I introduced mainly about four terms last time. One was calm abiding or shamatha. The other was, going with that, special insight, vipassana. And then another term was absorption. dhyana, and then another term, samadhi, which is the main term. Samadhi literally means to be settled or resolved or firm or decided. And... I'd like to start again tonight by saying that, first of all, the word samadhi is used to designate a factor of mind, and I'd like to say mind, consciousness, and cognition,

[01:35]

Have those be synonyms for this class? Mind, consciousness, and cognition, those three words. That in all states of consciousness, there are some mental factors, besides just the basic consciousness, besides just basic cognition, in any experience of our life. There's a Buddhist teaching of the psychology of that. There's also not just knowing, but there's... There is mental factors associated with all minds. Also in Buddhist teaching, all minds, all cognitions are subjects. And in the sense that minds or consciousnesses are subjects, and subjects have objects.

[02:44]

So all cognitions have objects. There's fairly good agreement among the Buddhist teachers from way back. that there are ten particular factors of consciousness, or ten particular mental factors associated with all cognition. And I laugh because I could tell you all ten, but I don't know if you want to hear them. Do you? You do? Okay. So here's the ten. First one that I mentioned is Samadhi. which means all cognitions have the quality that the cognition, the consciousness, is one-pointed with the object.

[03:49]

The subject and the object are one point. Now again, sometimes people think, oh, that the subject's one-pointed on the object, which is true, but again, I emphasized last week that It's not that subject's over here, one pointed on the object. The subject and object are one point. You can't pull the subject away. There's really just awareness of the object. That's samadhi. Next one, next characteristic of all minds is called sparsha, which means contact. that there is actually like, it's as though mind and object touch. And actually, there's some kind of organ function of the mind by which it's able to touch objects. So the mind object and mind organ, they touch, they have a quality of touching. Another characteristic of all minds is that there's some feeling.

[04:53]

there's some sense of evaluation of what's happening. Another characteristic of all minds, and that's called Vedana. Another characteristic of all minds is that there's some conception available, which is called Samya. Another characteristic of all minds is that, well, whenever the mind, whenever the subject does pay attention to an object, it seems, it's kind of like, it looks, it kind of feels like, or looks like, or it feels like if you look at yourself, or it looks like if you look at somebody else, like they kind of decide, the mind kind of decides what it looks at. There's lots of possible things that could be happening in a given moment There's lots of possibilities in every moment in this life. But our mind always picks one thing at a time.

[05:59]

So if the mind were just ready for whatever, and then many things could happen, but if I look over at Fred, Like right now, if I look over at Fred, it's as though I decided to look at Fred. Or I advert to Fred. So this is apparent. But I also could advert to Donald. Or I could advert to Robert. Richard. Robert Richard. You know, the mind can go back and convert to many things. So whenever the mind pays attention to something, it seems like it shows that... And that's a characteristic of experience, that it seems like we choose to pay attention to something. And then another characteristic, and that's called adverting decision or approval or whatever. It's called adimukti.

[07:03]

And the next characteristic of mine is that when, if I, like now I'm just like looking straight ahead, being ready to pay attention to anything but have not focused in on anything yet, And when I turn towards Fred, that's my decision, but also I'm in a certain shape because I'm looking at him. Whereas if I look over here at Carolyn, I'd be in a different shape. So the mind is modified or shaped by what it looks at. That's called manasikara. Manas means mind. It's the shape of the mind in terms of how it's bent or modified towards what it seems to have been paying attention to. Another characteristic of mind is called chanda, which means desire for action. So every state of mind seems to want to do something. It actually doesn't do anything, but it wants to. And all minds have that quality. Is that 10?

[08:13]

That's enough. I need to stop here. How many was it? I feel like there's one missing. Well, let's see. We have Samadhi, Sparsha, Chanda. Oh, yeah, you're right. Here's one more. No, I'm not calling them. Another one is called chaytana. The Sanskrit word or Pali word for consciousness, one of the words for it is chitta, which again means basically to know. And chaytana means sort of like of the mind. Chaytana means the overall shape of a conscious experience. If you're thinking about wholesome things in a very kind of clear way, your mind is shaped in a wholesome way by the mental factors that in addition to these ten would be present.

[09:19]

So in a wholesome state of consciousness, in addition to these ten, you might have the desire to not harm. You might have faith in practicing meditation. You might have a sense of wanting to live as an expression of self-respect. and you also might want to express concern to get along with other people. These are other mental factors that could be present in the mind, and if they were, and there wasn't much else besides the ones I just mentioned, that state of mind would be kind of shaped in a wholesome way. Similarly, if you have the intent to harm, you don't care, you don't have much respect for yourself, so you don't feel like, you know, you feel like whatever creepy thing you do would be okay, you have no confidence in practice, and so on and so forth. If you have those mental factors, the shape of that mind would be kind of like inclined towards or shaped in the direction of unwholesome action. So Chaitana, the shape of the mind, the overall pattern of the mind, how the different factors work together, that's actually the definition of karma, of action.

