What I'd like to do this morning is talk some about the comment I mentioned at the end of yesterday. This is a Pali curve, I'm sure there's a Sanskrit equivalent, and it's clearly seen. So what I've been talking about is psychic awareness. And then bringing that awareness to our everyday life. Both those moments, those glimpses of ease and freedom. Those moments of connection and concentration. And also, as I was saying yesterday, spreading this white light and including whatever light.

[01:55]

One of the background themes I've been developing is the four foundations of mindfulness. And the third foundation is when you look at mind. And then the fourth foundation is sometimes called content or formulations of mind. And then more traditionally it's called dhamma or dharma. You know? Everything, when seen clearly for what it is, teaches the Dharma. And that's the primary teaching of this coin. Well, maybe not the primary teaching, but one of the teachings of this coin. So how do we bring forth this kind of mind? How do we bring forth the mind and attentiveness that

[03:01]

clearly sees what's going on. Oh, this feeling. Oh, this story. Oh, this thought. In contrast to being cooked by it, by being swirled around, by figuring out right and right, whatever the tendencies of mine are to do. And then I mentioned another coin briefly where I mentioned Yangshan asking his teacher, Guishan, saying, well, what do you do when 10,000 things are coming at you at once? What do you do when there's all sorts of ideas and thoughts and feelings going on all at once? Yeah, don't. And essentially, Guishan says, don't grasp any of it. Let it flow like a stream. And then the further instruction he offers, he says, awareness is like a ball floating on top of a swift-flowing stream.

[04:12]

It's like if you can imagine that our awareness gets hooked and then gets pulled down into our thinking, into our feelings, into our stories, and we... hear it now, disappears. And then 10 seconds, 10 minutes later, you go, oh. And sometimes you know where you've been. Oh, I was reliving that story. I remember all the details. And then sometimes you just don't. It's like, no idea. Where was I? So it's like how not to sink down. How not to sort of be pulled into something. How to float on the top.

[05:21]

But even this, even that question and what that brings up is about sampajnana. See clearly. It's about discovering the Dharma. So even as we bring that kind of investigative attention to what's going on in the process of sitting or in the process of carrying awareness through our day, even there as we bring attention to it, as we bring clearly seeing, it reveals the Dharma. So how do we have this kind of attitude Okay, everything reveals the dark. How do we have this attentiveness, alertness, disposition, inquisitiveness, given all the other thoughts and feelings and agendas that come up for us?

[06:26]

And having these kind of interactive processes that I was having, having you do indefinite, it was a little bit like, you know, the way you give it my work, it's side patterns. We give it me. You know, you don't sit there and think, I think I'll call that a car passing on the street. Your mind, with light, intention without hesitation names. Unless the mind's deeply settled. It's pretty deep. The settled world, it doesn't give me. Just watch. It's very interesting. And watch when you hear a sign that isn't easily identifiable. It's like the curiosity spoke. What was that? And maybe it gets accompanied by some excitement here.

[07:43]

So in creating the dialogue, it's almost like working the muscle of curiosity. And your partner presents you with question. And is that muscle worked? The natural curiosity about being alive. Naming sound, naming taste. Not necessarily with words, but turning attention towards it and experiencing it. And so in the Zen school, this is sort of being brought in to questions. has brought it to use the mind and its natural curiosity, its natural tendency to discriminate, to discern. Not in the grasp of your idea, rejection.

[08:59]

Okay, then that's the right answer. Or the wrong answer. Either way, you're grasping something. Neither are right or wrong. Well, maybe you're grasping there too. But this is what's arising at the moment. So, with each question, with each column, there's kind of like a prefatory, there's an introductory phrase. Sort of, to get you in the right frame of life. A clear-eyed person has no nest. A person who's practicing this clearly seen isn't holding a fixed view, a fixed disposition, a fixed attitude.

