sitting on this seat, it may be good to bring forth an expression of faith at the start. Faith being the ultimate concern sitting here, the ultimate concern of sitting here, and the ultimate concern that arises sitting here. based on this ultimate concern.

[01:02]

There may be a practice that's appropriate. The ultimate concern sitting here is the realization of selflessness. and the purification of compassion. The realization of emptiness, which is basically at its core, compassion. Liberation is part of this realization and this purification of compassion.

[02:15]

But this liberation is or I should say this liberation could be of an individual, and that may be part of the process, but this is not about ultimately liberation of an individual, but the liberation of the entire world. It is about the realization of universal compassion, that the entire world would realize it. That's an expression of an ultimate concern sitting here. But maybe there's many here's. I don't know if all the here's give rise to that same intention. Please look and see what is the ultimate concern here.

[03:20]

speaking from here, then the practice that's appropriate for such a concern is is the path of practice to realize selflessness. And the realization of selflessness involves practices of giving, of ethical study of patience, of enthusiasm, of tranquility and insight. Today I would like to talk about the practices of tranquility, the practices of mental stabilization.

[04:30]

The way I talk about this, I think is intimately related to the practice of insight and wisdom. But I'm mainly going to be letting the words about stabilization come first. And I, at this point, intend to stop talking at some point so that you can practice the rest of the day. Although it would be easy for me to talk all day about practices of stabilization because they are endless. Many, many ways to stabilize the mind. our compassionate ancestors have offered many ways, and there's ways that they never thought of that we may come upon in our practice now.

[05:46]

This morning we chanted what we call the Fukan Zazengi, Is that what we chanted this morning? Do you remember? That's a Japanese, fukanzai zengi is Japanese, a way of talking. And you can translate it as the general or universal encouragements for the ceremony of sitting meditation. in the tradition of Soto Zen. And at one point in that text, you may remember it says something about learn the backward step, turn the light around, and shine it inward. Do you remember something like that? So that's what I'd like to talk about, this practice of learning the backward step, turning the light around and shining it inward.

[07:09]

The practice of, the Zen practice of mental stabilization, like the basic bodhisattva practice of mental stabilization, is founded on an unshakable intention to realize authentic awakening and expound the Dharma that's revealed therein for the welfare of all beings. So this practice, again, even before I speak of it, this practice of turning the light around and shining it inward, is based on this kind of intention. The intention to attain authentic, complete awakening so that you might teach the Dharma to all beings, show all beings the way to heal the world.

[08:24]

The practice of mental stabilization, one of the basic ways of speaking of it is that we train the mind to give up all thoughts. So the mind and that aspect of mind, which is mind consciousness, is the area of training of mental stabilization. We're going to train our mind consciousness, our mental consciousness, our awareness of mental phenomena.

[09:35]

And mental phenomena that this mind is aware of are concepts. So the basic training in mental stabilization is to train the mind to give up these concepts. But give them up means give them up. It doesn't mean get rid of them. It doesn't mean suppress them. It doesn't mean run away from them. It doesn't mean to deny them. It means not grasping anything in the mind. If the mind is aware, if the mind consciousness is aware of a concept, this is normal mental knowing. Like, for example, if you, and not you, but if there is an awareness of

[10:52]

If there's an awareness of a zendo now with a bunch of people in it, that's an example of the phenomena of mind consciousness, of mentally knowing the concepts of zendo and people in a zendo. So I don't know. Does anybody here not have that kind of knowing going on now? Does that mean you all do? All got a zendo? No? You all got a cushion to sit on? A black one? The cushion is another example of a concept that you can know. So stabilization occurs when you let go of the concept of cushion and Zendo and Zen students and one day sitting and Saturday and so on. All these concepts you do not grasp. These concepts are something in the mind. And when there's no grasping of them, the mind is spontaneously calmed by that non-grasping.

[12:03]

Someone said to me that she tried to practice this driving to Los Angeles. I don't know what highway she was on, but she said it was kind of like highway, car, other cars, highway, car, other cars. She said, is it kind of like that? Is that how you drive with outgrasping anything? And I said, yeah. And she said, it's boring. I said, uh-huh. It's kind of boring. Another way of talking about this, another way to talk about this mental stabilization is that in this meditation there is no conceptual elaboration. So, This man sitting here, I don't know his name.

[13:23]

Now I do. Now I know his name is Denny, sometimes known as, I bet, Dennis. Right? So here's Denny. But before that I had a concept for Denny. I had a concept that there was a person there, a male person, a male human. That was my concept. That's what I knew. And if I don't grasp that, but just let it go at that, and there's another I got another concept, another male person over there, and I don't know his name either. But, huh? Edwin. Edwin, now I know his name. So now I got an Edwin, male Edwin over there concept. And if I just let it go, in that letting go, and in that not elaborating Edwin or Denny into like, really good looking Denny, nice Zen student Edwin, but just no trains of thought,

[14:27]

And I could get into trains of thought, and so could you, right? You know how to do that. You look at these guys, you think, oh, they're really great. They're sitting in meditation, blah, blah. They're really good at it. They're not good at it. They're better than me. They're not as good as me. Trains of thought are innumerable that you could associate with each one of these. And the more you know them, the more trains of thought you probably have available to associate with them, the more history you could bring. And getting involved in these trains of thought, getting involved in conceptually elaborating on the basic concept that you're aware of, this agitates the mind. And this is normally what people are operated in. And it's not necessarily boring, although sometimes people say that even gets boring. So then what we do when that gets boring is more elaboration. And then that's not boring for a while, and then that gets boring, so then more elaboration, and then pretty soon we're really excited, and then we're really depressed, and then et cetera.