[10:26]

And all states of mind have a particular shape. Okay? So we have samadhi, cetana, chanda, sparsha, adimukti, manashikara, vedana, samya. Two more. Did I say any other? Did you already? Well, I can't remember. For this class though, the one I'm emphasizing most is Samadhi. I'm working on a way to make a picture of these different meanings of Samadhi. If I ever get one that I think is really good, I'll draw it and make copies and give it to you.

[11:31]

Now, tonight, the picture I'm going to draw is like this. Originally, I drew something, I drew it like this. I had one circle, kind of a small circle, and then surrounded by a larger circle and a larger circle. And the inner circle I wrote as samadhi, as a dharma or a mental factor, So samadhi is in the center one. Samadhi is in the center one, and that's samadhi as a factor associated with all minds. All your minds, all my minds, and all everybody's minds, they always have, in every conscious experience, they have this quality of mental one-pointedness. So when I first do it, I have this little circle, but in some sense, this should be kind of a large circle, maybe a circle that has a lot of area, because in one sense, in terms of population, all conscious beings have this center, it's kind of samadhi.

[12:45]

Okay? And then, in some sense, the next circle should, if you think in terms of how many people have this next kind of, this next thing, this next circle could also be called samadhi. But before I call it samadhi, I would call the next circle dhyana. D-H-Y-A-N-A. Dhyana. And dhyana means absorption, but I think I told you last week that the nature of dhyana is samadhi. Now, all your states of consciousness, in a sense, have the nature of samadhi, but it has those other ten factors, too. And in most people, you wouldn't necessarily say that the nature of their state of consciousness is samadhi because they don't act like that and they don't feel like that. In other words, they don't really feel like... The main thing that's going on in my life right now is one-pointedness of thought.

[13:55]

Maybe sometimes you've felt like that. Have you ever felt like that? Maybe you have, and when you have, you can tell us about what that was like. I mean, if you had, you can tell us maybe later what that was like at the moment like that. But a lot of people, they don't have any idea what that's about. I just looked at Dave, and earlier, before I looked at Dave, I thought of this person I got ordained with as a priest. He's a carpenter. His name's Paul Disco. And one time he wrote me a letter from Japan about planing wood. He went to Japan to train as a carpenter, and he told me about this experience he had of spending many hours just planing wood and having these transparent pieces of wood shavings come off from his plane, one after another, just very thin pieces. And he was very happy.

[14:59]

I think he was in this kind of dhyana, almost. where the state of mind is really manifesting, fully manifesting this quality of mind in an uninterrupted fashion, in other words, moment after moment, feeling one-pointedness of mind. So the second word, dhyana, in a sense, dhyana also is, you could say, is samadhi. It's... It's now, though, a state of consciousness which is getting named dhyana and subtitled samadhi because samadhi is so strong in the jhana. And not too many people... I drew the circle around the other circle, but I didn't mean to say that... That's a problem that's drawing. I don't mean to say that this jhana circle includes all the other people who are not in jhana.

[16:02]

So the people who are in that state, they don't necessarily feel like their mind includes all the other people who are not in a state with manifest one-pointedness of thought. Does that make any sense? In other words, some yogis who can practice jhana, their minds are very concentrated in an uninterrupted way. They're absorbed into the one-pointedness of thought. but they don't necessarily feel like their mind includes all the minds of beings who are not in that yogic state. And that's the problem of having it be around, is that it kind of implies it and includes it. I'm trying to think of some other way to draw it. But anyway, there's a second meaning of samadhi, which is samadhi as jhana, samadhi as fairly fully realized one-pointedness of thought.

[17:04]

And then I have really actually two more circles. I have trouble reaching over there. I have two more circles. This circle here is also I would call samadhi. And the other one I would call samadhi too. This samadhi... Actually, maybe I could go samadhi one, two, three, and four. This samadhi is now what I call a super mundane samadhi. This samadhi, this quality of consciousness is a quality of consciousness of all mundane mind and super mundane minds. This kind of jhana could be a quality of mundane mind but also could be a quality of a super-mundane mind, but it's particularly referring to a yogic state that isn't particularly super-mundane.