[10:03]

It's about ability. It's about willingness to experience. about making contact without having an agenda as to what the outcome is. On the subject of the solitary peak, winds grow in profusion. So the image there is on the solitary peak, on that place, attention, of singular attention. weeds grow in perfusion. Nothing is being suppressed. So there's a tension, but there isn't control and there isn't suppression. It's not like you're attentive because you're pushing away experience, you're pushing down what's arising.

[11:07]

Everything grows in perfusion. So-called weeds. Unless it's not in a certain way. Sometimes the practitioner is naked and free in the bustling, wanted place. Sometimes in the middle of activity, unguarded and unhindered, not being pulled by what's happening, not being pushed by it. or maybe being pulled and pushed but not stuck in either way, turning to uprightness. Suddenly, the practitioner appears as an angry titan with three heads and six arms.

[12:14]

you know, is powerful. It parties fight over power, you know. So sometimes that flavor enters the situation or enters our disposition. It's about control, you know. I want to control this experience. I want that feeling of power. or I want the safety of control. No. Suddenly, sun fades through the living face, through the releasing the light of all embracing compassion. The sun gives off a warm, radiant, active light.

[13:19]

gives off a cool, reflective blood. But they're both blood. They're both the Buddha. So it's not just this is Buddha and this is not Buddha. Buddha has to be like this. Buddha is, however, in a situation that is revealing itself. Sometimes active, sometimes receptive. giving off light, or as it says here, giving off the light of all the grace and compassion. In a single item, manifesting all physical forms, the same beings according to their type, mixing blood and water. So from this place of presence, from this place of non-immigrants, skillfully lenient whatever arises, to be of service to all beings.

[14:26]

If suddenly she releases an opening upwards, not even the Buddha eye can see it. The skillful action is not about... It's not something special. It's nothing special. It's so much nothing special that even the Buddha discerns the difference. Even if a thousand sages appeared, they too would have to fall back three thousand miles. Even though it's nothing special, it's incomparable. It's not. The end of the moment completely can't be surpassed even by thousands of ages.

[15:39]

But when the moment is exactly itself, it's incomparable and it's complete. Is there anyone with the same commitment and realization? Or to turn it around in another way, what is it to be such a one? What is it to be such a being? So here's the goal. teaching the communities that medicine and disease subdue each other. And the bell strikes. The whole earth is medicine. What is yourself? So if you were going to die out, we'll kick on this rock-baked illuminating subject with a question and answer.

[16:53]

One translation says the whole art, another translation says the whole world. I mean, you can almost translate it as all me. It's not so literal like the earth or the world about the world. It's like all the existence. Everything that's experienced that is Then if you could...

[17:54]

Face your partner and settle into your posture. You know, the four foundations of mindfulness settled in the body. Settled in that pleasant, unpleasant, neutral way that we experience the world. Settled into a receptive of openness to our own state of mind, consciousness, psychology, and bringing forth this clear seeing. Clear seeing just what's going on. There's going to be questions and answers, and there's no right and wrong. There's no success or failure. There's no good or bad. All of that misses the point.

[19:00]

Can you offer yourself, can you offer each other that kind of liberation? Can that be the basis on which you take up this exploration of self? The question is going to be asked, Like a pebble being tossed into the pond of self and ripples of an altar. How miraculous. What thought will come to mind? Exactly expressing the moment. One person asked, one person answered.

[20:07]

So the question to ask is, what heals something? What was that name? [...] All right, here we go.

[21:30]

What is this? [...] ... ... ... ... What else? What else?

[22:46]

I don't know. What you have separate? [...]

[23:46]

So just close your eyes. Close your eyes and please be silent. Close your eyes and take in what you're thinking and feeling. Let it register. Reverberate. sense door is it most noticeable. It's a thought, it's a sensation in the body. Let it go.

[24:51]

He's sure she's a joke. He tried to kill him so much. Oh. I feel so good. [...] I don't care. I don't care. I don't [...] care. Yes, sir.

[25:55]

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Where are you? [...] I know what you're doing.

[26:57]

What you're doing. [...] Yes. Yes. Thank you.