[15:34]

You know about that, right? This is a normal mental elaboration, normal getting involved in trains of thought associated with what you know. And it is getting involved with this stuff. It is getting involved. It is grasping this stuff. It's grasping the concept, grasping the elaborations of the concept. And this is the opposite of stabilization. Stabilization is to give up that. So I just saw one of my disciples, one of my dear disciples, sleeping. I had this concept that she was sleeping. And I can get into elaborating on that, but I'm not going to. And when I don't, I feel calm. But if I get into elaborating on sleeping Zen students, I can get pretty excited. But I don't anymore. So as a result, I'm pretty cool. But, you know, when I was younger and I used to elaborate on concepts, I got kind of scary.

[16:35]

I used to storm around the Zendo screaming at people who were just nice sleeping people. But I was elaborating on the concept of their sleeping. It was interesting, much more interesting in those days. Now I just see sleeping people and just, that's it. That's all I do. I go, sleeping people? Yeah, so what? Anything more? Or like somebody who's not asleep, somebody who's like brilliantly awake. It's hard not to get excited about that and elaborate on that, how wonderful that is to see somebody who's awake. Anyway, it's okay to elaborate on it. But before you elaborate any further, you might consider taking a break just for a while. Just for a while. Just for like about 10 trillion moments until you get trained at not elaborating.

[17:38]

And 10 trillion moments won't take that long, actually. Just a couple of days, you get ten trillion. But if you could, for a couple of days, completely give up grasping, your body and mind would be deeply transformed into a very flexible, buoyant, stable, joyful, and clear media. which is the result of training in mental stabilization. And this then can become the basis for clearly seeing the nature of mind. One of the ways of training in mental stabilization is to Pay attention to the breath. Not just be mindful of the breath, although that's included, to be mindful of the breathing, to be mindful of the breath.

[18:46]

But again, what we're doing here is we understand that what we're being mindful of is an inner image of the breath, an inner image of the breath. To stabilize the consciousness, you focus the attention on an image of the breath, a mental image of the breath. You turn the light around and look at an idea, an image, a notion, a concept of the breath. If you could, if you were able to direct your attention towards an outer breath, an external breath, a breath as an external phenomena, and you tried to focus on that, you would not be able to do so for more than a few seconds. That's why we suggest not to try to focus on physical

[19:52]

external phenomena, but to turn the light around and focus on, take the backward step and turn the light on inner images of the breath. And then if you can look at this image of the breath, And for example, the image of the breath, the idea of the breath in the exhale, the idea of the breath on the inhale, the idea of the breath at the idea of the nose, the concept of the breath at the concept of the abdomen, wherever you want. But have a very clear image of what breath you're talking about and focus on that. And then again, when you focus on that concept, then don't grasp the concept, don't elaborate the concept of breath. Don't grasp that thing in your mind called the breath. And every time you see that thing in your mind called breath, that image of breath, don't grasp it.

[21:01]

Which also means don't elaborate on it. Don't. get involved in trains of thought associated with it. Someone asked me, what about long breath or short breath? Isn't long elaborating on breath? Not necessarily. It could just be the concept long breath, which again you don't grasp, or short breath and you don't grasp, you just have concept long breath, short breath. For some reason or other, because this concept of breath has something to do with the physical phenomena, which is the basis of the concept of breath, you might come up with the concept long breath. Now somebody else might look at that breath and say, it's a short breath. You want to see a long breath?

[22:03]

Here's a long breath. Look at this one. But someone else might look at what they thought was a long breath and call that a short breath. And so on. Do you understand that long and short are concepts? There's not a really long breath or a really short breath. And there's not really even a really breath. But for now, if you have a concept of breath, you can look at that concept and see if you can pay attention to that concept whenever it appears with no elaboration so that that concept is fixed as simply that concept. And the fixation of that concept of that mental representation, breath, in training in the fixation of that mental representation, the mind is calmed, is stabilized. And when the mind is calmed, the body is calmed. Now when the body is calmed, that often helps set up the situation for practicing calming the mind.

[23:12]

That's why we have this schedule where you can try to set the body in such a way that the mind can sit still. So with the mind being still, with giving up using your body in complicated ways where you feel tempted to conceptually elaborate on your body. You just have this one sitting body, and then you practice no conceptual elaboration of the body, and then no conceptual elaboration of the breath. So the body also is something in your mind which you don't grasp. You've got this body sitting. That's a concept of the body sitting. You don't grasp it. You've got the breath. You don't grasp it. You don't elaborate on the body.

[24:17]

You don't elaborate on the breath. If this is allowed, this non-elaboration, this non-conceptual elaboration of the breath is allowed, then this non-elaboration can spread to all other concepts. Like there was a sound, and the sound, I had a concept that the sound was from above, that the sound was in the roof. that the sound was associated with the concept of the roof. It was a roof sound. There's another one, did you hear it? Sound in the roof. A roof sound, that's a concept. So if I can listen to my breath or be aware of my breath, which means be aware of the concept of my breath with no elaboration, that can spread to hearing the sound in the ceiling sound concept with no elaboration of that.