[18:16]

It's just simply a kind of like perfectly, what do I say, it's just this phenomena of being fully mentally one-pointed. There's not necessarily any understanding of ultimate reality yet. But in this samadhi, this samadhi, this third samadhi, is a samadhi which would be associated with understanding ultimate reality. And it would be a samadhi manifesting understanding of, excuse me for saying so, signlessness. And it would be a samadhi which would be understanding or settled in, firm about, wishlessness. And I said ultimate reality, and I'll call that emptiness. So here, we have realized mental one-pointedness, and we are settled into facing these three aspects of ultimate reality.

[19:31]

If we have time, I'll talk to you about the details of these three types of samadhis here. These three samadhis are called the three doors to liberation. When we're settled in awareness of signlessness, wishlessness, and emptiness, we are liberated from suffering. And this circle is super-mundane. But if you had realized this level of samadhi, it doesn't preclude, it includes, could include that you're also in a state of concentration, and it would include that you have this quality of all your consciousnesses, which is at one point. It's just that if you, if you, everyone has this center circle, if you realize the outer circle, the next circle, then if you, if you go to the next circle, in addition to having the basic nature of consciousness, of mental one-pointedness, and now having fully manifested that through your meditation practice, you now have come to understand these three qualities of liberation.

[20:45]

But you still include the kinds of concentration practices that a yogi who has not yet entered your sphere, who has not yet entered the super-mundane samadhi. So the super-mundane samadhi includes the worldly samadhis, and also includes the normal nature of a human mind. But most human minds do not practice meditation sufficiently to realize much, not to mention fully, of the nature of their mind. So most people are in this center circle and not knowing much about where they are. As you meditate on this quality of one-pointedness, you move it into this realm. In this realm, you not only understand these qualities of mind and manifest them, but you understand the qualities of everything, which is by these three samadhis. And in terms of Buddhist history, the early Buddhist schools understood these three samadhis.

[21:49]

Then we'll move to the next circle, and these are what you might call the later Buddhist or the Mahayana samadhis, the samadhis of the great vehicle. And these samadhis, in some sense this circle is infinitely large because it holds infinite number of types of samadhi and also infinite number of beings who have realized this samadhi. The number of beings that have realized the center circle are the number of beings that, you know, that have lived in the history of this planet. A large number, but anyway. We kind of know how many that is. The next circle is a number of fairly, either people who are training in yoga, if we want to let them into that circle, or people who have attained this kind of absorption. We kind of know how many of those there are.

[22:53]

And any time in history, there's not too many. I don't know how many there are on the planet right now. But you know, in the thousands, not the millions. This circle, this outer circle, is even a smaller circle. That's among those yogis, the ones who have understood the truth. The smaller number, again, maybe in the thousands or hundreds rather than millions. This outer circle is infinite number of beings. These are all the enlightening beings and Buddhas. There's no end to them. there's infinite numbers of these Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and the Samadhis are also like infinite in number, like there's no limit to them. This is like Buddha mind out here, but also this mind completely penetrates the other realms, completely includes them, no obstruction. And so I'd like to, I don't know how much time we have, but anyway, I'd like to talk about all these different circles

[24:00]

in this class. And I brought tonight with me, I don't know if I should pass it out, I'll tell you a little bit about it later, but I'm going to tell you a little bit about it now and I'll tell you more about it later. It's a description of this outer circle. that we chant in Zen temples of the Soto lineage. And I'd like at some point to pass this description of this outer circle of samadhis to you. But before I do that, I want to go back now to last week to mention that in order to enter this second kind of samadhi, and not to mention the third kind of samadhi and the fourth kind of samadhi, in order to enter those samadhi, we need to practice shamatha, we need to practice calm abiding.

[25:18]

and higher insight in order to move from our basic nature of having mental one-pointedness thought to move into a way of actually realizing that. Feeling it, experiencing it, understanding it, and actually being able to act like that. And so I started by talking about shamatha. And tonight, I just want to say something about shamatha and vipassana, or calm abiding and special insight. These two together, when they become united, they will make it possible for us to enter into samadhi. To make a long story short, so I can talk about both of them quickly, for starters. The calm abiding could be described as not moving, and you could say period.

[26:30]

Calm abiding is not moving. But then I could also say training in calm abiding is training in not moving among objects. or among different objects. So we talked last week about, well, how come people might not have a sense that their mind is mentally one-pointed? How come they don't feel this quality of consciousness, which is the source of calm and concentration? And we thought, because we jump from thing to thing. We seem to experience our mind as moving from object to object, from different object, from one object to another object, to a different object, to a different object. We seem to feel that way, right? Everybody knows something about that, right? I mean, do you? Anybody not? So now we're talking about training the mind not to fight that or deny that, but train the mind to not move among the different objects.