[28:21]

It might be a soccer. What do you mean? Jimmy, do you like your soccer? I don't know. I don't know. You're on your ship while you're on. What? You're so important. Not what you're supposed to do. What? Just close your eyes. You don't have to move for long. Just close your eyes. Note your state of mind. Especially if you're the one who just finished answering. Settled, unsettled.

[29:32]

Attemptive, distracted. Alert, no. With emotion, a third emotion. Confident, uncomforted. And then if you would, just come to closure with your partner. And I'd like to just say on a practical note, if you send something you want your partner to hold their conference, tell them that.

[30:44]

Okay, and when you're ready, if you want to turn towards this direction, please. Here, let's see this. In Zen school, there's this notion.

[31:55]

And Jung-Len was considered a true adept at this. There's always three modes going on. There's always the content. The content was about self-defense and release from self. Then there's process. The process of break Inquiring mind. It's balanced, alert, not clean, inquisitive, confident, available, but integral attribute to one given. And there is going beyond giving ideas of any attributes or that anything you add to the moment is something you're adding. The moment goes beyond what you think it is, or the feelings you have as a consequence of your thinking.

[32:59]

So those three modalities. So let's start with the content. How was it to answer about suffering and to hear someone else answer about suffering. Do you feel, how did that affect your sensibility with regards addressing suffering? Well, I found actually my first response was always the suffering, and then as I continued to answer, I was answering even in response to situations that And a lot of them, since we were doing this in a diet situation, a lot of them had to do with kind of expressing yourself and making connection as one kind of release from suffering.

[34:13]

So that was enjoyable to see that. Thank you. Would you like to speak? No? It's okay. I'm going to talk back. What feels suffering? I find it quite joyful to hear. You know, I felt weight lifted by the answers in listening to that. What the content, what's it? I think your answer that was mostly more towards, maybe not, but it's, so correct me if this is not, and that's where this. In response to the content. In response to the content, it was a kind of joyous. Software, yeah.

[35:14]

The content, the content, the dances are not. The very notion that, of addressing and bringing forth healing was bringing healing. In a way, it is assuming that suffering can't be healed. It's implicated in the question. Which is a joyous thought. One thing that I noticed is that The same things or similar things would continually come up. Openness, kindness, receptivity. And it was nuts. The same words would continually come up. You would say the same words over again. I would. And sometimes it was because I wasn't sure what else to say.

[36:16]

And sometimes it was just... Really, that's what comes up now in response to that question. Sometimes because that was always coming up again, even though a lot of previously being said. And then sometimes because you couldn't think of anything else to say. But it's not to think of anything else to say. That is what came up. I mean, yeah. So it felt really good. Well, there's a good point there. Sometimes in inquiry, feels like nothing. What's my answer? Don't have one. I have to trust that too. Sometimes that not knowing stimulates a true curiosity.

[37:17]

I have an answer. Okay. Anyway, that's your answer for that question. I started out thinking about how I've suffered in different situations in the past, what I've learned here, how I've used those techniques to deal with that so I could give a clear answer. But I ended up thinking about situations when the suffering starts and then stopping it before it gets into any long-term suffering. So that really felt good because... you're entering the suffering sooner and sooner to presume if you're in the continuous practice for other situations where you've suffered before and you don't really suffer.

[38:28]

Yeah. Yeah. But how about the observation of cultivating that kind of attentiveness, responsiveness. What did you notice about that? How was your mind? How is your attentiveness? How was it to be presented with a question, or presenting a question, which is, I mean, if you think when we were talking about suffering, there's a kind of core experience, the response to the core experience, And there's a response to the response. And they're happening for us all the time. Well, maybe not all the time, but in a frequent way. And sometimes more one than the other.

[39:32]

Sometimes you just dug your toe, and it's not a very intellectual or psychological experience. It's just your toe hurts. Ouch. Sometimes everything around you looks quite normal, but you don't feel quite right. Kind of a little anxious or sad or something or angry. All the ways, as humans, we can suffer. And then someone's asking you to plumb the depths of that in a moment and respond. in this thorough and heartfelt manner as you can. What kind of consciousness did that stimulate? What did it create? I had something happen shortly before the class started.