[25:38]

And then it can spread to seeing the faces, each different face with no elaboration, so that little by little, You can look at anything, but basically you're not really moving from object to object because, I mean, you are moving from object to object or face to face or sound to sound, but the meditation practice is that you're always focusing on the same thing, which is, no matter what happens, you're always meditating on the same thing, which is what? What? letting go of the concept, no elaboration. So I heard this, my mind was aware of a concept of somebody clearing the throat. Did anybody else have that concept happen to them? at least the person whose throat was cleared, maybe that they would have that concept, but not necessarily.

[26:43]

Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I can have the experience of a throat being cleared, which means I can have the experience, the mind experience, of the concept of throat being cleared, but the person, the concept I have for the person who I think is clearing the throat, that person might not have that same mental experience. Can you imagine that? Like this morning during the second period of meditation, I had repeatedly the concept, I was aware of the concept, coughing. Did anybody else have that experience during the second period? Hmm? Coughing. I even had the concept of male coughing, but I'm not sure it was a male. I had also the concept, maybe female coughing, but I thought it was a human cough. So that concept arose in my mind, and I was aware. I knew that concept. Maybe there was no one coughing because I checked with some other people. This didn't happen to them.

[27:44]

They didn't have this concept of a coughing person that they knew about. Or maybe they knew it, but then they forgot because they're elderly people. But some of the young people maybe can remember that, right? You still have short-term memory. See, this is mental elaboration. Lots of fun, right? Teasing old people. So anyway, the concept breath, sometimes we pick that one, give it a special seat, a special position in the meditative project of the day.

[28:52]

And we keep an eye on the breath, but again, it's not just keep an eye on the breath, it's keep an eye on the breath and see if you can not grasp it, or rather see if the mind can be trained, the attention can be trained so that whatever it knows there's no elaboration of it. So it's like you take the elaboration equipment and you train the elaboration equipment to imagine that it can't elaborate. So a concept of a woman's face arises and it's known And the mind, the consciousness which knows it, has the capacity to know, and that knowing just knows. It does not elaborate. But there's other aspects of mind which you might call the imagination.

[29:56]

Imagination is a different function of mind from just knowing. So there's knowing of the image, And then there can be the imagination of trains of images associated with that image. And those trains of association, if they're allowed to go untrained, if those trains are untrained, they cause disturbance. But if those trains are trained into not getting involved with themselves, the mind calms. So a woman's face arises, the trains of thought are there, but there's no indulgence in them. The conceptual elaboration potential is not activated. And this calms the situation. A concept just arose, here's the concept, the concept, and this is kind of like an elaboration.

[31:06]

I, you know, I'm producing these words, these elaborations on this basic thing of no elaboration. So it's like, you know, people, human beings go to college and get degrees and then they go study Zen and their parents say, well you're not using your college education. You know, you train to be a physicist or a lawyer or a nurse or something, and now you're going to be a Zen student. What's all the education going for? Similarly, you have this fantastic imagination. I think most of you do. So there's something like, well, what about this imagination? You're not using it when you do this stabilization practice. But again, you are using it for the very difficult imaginative project of imagining that you can't imagine anything other than what's happening. So if it's a breath, you imagine that all you can do is say, breath.

[32:10]

And if something pops up there, like long breath, short breath, you say, you don't grasp it. Whenever you know anything, in some sense the mind grasps it in the process of knowing. But the trains of thought associated with it, the mental elaborations associated with it, those are not grasped. And the mind is calmed. You don't need to have the breath to practice on. The breath is a sample. you know, kind of like a recurrent sample of a concept to train yourself on. You could use something else to train yourself on. Matter of fact, sometimes when people sit a long time, pain becomes very strong. And so, although they intended to, what do you call it, to position the breath in the meditation in a prominent place to pay attention to, In fact, the pain stands up and gets a prominent position.

[33:14]

But again, if pain arises, you can do the same practice with the pain. In other words, you don't elaborate on the pain. And the trains of association are connected with the pain. You don't get involved in those trains. Like, one train is, how long has this pain been going on? Another train is, I wonder how long the pain will go on. How long has this period been going? How long is there to go with? those trains of thought naturally arise in association with pain. There's well-established mechanisms to measure pain whenever it arises. So the stabilization will be when the pain arises to not grasp the conceptual elaborations which are blooming out of the pain. if we don't grasp those associations, don't get involved with those associations, then the phenomena of pain, when seen with no mental elaboration, is an opportunity through this non-elaboration for stabilization.

[34:26]

Maybe that's enough. Do you have any questions about that? About the stabilization practice? Yes? How important is the labeling piece? How important is the labeling piece? The labeling piece, how important is the labeling piece? Do you want to give me an example of a labeling piece? How important is the labeling piece? As soon as you're aware of the breath, it's already labeled. So it's not exactly important or not important, it's given. You're given, every time you're aware, every time the mind consciousness knows something, it knows a label. So it's important in the same sense that consciousness is important, namely it's your life. Your life is that in the realm of conceptual consciousness you're swimming in words. You go from word to word to word to word, from concept to concept to concept. So it's just part of the setup of your experience.

