present material that's really essential to your welfare, And that will save the world. And then see if you can hear that without grasping it. Because it's the most interesting things that you most feel you have to grasp. Like Lucy was saying last week, she can let go of some of the little things, but some of the big things she just has to grasp, right? Stuff that's not going to get you a promotion or save your children's life or something. We think, now, that I have to grasp. But actually, if it's really important, if you don't grasp it, you'll handle it better. Just like a dangerous knife, sometimes handling it very gently is really the appropriate thing to do. And it's very important that you handle this skillfully. So relax in a relaxed, gentle way is a really good idea. Pick it up very carefully. Okay? Dean?

[69:58]

Yes. Hopefully. Hopefully. It is vitality. It is life. So if I come to class and I don't want to be vulnerable, then I probably should just bring my thing here and just read it, and I won't be vulnerable.

[71:11]

This will be interesting, probably. But then I won't be like, and we will be dead. Some people are really good readers. I'm not. So maybe they can have their thing and read it and still find it interesting. But one of the main things that makes talk, I think, vital is when you're vulnerable by not having what you do is you respond to what's given. So I have these notes here, which I kind of looked at for a few seconds during the class, but mostly I'm just looking at you and looking at you in this situation, things come up for me. Stuff just, you know, my body gives me, produces these things to talk about. But I'm kind of vulnerable because it might not. You know, it might not provide anything. Or sometimes what it provides, oh, this is not interesting, but that's what it gives me.

[72:12]

So I sort of like say it even though it's not interesting. Because a lot of the stuff I say to you, I don't think is very interesting. But I try to give it to you anyway because it's what's given. I try to say, no, this is a class, don't talk about that. No, give me another one. No? Okay, that one, I'll tell you. Then I'm sort of not practicing what I'm preaching. But I'm also, you know, you're stimulating me to talk about certain things. So you're also giving, you're also what I'm receiving. And if I receive that with no argument, and respond then to that reception. I receive that and then there's a response to that which is the way I feel and what I say and you're actually being shown the very process that we're talking about here. But I'm vulnerable because what comes is not under my control and it might not be interesting. Like I said last week, I said this thing I didn't plan on saying, you know, I thought this is the end of the class to tell you people to

[73:19]

Not grasping anything, plus don't grasp that I told you that. So I thought, you know, how will they ever find their way back to the yoga room? Or how will, you know. But like Lillian says, even though I say that and I think they'll, if they practice this, they'll forget all the teachings that we brought up. They'll forget to practice them. And that'll be that. So then, you know. But actually, on the other level, I know that if they really did that, then suddenly they'd be walking down the street on Thanksgiving Day and boom. They just suddenly say, hey, I'm just going to rest in this experience. Where did that come from? Where did I hear that? I'm not going to try to find out where I hear that. I'm just going to relax. I'm just going to relax right now in this experience. And here I am, and it's like autumn someplace. At Berkeley, I guess, or San Rafael. Here I am, you know. And the practice is happening without trying to hold on to it. That's my, you know. That's what I believe, and yet sometimes I think, oh no, will it actually happen?

[74:24]

Will I be able to do it? But I think sometimes you do forget, but trying to remember won't help you remember this kind of thing. Just letting it all go, it'll come to you more easily. It's like, what is it, when you try to remember a telephone number, and you keep going, what is it, what is it, what is it? You can't, and then as soon as you go, it comes. You know what I mean? I've learned that, you know, sometimes I would stay up all night trying to remember things. Well, not all night, but sometimes for hours trying to remember something. And I learned that if I would just relax, it pops right up. It's on the tip of your mind, but because you're grasping it, you can't get it. And as soon as you're relaxed, it just pops up. Not necessarily all of a sudden, right away, but pretty much. The hard thing is to really relax and say, not just say, well, if I relax it, do it. You're not even doing a technique, you're really relaxing. You're kind of like, okay, I totally give up. I mean, really, I mean, if I never remember this, it's okay.

[75:25]

Really? Yes. Okay, here it is. It's like, you know, you don't trust your body to give you exactly what you need. Sometimes exactly what you need is that because you're trying to grasp, what you need is you can't have it. Don't treat me that way, your body says. And as soon as you say, I'm sorry, I won't do that anymore, I'll accept whatever you give me, it says, okay, you can have just what you want. Could it really be that wonderful? It is. You have a wonderful body. So it's giving you gifts all day long. It's handing you a sense of the world every moment. It never doesn't. And so there it is, this great gift every moment. All you've got to do is rest in that. Relax in this wonderful flow of being informed about the universe through your body.

[76:31]

And then you'll not only would you continue to receive this gift of the universe through your body, but you'll relax with it and be vulnerable to this great gift and eventually understand it. But it is scary. So I understand the big change. But it'll be okay if you let it happen. You'll be fine. If you get scared, I appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you, Stephen, for playing that. I think other people probably know what you're talking about, too. But I hear that all the time on meditators.

[77:14]

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