[40:42]

And it moved me into an area that I was really suffering. I mean, I was reacting to it. So when we started out, I didn't want to participate. I was totally shut down. And I told my partner, I don't think I could do this. And I could see the empathy in her eye. You know, the compassion. You know, we could do this, you know. So... That started a process where it started to open up. And then as we talked more about what the question was, and we answered probably 80% of the energy from that experience physically. So I didn't feel shut down. But I still felt some of the energy, which is different than I would have handled in the past. I would have totally just lost it. And maybe walk out.

[41:45]

Yeah. A little bit of what Joanne was saying, you know, just being in the inquiry, you know. Right. Out for its own consequence, its own support. Yeah. And looking at it differently. Was that it? Yeah. That's the way I normally do it. Should that be wrong? Well, this is the mind of the Dharma inquiry, you know. It's not saying, what do I want, what do I not want, what do I like, what do I hate, you know. It's saying, what is it to practice with it? What's going on, and what is it to practice with it? And that operates its own support, its own encouragement. It's all realization. It's all the lightening of suffering.

[42:49]

I've noticed that these dyads are getting easier for me. Each successive one has been a little easier to do than the one before. The first one I was just terrified of having to be in this kind of intermediate interaction. It's a lot easier now. And I'm able to really kind of think about the question and really kind of myself, you know, like Ed said, going back to instances where I suffered. And I was fairly able to clearly remember those things. Because the fear was changed. Depending on suggestions as to what I could do to make it more terrifying. I'm sure you can come up with a new question, right? I mean, there's still a little bit of terror.

[43:53]

I see it coming now. It's kind of a... It's an interesting tangent, man, because in one way, when we're overstand about it, You know, but we're overwhelmed. We're sure not. That's our COVID mechanism. So sometimes it can be like too much for us. We just kind of don't know. Now, in the other hand, we can get too comfortable. You know, as the introduction says, you know, don't get into your nest, you know. Oh, yeah, I have lots of answers to that question. And here we are. You know, just kind of trotting out, you know, ideas and thoughts. And there you are, nice and comfortable. The request of life takes us to a certain kind of edge.

[45:01]

You can't know what's going to happen next. It's just that nature applies. Can we start to live in that place? Can we start to live with the curiosity and some kind of settledness, equanimity, confidence, whatever those factors are? And that's where we're going to go with this, because guess what? In Buddhism, there is a teaching of the fashionists that support this way to be, and that's what In the Satipatthana Sutta, you know, that's what it lists. Okay. Here's what's being asked, and here are the factors, support. And then the wonderful thing is that when you're doing it, you don't have to worry about the factors.

[46:04]

It kind of... We are good at nature, and when we do it, it happens. You have to carve these factors out of stone to bring them into place. The potential is there. And giving over to this experience, it's actualized. It's actualized. Now, whether or not our cognitive mind can make sense out of that, Here's another question. Teachings of Buddhism, it's not so important that your cognitive mind makes sense out of it. So I'm glad I just took my book.

[47:08]

I'm nowhere near the nest just yet. Yeah. Any other questions? Comments, thoughts? I just think that the process of being aware was like the reconnection being the essential thing, and the answers was sort of like a space opening up, having the answers more showing the right water, not just letting it make sense, but somehow connecting with that person . Yeah. I felt each time we've done this, this sense of kind of ease after the question and answer process. And very similar to Ian, I have a lot of anxiety around this, especially the first one, I think, diminishing.