[35:40]

The training, however, is to not elaborate on that word. But again, or words. Concepts can be a word like breath, but it can be a concept like long breath. That's another concept. Smooth breath, rough breath, subtle breath, coarse breath. Those are concepts. or boring, boring breath. But then you have boring breath, and then you have a conceptual elaboration of boring breath is, I have better things to do, or what's for dinner, or whatever. All kinds of blooms can come from boring breath, and all kinds of different blooms might come from subtle, exquisite, spiritual breath.

[36:43]

That's also a concept. Now, that maybe sounds like mental elaboration of breath, but it can happen so fast that what you're dealing with is subtle breath. Okay, there's the concept. Now, can you resist the habit to elaborate on that? And the answer is maybe, maybe not. But you're training at giving up the elaboration. The potential elaboration's always there. You have a great imagination to elaborate, and it's called just like restraining that GIVING THAT UP. JUST DEALING WITH WHAT'S GIVEN. MOMENT BY MOMENT, WHAT'S GIVEN? [...] AND THAT'S IT. SO WORDS GIVEN, ANOTHER WORDS GIVEN, ANOTHER WORDS GIVEN, ANOTHER WORDS GIVEN. DOES THAT MAKE THAT CLEAR?

[37:43]

Yes? Sometimes in sitting. Sometimes in sitting. She said, sometimes words don't arise for a long time. What does arise? Does anything arise? What? Like what? Warmth is a word. What are you thinking? Well, I'm suggesting to you that warmth, in the realm of mind consciousness, warmth is a concept. You may not think it is, but it is. There is another level of consciousness

[38:48]

of direct sensory experience where there is awareness of the physical phenomena of warmth, for example, could be a tactile sensation. It's in the realm of mind consciousness where our mind becomes agitated and upset and frightened and angry and so on. In the realm of sense awareness, there's no conceptual intervention, no conceptual mediation, there's no agitation, basically. but it might be possible that there would be a lapse in mind consciousness, but mind consciousness usually only lapses in drug states, physical injury to the head, deep sleep, deep dreamless sleep, and certain very advanced yogic states, which unlikely that we would fall into very often, but maybe you have one of those.

[39:51]

But in those states, you don't have any... So you might be in one of those states, but those states are usually the result of very advanced mental stabilization. or you don't have any mind consciousness, mind consciousness is radically suppressed. So you might be in one of those very advanced yogic states, but if you're not, then basically what you're dealing with is maybe not a big fat word, warmth, but you have some kind of concept that you can call this warmth. And if I would say to you, so you may not be able to sense that it's a word there, but there may be a word there anyway. If you don't have any thoughts coming up, then there's not going to be any mental, if you don't have any thoughts come up, there's not going to be any trains of thought associated with the thought, so you're not going to have any opportunity to train in stabilization. But also if you have no thoughts coming up, you don't have any destabilization either, because you're not going to have any elaboration on nothing.

[40:58]

So this instruction is for ordinary agitated people. who have concepts arising and who are involved in mental elaborations of the concepts and therefore have destabilized minds, agitated minds, disturbed minds, and afflicted minds. However, by training in the stabilization, we can actually become free of affliction. The mind can temporarily at least be relieved of affliction. Permanent relief of affliction requires insight. But when you attain this stabilization, your mind actually is temporarily unafflicted because the affliction comes from this jazzing things up. Yes? Is there anything after boredom? Anything after boredom? Boredom actually is another mental elaboration, conceptual elaboration, which it makes sense.

[42:05]

It would be appropriate. I mean, it makes sense to apply boredom to highway, car, 65 miles per hour, highway, you know, Bakersfield, blah, blah. This simple, this kind of thing, it might make sense to apply the concept boredom But sometimes, even though boredom may arise, the point is you don't indulge in boredom either. It's just boredom, that's it. And then boredom, boredom, boredom, that's also boring. But after a while, the train of association of boredom with boredom may stop. So is there anything after boredom? That's another mental elaboration. being concerned for how long the boredom has been going on, like it's been going on for, it's been going on for now seven hours, the boredom's been going on. I must be a very advanced Zen student. I mean, most, in the past, I wouldn't have been able to tolerate boredom for more than about three minutes. And I've been bored all day.

[43:06]

This is fantastic. So that train of thought may arise, but the point is, the training is you don't get involved in that train of thought. The train of thought of boredom, the train of thought of what the boredom means, how long it's going to go on, how long it has been going on. These trains of thought may arise, the imagination may still function, but you don't feed it. You don't elaborate on elaboration even. So then the elaboration really doesn't have any impact anymore. It looks like elaboration, but really it's just the next concept. In other words, you become what before was all stuck together is now independent, free phenomena. And the situation opens up and it no longer is sticky and blocking and oppressive and heavy. So the buoyancy factor develops and the pliancy of the mind starts to develop.

[44:09]

As we indulge in these, in the process, everything starts getting stuck and blocked and clogged and choked. As you don't indulge in these processes, things start freeing up. And so as you become proficient at this stabilization, one of the main signs that you've realized it is that the body-mind become pliant. you might perhaps just as active as before but you're so pliant it's like nothing's happening because usually when something's happening it pushes you around. Now there's a feeling of free flowing among all this phenomena. Yes? I'm trying to understand very correctly between an outward directed mindfulness and inward directed mindfulness.