[27:39]

Now again, what some people... I'll stop there. So that training, to train the mind to not move among different objects, is calming. And then the insight practice is to give up the distinction between the different objects. So one is this object seemed to be different. We seem to be meeting different events. Hot and cold, male and female, left and right, good and bad, pain and pleasure. But you're training your mind not to be moving from one to the other, to somehow not move in the midst of all this information. That's calming. If you relate to these things in that way, that calms the mind. And as the mind calms, then it is joined with another kind of training, which is giving up the distinction between the different... objects, or you could say seeing that they're the same.

[28:44]

When those are joined, the calm and the insight, then we enter into samadhi, which is one pointedness of thought and also understanding one pointedness of thought. In other words, understanding that the object is not separate from the subject. That's calming. That's samadhi. And in that kind of samadhi, it's characteristic at the center, and it pervades all the other samadhis. And as it moves out, the realization of it becomes more and more wonderful. Yes? By not moving above all the supernatural, Grasping and not rejecting.

[29:48]

OK. So she said, by not moving among the different objects, do I mean not grasping and not rejecting? And I would say that's one of the ways to talk about what it's like not to move among objects, is that this object, that object, that object, that object, They're different, but as they arise, I don't move among them. In other words, the way I'm training my attention is not to move. So I see Donald, I see Rochelle, I say Elena. These seem to be different objects, but I don't move when I see them. How do I not move? Well, one way to not move is don't grasp Donald, don't grasp Rochelle, don't grasp Elena. So the different objects seem to be given to me, but I don't move. I'm just like, you know, what do you call it? I'm just a catcher. Catcher doesn't run all over the place most of the time, right?

[30:48]

Just sit there and... So you're a catcher who never goes after fly balls or whatever. or what do you call it? Foul. What do they call it when they hit it on the side? Foul balls. You don't go after foul balls. So this basically, so that, Elena gave one example of one way to talk, one type of way to try to teach calm abiding. There are, there's no limit to the ways people try to teach people to practice calm abiding. there's no limit to them because they're just ways that come from your heart to want to help people calm down I'll tell you okay but before I tell you I want to say that Val mentioned to me that it might be good for me to talk a little bit more about what I said about the practice of treating everything the same treating whatever comes the same he said for example would you treat your wife the same as someone you just met

[31:50]

Or how would it be that you would treat your spouse the same way as someone you just met? Well, one way would be don't grasp your spouse and don't grasp the person you just met. Another way would be that when you meet your spouse or you meet someone for the first time, you don't seek anything other than what you just met. Is your name Maggie? So I meet Maggie, and I don't seek anything other than what I just met. I meet Richard, and I don't seek anything other than Richard. I meet Neil, and I don't seek anything other than Neil. I meet Karen, I meet Mimi, I meet Gloria, whoever comes, I don't seek another person. In other words, I meet everything the same. And that, if I meet... And I meet my wife that way, too. I don't seek another wife.

[32:54]

I don't seek another wife. I don't seek another wife being the way she is. If she's crabby, if she's happy, if she's nervous, if she's pleasant, if she's grateful, if she's loving, whatever, this is my wife. I don't seek another one. And if I always practice not seeking anything other than what she is, the mind calms down. So I wrote down here that there are many one ways of relating to everything. Or there's many ways to meet each thing the same way. So here's some other ways. One way is wherever you go all day long, if you can, but particularly when you're sitting in meditation, I think it's easier, no matter what comes from inside, so to speak, or outside, You just meet it as the Buddha's teaching. No matter what it is.

[33:54]

If somebody spits in your face, you receive it as Buddha's teaching. If someone gives you a beautiful gift, you receive it as Buddha's teaching. If someone slaps you in the face, if someone gives you a massage, you receive it as Buddha's teaching. That way of relating to it, your mind calms down. Another story, a story about this is one of the stories that turned me to Zen, which many of you have heard about before, was a story of a well-known Zen master. I didn't know he was a well-known Zen master when I heard the story, but turns out he is famous. He was a famous Zen master in Japan. It's a story about, to make a long story short, he was falsely accused of some misdeed and strongly insulted and attacked for this Miss D, which he didn't do, okay? This is like big insult, unjustified, in your face.

[34:59]

And when that happened to him, he said, is that so? He didn't try to defend himself at that time. His basic thing was, is that so? Then later, people found out that he wasn't, he didn't do this thing, and they came and they apologized, and they said what a fantastically great Zen master he was, and he said, is that so? And when I heard that, I just thought, yeah, that's the way I want to be. You know, to not, you know, like, freak out when i'm insulted and like melt when i'm complimented but to be able to relate the same with each thing of course they're different of course it feels different to be insulted and uh reviled and abused than it does to feel appreciated and supported and all that but the practice i'm talking about is to treat it all as the buddha's teachings Another way to talk about how this kind of way of treating everything is another way would be, meet whatever comes, whatever comes with complete relaxation.