[48:12]

And I thought at first that it was like, I got there. Okay, good. But since that Like with this last time, I really didn't feel that apprehension at all. But I felt that same sense of just kind of settling into maybe my answer to the question or my relationship to it, which I think is very interesting. And I'm kind of ascribing that to something having to do with involving another person in my inquiry as opposed to doing it alone. Yeah. It's interesting. Yeah. This person is trying to see who I am. They want to hear my answer. They want to see me being me. But I don't understand why that makes me feel like I've gotten to a better answer, a more comfortable answer, or almost better seen my own answer. Like, logically, this doesn't make any sense to me, but I can see that I'm feeling it as we get through this process. But the way in which we hold together this cell

[49:18]

Something akin to protection, preservation, and we're going to open up. Well, how do you know what that is? You don't know what that person's going to do. Maybe they're going to smear at you, attack you. It's a little bit like putting ourselves on the line. And in a way, that's part of the request of awareness, is that can we become tuned in to what it is to separate into separate self, in whatever way we do that, in contrast to connect to interpersonal, into connecting through any of the senses.

[50:24]

Even when you're sitting with us, can you let the sense doors open and hear the sounds and feel the physical sensations and smell the smells? And similarly, we're meeting another person. Can we open up the... So this is something that the Zen School brought in, this kind of interaction. And as I was saying before you started, the challenge is, can it come from a place of nothing to gain, nothing to lose? No right or wrong. So in a way, we try to create that spark to that.

[51:32]

And then young man said, everything that happens in the world, every situation offers that. It's medicine. There's nothing that happens in your life that isn't medicine. So that natural instinct of preservation, of staying safe, of poor God, so you won't be hurt, you won't suffer more. But he's totally challenging it, completely. He's saying the opposite. Someone came to talk to me and they asked me a question, but in the previous conversation they'd already told me the answer they wanted to hear. And what did I say? The opposite. And they were shocked and dismayed.

[52:41]

He's not saying it like, and you're wrong for self-preservation, and I'm allowed by sending everything to medicine. He's saying that's a human tendency. However, that compounds our suffering, that compounds our attachment, that compounds our separateness. Connecting and experiencing the vibrancy, the energy of connecting, offer as something else. So he's not saying it rather than law. He's saying there's another realm of possibility. And then he says, and given this realm of possibility of intervening,

[53:55]

What is it? Is it intervening? Is it about my opinions and judgments? Is it this genetically encoded, culturally influenced, experientially mold it by the mind? What if, you know, can there be an investigative inquiry into the very fundamental of existence as experienced by me? So in the Zen School, we offer these questions not in search of the right answer, to open up a field of investigation.

[55:06]

But the kind of attitude that, looking at, it's an inexhaustible question. You could ask it every day, every hour of the rest of your life, and there'd always be more answers. There'd always be more to what? There'd always be more to discover and to realize. to stay alive with that in genders. Sometimes none. This tentative, weak, weak, we are relating to our existence. good measure, I want to read you . [...]

[56:07]

. [...] Here's what he said about it. There's no example, example of Kant, more elevated than this one. How many past and present have misunderstood it? Medicine and disease sit to each other. This might be viewed as the fundamental, plain and simple, revealing the continence. And then turn it on its head, just meaning, yeah, there's suffering and there's a cure for suffering. There should be no medicine and no self.

[57:15]

The whole earth is medicine. Medicine is the whole earth. It is itself. It is what? Directly pointing to the human mind. The whole world is medicine. Buddha is here. What is itself? The whole earth is medicine. Where can you point to as being yourself? Everything is only medicine. Rightward medicine and illness subdue each other. The whole universe is also the whole self. So I'll put a hand out this afternoon. I'll play somewhere on the seven factors of awakening. And as you might suspect, sati, mindfulness, this kind of attentiveness is first.

[58:22]

But someone, you might think, well, they go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. consciousness is way too complex for that simple process. Sometimes they all pop up at once. Sometimes one and two trigger a few more, and vice versa, back and forth. So any comments or questions before we finish? Well, there's just two things. One is what What is the number of this column? 87. In Blue Cliff Record? Yeah. Okay, cool. And the other here is a semi-similar question, which is that I've never understood the distinction between the third and fourth foundations of mindfulness. So if you could talk a bit about that. So I never understood the distinction between the third and fourth foundations.