[45:14]

Right. Yeah. So it might be, it is actually, you know, if you like, if you like try to look at like, I don't know what, but like to see that candle over there on the altar, if you would like try to focus on that candle, Really what I'm looking at now is the concept candle with the flame on top of it. That's what I'm aware of is the concept of that. But there probably is something physical going on too that leads me to come up with the concept of candle over there. If I would try to train myself on the physicality of it and you have objective measures of electromagnetic radiation being sent or not sent from that point, and I try to focus on that, and you have behavioral criteria set up for me demonstrating that I'm paying attention to that, then the mind cannot stay focused on external objects for very long.

[46:17]

You can do it for a little while. You can pay attention to external things for very long. Partly because physical sense functions have to be changing all the time. The eye is built so that if you keep stimulating the same place over and over, the stimulation stops. You have to keep looking at different things in order to keep the physical organ moving. You have to stop using it for it to recover because it's a physical phenomenon. But the mind doesn't have to... You don't have to stop stimulating it. It doesn't have to recover. So inner images actually... can be focused on for hours and hours, but outer images can be focused on or paid attention to only for a few seconds, maximum basically of three. Three seconds is quite a few moments of experience. So you can try to focus on external objects, but you won't achieve mental stabilization by looking at external objects.

[47:20]

So in In some of the techniques, you actually start with an external object, like a picture of a Buddha, a painting of a Buddha. You look at the painting of the Buddha. But you're actually looking at a concept there, but you train that external concept. But if you try to look at, try to actually focus on that wall, on the picture on the wall for long, you can't do it for very long. But you can look at different parts of it and accumulate lots of information so that you can make an inner image in your mind of the Buddha, and you can focus on that. or an image in your mind of a color, and you can focus on that. That you can be stable on. But if you actually try to look at blue out there steadily, you can't do it for very long. So that's why we're talking about learning, turning the light around, looking at an inner image. That stabilizes the mind if you can do that. Okay? Does that make some sense?

[48:23]

Yes? Yes? You're saying if you have? Okay. Yeah. No. What you realize... Well, part of what you will come to understand by this process of meditation is not only will the mind become stabilized, but you'll understand... more and more deeply that what you're dealing with in mind consciousness is concepts. This will lead you to the insight. Like, for example, now you're looking over in my direction. If you see this person, what you're seeing is something in your mind right now. So turning the light around partly means that you understand that whatever you're looking at is your mind. It's not that there's nothing over here. but rather that what you're aware of is something that your mind's creating in response to electromagnetic radiation bouncing off my face and going over and stimulating your eyes.

[49:33]

But when it stimulates your eyes, that stimulates certain chemical processes which stimulate your brain, and your brain creates an image. And that's what your mind consciousness is aware of. And it's your mind consciousness that we're training in stabilization. So, also, my voice, let's say you're focusing on the breath, If a physical phenomena, a physical event happens, a mechanical event like my breath, some kind of breath hits my throat and creates a mechanical wave which moves through the media of air and stimulates your head and around the ear, that then gives rise to a concept of somebody's voice, maybe Reb's voice. So you're focusing on the breath, but you're focusing on the concept of breath, and then you understand that what you're focusing on is the concept of breath, and then you realize that what you're hearing is actually a mental experience.

[50:37]

You're actually cognizing the concept of a sound, of a voice. So you more and more understand that everything you're seeing is concepts. Everything you're hearing is concepts at the level of mind consciousness. So mind consciousness knows concepts of sounds, concepts of colors, concepts of smells, concepts of tastes, concepts of tactile phenomena. And those concepts then can be elaborated, like you can have a concept of blue, and you can have a concept of... I don't know what. It's harder to speak of the concepts, the basic concepts for smell because we often have very elaborated conceptual representations for smells like smell of roses, smell of lavender. So we have these names of flowers for gases that we're sensitive to.

[51:41]

And we cannot know, in the mind, we cannot know colors more than we have words for colors in the mind consciousness. We only know the number of colors we have concepts for. But at the level of direct sensory experience, we can respond to millions of different kinds of electromagnetic radiation. Millions of different kinds means millions of different wavelengths. And our body responds differently to these different wavelengths, but we don't have nearly enough concepts to represent all of our physical experience in the realm of electromagnetic radiation. And different people have different mental experiences of light depending on the concepts they have for them. So different English speakers, some English speakers have thirteen words for colors. Some adult English speakers have thirteen words for colors.

[52:48]

Some have two hundred. The ones who have two hundred are going to have a different conceptual experience than the ones who have thirteen. They're both rendering relationship with electromagnetic radiation into concepts, and that's what they're working with in their mind consciousness. At the level of sense consciousness, both people probably are responding to millions of different colors and have millions of different actual physical responses to those different inputs. But we don't know them in the realm of conceptual knowing. So we're training ourself in the realm of conceptual consciousness. And there, whatever word you have for color, whatever word you have for sound, you look at that and have no elaboration. Now, it is possible, once you become stabilized, it is possible to narrow the stabilization more and more. And then finally, you only are aware of blue, or you're only aware of breath.

[53:52]

And actually you get to a point where you don't hear anything, you don't see anything but breath or blue or whatever it is. And that's when you go into these even more elevated states of concentration called the jhanas. But mental stabilization, your concentration can get to a level where you could step into those jhanas, but you're still hearing a wide variety of things. But whatever you're, I shouldn't say hearing, you're still relating to a wide variety of concepts. But each concept you relate to in the same way, namely no mental elaboration, no conceptual elaboration, no conceptual... And you could then tighten that up so that after a while you would actually not even have different kinds of objects. Because just as you are able to focus Basically, on one thing, the one thing you're focusing on is no conceptual elaboration. So whether it's a face, or a ceiling, or a sound, or a pressure, or a temperature, whatever it is, basically you're always doing the same thing, namely you're not elaborating whatever the concept is.