[36:15]

Whatever. And people have trouble with this, but, you know, I'm pretty well convinced. Often they say, well, what if a mugger comes? And I really feel, from my experience, like if you're in danger, being relaxed is really good. It's not that you don't know you're in danger. You can see this thing coming at you. It's just that you relax. And you can, like, do something appropriate because you're not frozen with fear. Like, for example, do you know how to stop a charging bull? Yeah, take away his credit card. Humor often disarms violent situations. You know, what it's called, Woody Allen's the great example of that, right? He developed all these wisecracks to protect himself and the big kids in his neighborhood in New York. He's still doing it, protecting himself and the big kids.

[37:21]

So, martial artists... The artists, anyway. People try to learn how can you relax when someone's throwing you through the air. It doesn't help to tense up. So that's my thing. I fell off the bicycle. I wasn't present enough to relax and relate to the sidewalk in a kind of relaxed way. I just went totally stiff. So I broke. My martial arts were not so good at that moment. I didn't relax and do something like flowing with that cement. So I paid the price. Great. Another way to relate to everything the same, I heard on a record, this woman said, let me not forget to tremble. I thought that's another way to relate to everything.

[38:27]

Now, I think she was talking about meeting Jesus or something like that. This was a Christian singer. But maybe she wasn't limiting it to some small Jesus. But anyway, when you meet the divine, don't forget to tremble. Don't forget to be in awe. So try not to remember to be in awe of everything you meet. Not to be in awe, but as just treating everything the same. That, again, will be a way to calm down. Another one is whatever happens, whatever comes, basically say, thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. somebody spits in your face, maybe not bad if somebody punches you or something like that, maybe not good to say it out loud because they might hit you again because they think you're teasing them.

[39:32]

But inside you say thank you very much to everything. The mind calms. So you can think of, there's many, many ways to think of how to relate to whatever happens with basically giving up distinctions. giving up the, you know, basically thinking about what's happening. So the basic principle here is that the mind is trained, if the attention is trained to be, is trained on, how did I put it? mindness the mindness of mind or the the consciousness of consciousness if you train your mind onto the consciousness of consciousness in other words consciousness knows things period it just knows it doesn't like know and and argue there are other facts there are other aspects of mind which are sometimes present sometimes not

[40:38]

that argue with what's happening, that ask for something different, or that try to keep what's happening to last longer. But knowing our consciousness itself, it just knows. It just knows, it [...] just knows. That's all. It just knows. It knows concepts, and it knows percepts. It knows directs perceptions, and it knows cognitions, I mean concepts. There's conceptual knowing and direct perception. But in both cases, the mindness of mind is just the simple knowing of what's happening, just a simple awareness of the object. And in this way, if you train your attention towards this simple way of relating to everything, which always is going on, you're training yourself Not on the concept, but on this non-conceptual way of relating to things.

[41:40]

And your mind calms through this non-conceptual way of relating to everything. So these, anyway, these are ways of calming the mind. And there's many ways to put it. And that's just some of them. Well, maybe I wanted to talk about one other thing that Donald suggested me to talk about is how do we practice or how do we meditate with what we don't understand or when we don't understand, how do we meditate?

[42:48]

And So I'd like to talk about that because that relates to how you move from meditating in these inner circles to these outer circles. Because when you start to do the super mundane meditations, you're meditating on something that, in a sense, you can't grasp. It's not exactly that you can't know ultimate reality. You can know it, but you can't grasp it. You can know it, but in order to know it, you have to face not knowing. In order to understand it, you have to face not understanding. So facing emptiness and signlessness and wishlessness means that you come to a place where you're settled enough, where your samadhi's ready to start looking at the unknown, or you're starting to look at what you can't understand and what can be understood but cannot be understood by grasping onto wishes, signs, or substances.

[44:21]

Fine, yeah. S-I-G-N. And signs refer to the way the mind grasps objects as out there. And so we have to do that. In other words, In order to hear this teaching about these meditations, I have to put words out there, and in order for you to understand my words, you have to put signs on my words so you can grasp my words and get meaning. We have to go through that. It's like with children, in order to teach them Buddhism, you have to basically teach them the life of Buddha and a bunch of other stuff. In other words, we have to use myth. to put stories out there, and then people put signs on the myths, and then you use the sign of the myths to get meaning. And then after you got the meaning, then the meditation comes in. And again, meditation instruction, which originally is a myth to you.