[59:26]

Make it the most, you know, so in the second kind of sutta, you know, usually we all reap this and then add to it our own ideas as to what exactly it means. But here's what the sutta says. How does she, in regard to the mind, abide contemplating the mind? Here he knows a lustful mind as lustful, a mind without lust as without lust. Here she knows an angry mind as angry, a mind without anger as without anger. Deluded mind as deluded, mind without delusion. contracted mind as contracted, distracted mind as distracted, great mind as great mind, narrow mind as narrow, surpassable mind as surpassable, unsurpassable as unsurpassable.

[60:53]

She knows concentrated mind as concentrated and unconcentrated as unconcentrated, liberated liberated, unliberated, and unliberated. So I usually talk about that as disposition. So it sort of ranges from what's the abiding emotion? Then it's also, what about the quality of mind? Is the mind tight and contracted, or is it spacious and open? Is there a sense of freedom and looseness, or is there a sense of grasping and resisting. And then the fourth one. It opens up. And given those three foundations,

[61:57]

Everything that's experienced is teaching on the dark. And so that's why I brought in this coin, because in a way that's what this coin is saying. Everything is medicine. If the core condition is suffering, everything's medicine. The dark night, you know, in the circus it says the dark night is the greatest medicine. It's medicine for the human condition. That's where young men is played, using that phrase. And then in the fourth factor, it lists, you know, first of all, it lists the hindrances. Then it lists the sad spheres. Then it lists the aggregates. Then it lists the factors of awakening. All the darkness. All the darkness. But also, sometimes it's talked about as mind content. because of the content of consciousness, because it's the content of consciousness that teaches it all.

[63:09]

It's like this arises in awareness. It's like, oh, and it teaches it all. Yeah, that's helpful. It's sort of like the third is, as I understand it, kind of... a bit of a more universalized and a motion-laden from the second is so simple. You know, attraction, repulsion, neutral. And out of that comes... Yeah, I think mental disposition is good. In your sitting, if you think, what's the mental disposition? Is there a dominant motion? Is there a very dominant mood? Is there a very dominant kind of state of mind? don't attract the expansive. Yeah. As opposed to... As opposed to a sense. I'm thinking about, you know, the education or I'm thinking about whatever.

[64:13]

Yeah. How the content is related to... It's what the fourth one is about. How the content is related to... So given those three dispositions, three foundations are established, the content is seen in a way that it teaches the journal. How do we penetrate in that context? How do we do the cover, right? we are seeking a great heart attack and penetrating that. Well, that's, one way to answer that would be to pick on that question.

[65:15]

To let that question guide how we relate to our body, our breath, or can't see the grasp or push away our mental disposition. In a way, these are just whatever technique we take on, it's just to create an availability to be in the moment. So the way you can say that that very question is the spark. That in a content way, I mean the best point, in a content way, Awareness of body. Awareness of the physical sensations. Awareness of posture. The deeds built for posture. Suddenly on your cushion. Standing on your feet. As in this sutra, it says, get up. Get up. Get up when you sit. Get up when you walk. Get up when you scratch. Get up when you eat. Get up when you go to the toilet.

[66:18]

Get up looking back. Get up looking forward. identify. It's not like there is something to go through. To go through. To understand without anything. It's like the language said like this. Normally there is I'm reactivating the world according to me. And then bringing forth questions like, well, do I like this or not like it? Do I approve or not approve? Do I want it or do I want to avoid it? So those questions draw me, they create their own kind of answer. We have asked,

[67:22]

When the three foundations are in place, the mind has the capacity. Consciousness has the capacity to relate in a different way. And that's what I've been trying to describe it. A way of relating that's more open, available, not asking for an answer, but more asking what's happening and what is it to practice with. And that very line, that very disposition, creates and realizes the dark. It's a codependent arise. It's not like there's a dark night there, and then I looked into it. The consciousness, you know, they could just look at the jacket and say, what color is it? You know, black comes forth. But it's an relationship.

[68:23]

God comes forward in relationship to the inquiry. If the inquiry is, is it cotton or is it linen? A different answer is created. Does that make sense? So what we're going to look at is, what are the factors that go into helping to create and sustain that awakening mind?

[68:47]

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