[55:01]

that same focus then can be used to actually, after a while, only have one object, one concept, that you're also not going to conceptually elaborate on. But you can have mental stabilization and still have concepts like this, breath, pain, person, male, female. But each one that arises, no grasping, [...] no involvement, no [...] elaboration, No elaboration, no elaboration, no elaboration, no elaboration. So you're focused on no elaboration. And there's a variety of things, a variety of concepts that are not conceptually elaborated. And if you can be consistent in that, you attain pliancy, buoyancy, clarity, and bliss, which is the nature of a mind that's trained in this pattern. if you're training this way but you haven't yet been consistent and there's not the pliancy yet, there's not the flexibility and buoyancy and clarity and bliss, we call that training which is in conformity with intensive concentration on this kind of stabilization.

[56:21]

So you may be training properly for quite a while before this kind of like it's like, you know, this transformation occurs. Even though you're actually training properly, it takes quite a while to get it to be so steady that you actually experience this transformation of your body-mind state. Yes and yes? Pretty, love, no grasping, no grasping. The pretty. Pretty, yeah. Love. OK, pretty, love. Those are concepts that you could be aware of. Right. Yeah. So they're coming from... Oh, you mean where do the concepts come from? Right. You mean how does our imagination work? Yeah.

[57:24]

That's kind of like another study course of studying how does the imagination actually pump up these images, like pretty, ugly, male, female. But anyway, the mind can do this. So mind has this basic ability to cognize things or to know, but it has all kinds of other functions. And one of the most wonderful functions it also has is imagination, namely that the human being has an imagination which can produce images. In other words, there's an image-making function of our mind. How that works is another big and interesting discussion. Imagination loves to talk about how it works. But that's sort of a different discussion, which will someday be appropriate and you'll be much more effective in the study of the imagination once you give it up.

[58:29]

Because giving up your imagination is the same as giving up conceptual elaboration. And when you give it up and achieve stability, then in a state of stability you can really creatively study and understand more deeply and clearly how you can actually see how the imagination does its thing. You can actually see the imagination sort of in the workshop, popping up the images. It's also possible to have access to imagination through scientific study. So that's also another access to come through it. Through biological investigation, you can also come up with information and understanding of how the imagination works. But through mental stabilization, you can actually see the lived experience of how the imagination works. But stabilization is to temporarily not get involved in the theories, the conceptual elaborations about how conceptual elaboration functions.

[59:37]

And so it's Fred, and then Dorit, and then Lena. So it seems to me that we all are caught in a world that lives with concepts. trying to get a sense of, I'm caught in getting a sense of who I am in my world, let's call it at home, in this world of concepts. So we all, most of us have this, you could say a world caught in concepts, but another way to say it is we all have, a big part of our life is conceptual awareness. Conceptual awareness is the conceptual world, is the world of concepts, and we are caught in it. Yes. [...]

[60:42]

It takes time. Well, it's a concept that takes time anyway. I'm talking about taking on a practice, yes. Moment by moment. Yes. So this is a big question, okay, which I'm willing to deal with, okay? It's a question of... One way to understand this question is, he said it would be easier to do mental stabilization in such and such a situation, like here. It's always, by the way, it's always easiest to do mental stabilization here. Okay, that's always where you practice it. Because here means here is another concept. In conceptual consciousness is where you want to practice it. Now, I just read this article in the New Yorker, a good article, and one of the terms that was brought up in that article is areas of moral clarity.

[61:51]

Okay? We need, in order to do this practice, you need areas of moral clarity. So, for example, this day here, It may be the case that we have created in this one-day sitting an area of moral clarity. That means that morally speaking, here in this room today, it may be okay with the world if you practice mental stabilization. Now, some of you may have some doubts about that. But actually I think Fred's saying it seemed to him like maybe this area right here and even that seat right where he's sitting is an area of moral clarity in the sense that it's morally clear to him that it would be okay with all of us and even with his friends and relatives if he would just sit here today and practice mental stabilization. Is that maybe morally clear to you, right?

[62:53]

Is that right? That maybe it is? Yes? Yes? But if you leave this sitting and you go to work on Monday and you're answering telephones, I think that might not be an area of moral clarity because you might not be clear that morally speaking you are being supported by your environment to practice mental stabilization. Even if it's a Zen center and you're working in the office, you may not be clear that your co-workers in the office are supporting you to not get involved in conceptual elaboration while you're answering the telephone. It may not be clear to you that that's a moral clear ground to do that practice there. Now, what is the area of moral clarity in the office? The area of moral clarity in the office would be It would be morally clear, I think, you could clarify this by talking to your co-workers and your meditation instructor and your preceptor.

[64:00]

You could clarify that in the office, an area of moral clarity is pay attention, stay awake. If you feel really sleepy, maybe you should ask for a break so you can go take a nap. But basically, in the office, try to stay awake. When the telephone rings, answer it, soon. In other words, no more than three rings and try to answer the telephone within three rings. But for example, you might be able to clarify that it is morally okay to let the telephone ring twice before you answer it. And that when the telephone rings, it's okay to become aware of your breath for a moment and then answer the telephone. That might even help you answer the telephone in a more friendly and present way. So then everyone in the office would say, yeah. And then you feel a moral clarity that that would be a good thing. So we actually set up a day like this so there's an area of moral clarity where you feel it actually is okay to sit and not conceptually elaborate on your experience.