[45:23]

So you use a myth of a meditation to understand how to demythologize the myth. But we have to, like, sign things first, and then later we go through and take the signs off. When we take the signs off, we take away the separation between the knower and the known. But in order to receive the teaching about how to take away this separation, we have to have words and make signs on them so we get the meaning of how to, like, get rid of the signs. We have to go through this. Jennifer? Super-mundane, I guess, means that you're liberated. from, you're liberated from the world. But it doesn't mean you're someplace else. It just means that you're free of it.

[46:27]

And it's possible to, of course, we can see that everybody, all people that have any problems or who are in any kind of bondage or slavery to the way they think or their culture, or their family or their job or whatever, everybody has Samadhi. And some of those people who are still sort of hung up on the world and still enslaved by their own mind, concentration states, when you're actually in them, you're temporarily unafflicted by your ignorance, by your attachments, by your slaveries, by your bondages. But as soon as you stop being in the Samadhi, it comes back again. When you move into the supermundane samadhis, when you understand those things, you don't even have to be in the concentration state anymore in order to not be caught by words and images and cultural forms and myths. So supermundane means free of the world.

[47:32]

And the outer circle is beyond freedom. It's like beyond liberation. It's about compassion. And it's about reengaging with everything inside the circle. It's about reengaging with those who are liberated. It's about reengaging with the yogis who are concentrated and temporarily free of affliction. And it's about reengaging with all beings who have the same kind of mind, but who have not yet entered into meditation at all. or who are, you know, starting to meditate. So, okay, that's also super-mundane samadhi. But it's a samadhi that is totally non-dual. This is non-dual, too. This signless wishfulness and empty samadhi, it's also non-dual. But it hasn't moved into the full range of compassion that the outer samadhis bring into play.

[48:37]

Richard? The outer samadhi contains an infinite number of beings. How is it? The center one contained all conscious beings that ever lived. The second one contained thousands or tens of thousands. The earth contained hundreds or a few thousands. And then the fourth is back to it. How is it? Well, another way to talk about this is that, again, the center circle is the basic mechanics of mind. Everybody participates in it. We don't know much about it. Now we're starting to learn about it. As we learn more about it and we start doing various practices, we start to actually not just understand it mentally, but actually start to enact it through these calming practices. And we enter into the jhana states.

[49:40]

As we move into the next level of samadhi, we enter into kinds of settledness and concentration where we start to look at objects which are liberative. And this liberation that happens there is, you might say, a psychological liberation. In other words, you are psychologically liberated. Okay? In the outer circle, the liberation is not psychological. It's metaphysical. It's not what you think is happening. You are now entering into the actuality of liberation of all beings. Another way to put it is these two center circles our basic teachings on the nature of mind, developing meditations which realize the nature of mind and use that wonderful quality of one-pointedness to make us feel good and more flexible and energetic, blah, blah, blah.

[50:52]

The next level of samadhi is a conceivable liberation, a psychological liberation and a conceivable liberation. In other words, you know you're liberated. Isn't that nice? You know you're liberated. Okay? The next level of samadhi is inconceivable liberation. It's not about you knowing that you're liberated. As a matter of fact, it's about you not having much concern at all about whether you're liberated. This circle is about liberating individuals. Circle 3, samadhi 3, it's about liberating individuals who are practicing these samadhis. These individuals who practice these samadhis, and when they do attain liberation, many of them, of course, would like to liberate the whole world. So the early Buddhists who attained liberation, of course they wanted to work for the welfare of all beings, of course. But anyway, their liberation was their liberation, which they want to then share with other people who were liberated and help other people who weren't liberated to become liberated.

[51:56]

But this was a conceivable process, a psychological process. The outer circle is inconceivable. It's not about me getting liberated. However, these earlier stages of liberation and practices make possible this outside one. It's not about me getting liberated. It's not about you getting liberated. It's about the entire world. It's inconceivable. And the biggest circle is inconceivable. And the fact that there's innumerable numbers of beings working in that realm is one of the smaller problems to try to understand conceptually. Okay? So, yeah. And so Buddhism teaches basic mechanics of the mind, teaches how to use knowledge of that, so that you can enter into states of concentration which are immediately beneficial and ameliorating certain kinds of afflictions.

[53:00]

And then these then can be worked in such a way to move into some other samadhis which could liberate you, the meditator. And not just liberate you, but also make you more skillful at helping other people. But still it's in the realm of the conceivable. And there's stories, if you read stories about Buddhism, you'll hear stories about people having conceivable liberations, and that's very happy news when that happens. You're happy to hear about other people doing it, having that happen, and to yourself, of course, it'll be very nice. The outer circle is the circle of the Mahayana Sutras, the Mahayana scriptures, the great vehicle scriptures. That's about the world, the actual world of how it really happens, and how it really happens is... we can't conceive of it. Okay? But there are types of liberation which you can conceive of, and we can talk about those.