[65:12]

But there's other areas where you would have to clarify that it was morally okay, that the other people you're relating to would support you to do that kind of practice. And they might not. So then you find some other area of moral clarity. For example, probably it's morally clear that it would be good not to hate them for not letting you focus on your breath. That would be another area of moral clarity. So you have moral clarity is what supports you to follow a meditation schedule, sit still, and then you discuss with yourself that it's actually morally okay for you to do this, that you're not being irresponsible. So some people are sitting in meditation in their house, the telephone rings, and they feel like they're irresponsible not to answer the telephone because maybe somebody needs their help. So that's the great advantage of answering machines, if you can listen to them, because then you can hear.

[66:15]

But then you can say, but that doesn't work either because they might not give a message, and somebody might really need my help, but then they won't give a message. So you say, I still might be irresponsible and being too selfish. Maybe somebody needs my help. So what you need maybe is somebody else to answer the telephone for you. while you're sitting in meditation so that you can feel like, I'm not being unkind and selfish to sit here. Because somebody else will pick up the phone. And if it's an emergency and somebody needs your help, they'll tell you. Then you feel like, I'm sitting here. I'm not being selfish. I'm not stealing. I'm not taking what's not given. The world is actually supporting me. I've got somebody answering the telephone. I'm willing to help people if they need it. But maybe right now I can take a break. So I told this story many times. I was in France one time. I went to this museum in Paris, and in this museum I saw this statue of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion.

[67:24]

And she was sitting cross-legged with her hands in our regular meditation mudra, and she was sitting in a cave. Usually Avalokiteshvara is out in the streets or in the hospitals or at the deathbed or in the middle of all kinds of situations where people need help. And she's there embracing all beings, expressing compassion and trying to help in an effective, wise way. And she has, often she carries a vase with a lotus coming out of it. She's holding the vase with one hand and the lotus with the other. These are her attributes expressing her brilliant and beautiful response to all beings. But next to her sitting place were two shelves, and on one shelf was the vase and on the other shelf was the lotus. So even the being of infinite compassion can take meditation breaks Sometimes. But she checks it out. She says, can I take a meditation break?

[68:28]

Somebody else is going to have to be on duty. So can I sit for a little while to stabilize my consciousness? If you don't feel that the world is allowing you to practice meditation, then when you sit, you're going to feel like, well, I need to keep elaborating on this stuff because otherwise it might be irresponsible. You need to be convinced that that it would be all right for five minutes or an hour or whatever that you don't have to be elaborating on what you're thinking. That it would be okay for you to let your mind stabilize in this non-grasping. And there's many Buddhist texts which are saying to us over and over that actually in order to really help people you need to develop the skill, that it's not necessarily selfish. That's why this developing the skill needs to be based on a great altruistic intention so that you remember you're doing this not just for yourself.

[69:30]

And if you doubt that you're doing it to yourself, you should check with some of your friends and maybe even some of your enemies to see if they say, yeah, please do this. So you need to be morally clear And so you need to create these situations for yourself. So coming to one day sitting maybe is morally clear. And then outside of here, you have to check to see, is it morally right for you to be practicing such and such a religious exercise, such a spiritual exercise? And if not, then I think you need to give up that and find some other area where you are morally clear. And by working in the areas you are morally clear, other areas of moral clarity start to open up. But if you start with moral unclarity, then you're usually half-hearted. And half-hearted involvement in areas where you're not morally clear, they tend to lead to more areas of moral unclarity and more half-heartedness. So I think it's better to pick some area, even tiny little area, maybe some really low-quality practice, but that you're really clear is good.

[70:42]

and that you can really give yourself 100% to. That's why I think it's better to 100% give a penny and be completely clear, it's good to give a penny, and I want to give a penny, and I'm completely giving this penny, not partly giving the penny, than to give a dollar and not be morally clear and give it sort of half-heartedly. If you give a penny... and it's morally clear and you do it wholeheartedly, then you're going to maybe take a nickel and eventually be able to give a dollar or ten dollars or your whole life and be morally clear that this is a good thing and be able to do it completely. And then it just continues to open into more and you find more and more areas where you can be clear and wholehearted. So you do need to work on this. That's like, I see you, and I'll do, Dorit, I think, is next.

[71:48]

It sounds like you're saying that one of the goals, maybe that's the wrong word, of practice is to reduce concepts in your mind. No, not to reduce them. To eliminate them. Did you say eliminate? Not eliminate, to let go of them. Yes. See, that's very good that you noticed that because somebody said to me the other day after one of these classes, he said, so you should get away from concepts? No, you don't get away from them. Getting away from concepts is another form of conceptual elaboration. Do you see that? Got a concept? To get away from the concept is conceptual elaboration. To go towards the concept is conceptual elaboration. To eliminate, to reduce, these are conceptual elaborations. To not grasp, to let go... That's a conceptual elaboration too, but the actual letting go of the concept is what we're talking about. In letting go, it sounds as though to me you're saying that spiritual practice doesn't involve the imagination.