[54:02]

And there's a certain number of beings in those realms, you can count them, But in this outer realm, that's the total picture. And Buddha supposedly taught that way at first, and people said, do you have some other way of talking? And he changed his way of talking and went back to a way that people could conceive of. So he backed off of the inconceivable teaching. And then after a couple of thousand years or so, his disciples let the inconceivable teaching out again. Yes, Gloria? I really accept that people are going to be stuck with this big one here if I don't see it. Good. The donut. The donut? The donut. Yeah. I mean, that's what it feels like to me is the inner circle and then the outer. It's like the inner circle. It includes the hole in the donut and everything around the donut. That's what keeps coming. So... The inner circle is the hole? It's the hole in the donut.

[55:05]

And then the outer circle is everything outside of it. But the outer circle is not outside the inner circle. The outer circle totally penetrates the inner circle. You understand that? I do understand that. But what's the problem? Because when you see a donut, the outer circle is also in the inner circle. All right, that's true. Uh-huh. That's a good point because that's another part of the outer circle is that the people in the inner circle who don't know anything, actually, if this was an empty circle, they would be on the outside too. Yeah, and that's part of the inner circle is the people in the inner circle can't believe they're on the outer part of the circle, but the people in the outer part of the circle know that they're totally touching the people in the inner circle. So, in the later teaching of Buddhism, this one very big scripture called the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Flower Adornment scripture, in chapter 37, which is the chapter that's most popular, it's called the Manifestation of the Buddha, how the Buddha actually manifests.

[56:18]

And in that section, the Buddha says, now I see... All living beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas, but because they have attachments and false views, they don't see, they don't understand it. So actually, the people in the center are totally possessed, everything in the whole picture, but because of some attachments and false views, they don't realize it. People outside understand they're not separate, people inside don't, but actually they are connected totally. totally but they think they're not and that counts because they believe what they think we need quite a bit of we need we need usually

[57:22]

I don't know, quite a bit, but we need to work with ourselves so that we're relaxed, so that we're not grasping, so we're not seeking anything else, so that we're appreciative of whatever comes, so that we relate to everything as though it might be the Buddha's teaching specially for us. We need to work with ourselves in this way so that we can receive what's happening and relax with it enough so that we can open to, you know, the deep quality of everything, the superficial quality of things we like and we don't like or we're somewhat afraid of or not afraid of, but at least we can get a hold of them. but the deep quality of things is that they can't be grasped.

[58:26]

In order to face the deep quality of our life, we have to also be able to face the unknown. And without preparation, facing the unknown is very frightening. First of all, it's kind of like boring, useless, I have better things to do, get out of my face, irritating, But as you relax more and more, it becomes more and more frightening. And then, after a while though, you get comfortable as you go deeper, past the irritation, past the frustration, past the sense of not getting anything out of the meditation practice, past feeling like you've wasted many years of your life sitting, past all this, Then you come to the fear. And then by relaxing with the fear of the unknown, you become more and more comfortable facing the unknown.

[59:34]

And if you're willing to face the unknown, you can face the way things are. So we have to develop patience, relaxation, and calm. And we also have to be somewhat enthusiastic about this to apply our energies in this way. Then we move into the concentrations and we move into the first kind of samadhi, the liberating samadhis. So this weekend I'm doing a workshop at Mount Madonna about fear and anxiety to talk about how we can face these fears and get closer to what's happening. Look at all the different types, not all, but many types of fears we have as we approach the truth. But again, if we approach the truth and become afraid without simultaneously

[60:39]

cultivating these samadhis, we'll probably just back away and do something, you know, more superficial that's, you know, not so challenging. And I, so I brought this, this chat with me and it's, It's kind of a nice paper. It's not the highest quality presentation, but I brought this and you can have it, but if you don't want to have the responsibility of receiving it and taking it out of this room and bringing it back for future reference, You could take it now and give it back to me, and I'll bring it to class so that only, you know, not everybody has to remember to bring it.

[61:44]

Of course, you can also take it and not bring it to class. That's okay. Anyway, I have copies of this for you, and we could read this together. This is words. This is a conceivable presentation to you. Words, which you can put signs on and grasp and get meaning, and then... And the meaning you get will partly be telling you how to let go of the meaning you got, let go of the signs you used to get the meaning. Anyway, I dare now to pass this out to you. Maybe could you help get it back in the packages? You don't get one. So, on the top of this piece of paper, it says, On the Endeavor of the Way. And that's the name of the text that this is taken from.