[73:00]

No, it does involve the imagination. So she says it sounds like I'm saying spiritual practice does not involve the imagination. And all I've been talking about today is the imagination, basically. I'm talking about, she says, it sounds like I'm saying spiritual practice doesn't involve imagination. What I'm talking about is imagination is like one of the main dance partners of the meditator. So the meditator has to learn how to dance with the imagination. Huh? Yeah, that's the way you dance with it, is to let go of it. Just like if you're dancing with somebody, you have to let go of them. If you don't let go of, huh? It depends on the dance. And whatever dance it is, you let go of them in a different way. Because if you have a fixed idea of what letting go, then you won't have different kinds of dances. If you hold the other person, there can't be a dance. You have to let them go.

[74:01]

And then when you let go of them, then something else happens. You don't get it? Well, I'm not a very good dancer. But if you don't let somebody go, if you're dancing with somebody and you're not letting them go, you're missing the dance. That's what I'm saying. You don't understand that? Well, if I come over there and hold you still and I don't let you move, okay, is that a dance? If I sit on you and you can't move, is that a dance? Huh? What? If I just sit on you, you can't move. That's maybe a certain kind of dance, but, you know, it's called the squash. No, it's called the mashed potato. When you dance with something, you let that thing move with you. You know, you let it move.

[75:04]

So spiritual practice is definitely involved with the imagination. Definitely. Definitely, definitely. But the way of being involved with imagination is in an unattached way. It's like touching it and letting go. It moves this way, you move that way. It's like you can move freely with the imagination. But we usually... In ordinary life, people are stuck in their imagination. They have habits of imagination. Their imagination is not freed. So spiritual practice is to work with the imagination in a way that frees it. And the first step that I'm suggesting is just let the imagination be. Just like if somebody's dancing with you, start with what they're doing before you get into judging them and saying, well, that wasn't a very good move. Don't do that. Do this. Work with what they give you first. I understand what you're saying. Perhaps I'll talk to you later about it. It seems like when you say, think blue, don't think beyond that, think this and then stop, that seems like a negation of imagination to me.

[76:08]

It seems like a negation of imagination, and I understand that it seems that, but what I'm saying is it's using the imagination in a new way. It's using the imagination to imagine, not getting involved with the imagination. It's still an imagination. Yeah, there you go. See, that's an example of dancing with me. Hey, there you go. Who's next? Okay. It's great that people have more questions, but I think that some people probably had enough, right? So maybe this is like, you know, in our endless practice together we'll deal with more, we'll keep studying. This is actually another way to talk about mental stabilization is studying the imagination. But it's studying the imagination through letting it go, not eliminating it.

[77:14]

And in some sense it's imagining a new relationship with the imagination called not exploiting it, not using it, letting it go. It's imagining that you're just going to accept whatever the imagination gives you. Imagination can give you new things every moment. Every moment the imagination gives you a new image, Right? It's working. And a sign that it's working is that every moment you get a new image, [...] it is working. And so we're talking about imagine that you would just accept what the imagination gives you and say, every moment, whatever it gives you, you just accept it and say, thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. Thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. Thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. Thank you. [...] And it's going to keep giving you new stuff. And the more you say thank you, the more it's going to offer you more stuff.

[78:15]

It's going to say, you said thank you for that. Well, how about can you say thank you for this? And you say thank you, say, wow, you said thank you for that. Well, how about this? Can you say thank you for this? Yes, thank you. How about this? Yes, thank you. How about this? Wait a minute. This is too much. That's flipping back into mental elaboration. That was okay up to this point, but now this is too much. This shouldn't be happening. My mind should not be offering me this image. No, no, no. This is like not saying thank you. This is mental elaboration in the form of saying things are getting out of control. I've had enough of this. bring back the control, get this thing under, you know, this is mental elaboration, is no thank you. Things shouldn't be going this way. I shouldn't be thinking this. I should be thinking more beneficent thoughts, more effective thoughts, more productive thoughts, more economically feasible thoughts, and so on. But stabilization is the way of dealing with your imagination, which is whatever it offers you, thank you.

[79:17]

Whatever it offers you, thank you. Whatever it offers, thank you. Thank [...] you. Not thank you and give me more. Thank you. Not thank you, thank you, give me more of that. Thank you. Take it away, thank you. Bring it back, thank you. This is how the mind stabilizes. It is working with the imagination, but it's working in the thank you very much, no complaints whatsoever way of working with the dance of the imagination. So that whatever dance it's offering you, now it's a tango, you say, thank you very much. Say, now we've changed to a different dance, thank you very much. Now it's a different dance, thank you very much. Whatever it's offering you, you say, thank you. OK? No conceptual elaboration. Thank you. [...] Very much. No complaint whatsoever. Same way with everything. Same way with everything.

[80:19]

And the mind calms. And then from there we enter into insight practice. But today is a good day to practice shamatha. Don't you think? So is it okay if we stop then and practice Samatha to the best of our ability? It's a hard practice because, you know, the strong habit is, no thank you. Give me something different. Or I can come up with something better than this. This is a strong habit. So this training is a It's a difficult switch from, no thank you very much, give me something different, agitation, to this simple, no elaboration, settling.

[81:23]

It's a big change, but sounds like this is a thing you could work on today. Is it okay with everybody if somebody works on it today? Okay, thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever. No, I don't think so.

[81:44]

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