[62:45]

This is part of a larger text, not much larger, like about 30-page text, or 15-page text. This is about one-tenth of it. So it's about how to practice the Buddha way. And this section of the text is, this section is called the self-receiving and self-employing samadhi. It's about a samadhi It's about one of these inconceivable samadhis. It's a samadhi where you're aware of how you receive yourself, how your self is given to you, and how that self is given to you, how it functions. So usually people already have a self.

[63:47]

Like they come to the yoga room or something, or they go to work, and they go into the yoga room, They open the door and they walk into the room and practice yoga. That's the usual way. You've already got yourself. This is about an awareness where you don't already have yourself, where you get yourself. You're aware, you receive yourself. Usually when you have a self already and then you go into a room and do something, then the way you act there is called the already received acting self. This is the activity of a self which you witness being given to you. You watch it being given to you. And the way this self that's given to you functions is like what happens in this story here. So I just thought we'd just read this and then maybe every time we would read this just to have some exposure of a description of the world of the outer samadhi.

[64:52]

of what can happen in the great samadhi of the Buddha's mind. Okay? So could we read this together? Now all ancestors and all Buddhas who uphold Buddha Dharma have made it the true path of enlightenment to sit upright, practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. Those who attain enlightenment in India and China follow this way. This was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmitted this method as the essence of the teaching. In the authentic tradition of our teaching, it is said that this directly transmitted, straightforward Buddha dharma is the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable. From the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scripture, you should just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind.

[66:00]

When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal in the three actions by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddhist seal, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Because of this, all Buddha photographers, as the original source, increase their dharma bliss and renew their magnificence in the awakening of the way. Furthermore, all beings in the ten directions and the sixth round, including the three lower rounds, had once obtained pure body and mind, realize the state of great emancipation and manifest the original face. At this time, all things realize correct awakening. Myriad objects partake of the Buddha body and sitting upright under the Bodhi tree, you immediately reach beyond the boundary of awakening. At this moment, you turn the unsurpassably great Dharma wheel and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned.

[67:08]

Because such a broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, you will in Zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past and realize the essential Buddha Dharma. Thus you will raise up Buddha activity at innumerable practice places of Buddha Tathagatas everywhere, cause everyone to have the opportunity of ongoing Buddha-ray and vigorously uphold the unknowing Buddha Dharma. Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, pebbles, all engage in Buddha activity, Those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by the Buddha's guidance, splendid and unthinkable, and awaken intimately to themselves. Those who receive the water and fire benefits spread by the Buddha's guidance based on the original awakening,

[68:10]

Because of this, all those who live with you, speak with you, will obtain endless Buddha virtue and will unroll in the inside and outside of the entire universe the endless, unthinkable, unnameable Buddha Dharma. All this, however, does not appear within perception because it is unconstructedness and stillness. It is immediate realization. If practice and realization were two things as it appears to an ordinary person, each would be recognized separately. What can be met with recognition is still realization itself because realization is not reached by a deluded mind. in stillness, mind and body, to rise in realization and go beyond enlightenment. Nevertheless, because of today's self-fulfilling samadhi, without disturbing its pottery, removing a particle of dust, is its creativity in the incomparably profound and subtle teaching.

[69:17]

Grass, trees, and lands which are embraced by this teaching together radiate a great light and endlessly compound the sea-fruitable, profound dharma. Grass, trees, and walls bring forth the teaching for all beings, common people, as well as sages, and they send it to dharma for the sake of grass, trees, and walls. Thus, in the realm of self-awakening and awakening others, it invariably holds the mark of realization with nothing lacking. Realization itself is manifest without ceasing for a moment. This being the soul, the dozen and even one person in one moment, imperceptibly accords with all things and fully resonates through all times. That's in the past, future, and present of the limitless universe. This is Arsene Garry's core Buddha's act to you endlessly. cause an equally wholeness realization.

[70:21]

This is not only practiced while sitting, it is like a hammer striking emptiness. Before and after its exquisite feel permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment? Hundreds of things all manifest through original practice from the original face. It is impossible to measure. Know that even all Buddhas in the ten directions, as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, exert their strength, and with the Buddha's wisdom tried to measure the merit of one person's zazna, they were unable to fully comprehend it. If you'd like to take this home as you can, otherwise you could give it to me and I'll bring it to class next week, and we might read it again then. So this is the outer circle. And I'd like to then go over the relationship between the different levels of the practice again and again with you and fill in gaps in your understanding and practice.

[71:26]

In the meantime, maybe you can practice the shamatha practice, as we talked, of just trying to find one of these many ways, one of the many ways, or several of the many ways, but work on one at a time, to try to meet everything the same. And see if that can be something you can get more and more attentive to and notice how that calms the mind. Thank you very much.

[71:55]

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