So good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for having me and coming. And can you hear me okay? Okay, because I have a very quiet voice, and the most important things I say, I say quietly. So I'll try to speak up, and if it's not loud enough, you can wave your hands or just tell me to speak up again. But my tendency is to get quiet, so you can also come closer if you want to. What? You're good? Are people with good hearing in the back? Okay. Good. So, often when I come down here in the summer, and Greg invites me down to give a class or two, I usually talk about what I've been studying or teaching lately. And so that's what I'll do again. I... I taught a graduate-level class this winter on emptiness in early Buddhism, teachings of emptiness in the suttas.

[01:09]

And in the course of teaching that course, I started writing inadvertently what's probably going to become a book on a series of essays, and I'd like to share some of that with you. I won't touch on the emptiness teachings, but the basic foundations for that that led up to that understanding those is what I'll give you here. And it begins with exploration of what in the suttas is ancient literature that in the Pali tradition, the Theravada tradition, that supposedly goes back to the Buddha, some of the earliest literature of Buddhism. And to see what the Dharma means. When the Buddha taught the Dharma. What was he teaching? What was the emphasis? And then we'll see how the emphasis is on direct experience. And a particular kind of direct experience.

[02:12]

Which is an emphasis on seeing the impermanent nature of phenomena. And that's what I kind of hope to cover today. And that lays a foundation for tomorrow. Where... in seeing the impermanent nature of phenomena that sets in motion a momentum, a movement within a person that the ancient tradition calls a path, marga. And that unfolding of the path has a certain pattern to it and a certain nature that leads to liberation. And that the way that that unfolds is presented very much as a natural unfolding Rather than a path that we huff and puff along to work hard at, it becomes a path which flows and the language is at a flow, like a flowing river. You enter the river and you flow downstream in a natural way. And it's a flow and a pattern that includes a fair amount of happiness and that somehow is a natural consequence of practicing.

[03:17]

So there's a lot of goodness, a lot of well-being that arises in this flow. that leads them to liberation. And one of the interesting, maybe more theoretical questions that ties to some of the Mahayana teachings is what's the nature, how do we describe this positive natural movement that practice sets in motion? And the ancient tradition doesn't really have exactly much language for it or words for it. It just assumes that that's how it goes, more or less. And not a few people teach that in this early tradition, Vipassana teachers, have tried to adopt the notion of Buddha nature to describe it. That Buddha nature represents some kind of potential towards awakening that we all have. And that this positive potential is a good way of referring to what this early tradition says about the natural potential for unfolding of the path.

[04:25]

So something like that is what the trajectory of these two days is going to be. In thinking about what I was going to teach, and given that I'm here at Tassajara, I would just like to say a few words. that Tassajara was, it is, a very important place for my practice. It's kind of set the foundation of much that followed for my practice, my understanding of everything. And one of the things that Zen Center and Tassajara did for me was to really reinforce or support or to point towards the tremendous value of the immediacy of mindfulness, immediacy of presence, that somehow the whole path of practice, the whole engagement in the path, practice realization, happens in the immediacy of our practice right here. And I was very happy, and I'm very happy with the teachings that I heard and learned at Zen Center. One of the characteristics and one of the reasons why it worked for me very well was there was very little metaphysics, and there was very little emphasis on rebirth.

[05:28]

I don't know if I heard it at all in the 70s and 80s. I don't think anybody could have cared less at Zen Center if I believed or didn't believe in rebirth. It was like such a non-issue at the time. even though you find in much of Buddhism a very strong emphasis on rebirth and the metaphysics surrounding it. And you find a lot of teachings in the corners and byways and different aspects of Buddhism of things that can be considered metaphysical, supernatural, that I didn't encounter in my early years of Buddhist practice, happily so. And so I think maybe it led to a certain bias that I have And that bias is to interpret Buddhism through that lens. So I offer you that as a little warning as you listen to me, that it's possible that I'm misinterpreting this ancient literature I submitted to you. And maybe you have to decide or challenge me or offer a different interpretation if you like. And then being here, I thought I would start with Dogen before going back...

[06:38]

hundreds of years before that. Zen Master Dogen has this wonderful festival called Yakudo Yojinshu. He says a variety of things in his opening statement here, but I'll just read a few lines from it. So the thought of enlightenment, bodhicitta, is very important in Mahayana Buddhism. And there's tons of Mahayana writings about what that really means. And he refers to that here in the text. There's many claims what it is. He basically says it's all rubbish, all these ideas. And then he says, the thought of enlightenment is the mind which sees impermanence. This is most fundamental. So the mind that sees impermanence. Yes, he's quoting Nagarjuna here.

[07:47]

Indeed, when you understand discontinuity, the notion of self does not come into being. Ideas of name and gain do not arise. Fearing the swift passage of the sunlight Practice the way as though saving your head from fire. Reflecting on this ephemeral life may endeavor in the manner of the Buddha raising his foot. This ephemeral life. Discontinuity. It's very interesting. I don't know what the Japanese word discontinuity is, but keep that in mind. And then one more passage. Just forget about yourself for now. and practice inwardly. This is one with the thought of enlightenment. We see that the 62 views are based on self. So when a notion of self arises, sit quietly and contemplate it.

[08:53]

Is there a real basis inside or outside your body now, real basis for self? Your body with hair and skin is just inherited from your mother and father. From beginning to end, a drop of blood or lymph is empty. So none of these are the self. What about mind, thought, awareness, knowledge, or the breath going in and out, which ties a lifetime together? What is it after all? None of these are the self either. How could you be attached to any of them? Enlightened people are free of them. So that's a way of introduction. And what we'll see, I think, is that some of these ideas that I can't say repeated, since it preceded the Potokin, but pop up in different forms or similar forms in these ancient teachings of the Buddha.

[10:00]

So first, what is the Dharma? One of the things we see in the ancient teaching is a tremendous emphasis on empirical experience, on the direct experience. And some people say that it's an empirical teaching or phenomenology, meaning a studying of what our experience is, as opposed to ontology. Ontology being a discussion of what the true nature of reality is like. And so this emphasis on our direct experience is emphasized over and over again. With the emphasis on what can be directly, what is directly visible. And visible doesn't mean just through our eyes, but directly perceivable for ourselves. And this is encountered, and so the Buddha emphasized seeing quite a bit. The language of seeing gets repeated over and over again. It emphasizes this idea of direct perception here and now. And this is a contradistinction or in contrast to belief, believing in things.

[11:09]

And in relation to beliefs, the primary thing the Buddha said, one should get rid of them. One should uproot them. Beliefs... as beliefs in terms of a point of view, or a doctrine, or a standpoint in which we kind of see our life from. That should be gotten rid of. And in particular, views about the self, the world, and what happens after death. When people asked him questions about these things, his reply was, the Buddha teaches the Dharma, for the elimination of all speculative views, biases, adherences, underlying tendencies. He teaches it for the stilling of all formations, mental formations, for the relinquishing of all attachments, for destruction of craving, for dispassion, for cessation, and for nibbana.

[12:12]

So the idea that beliefs don't have a big role in this ancient tradition. In fact, they're a hindrance, and the idea is to get rid of them in favor of seeing directly for yourself. And when he talked about when people came with all kinds of speculative views, views about reality, life, self, and views about nirvana, the Buddha refused to answer because he said, these are not beneficial. These questions and those answers are not beneficial. They do not belong to the basics of the holy life. Do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana. So again, just kind of, you know, pushing aside the emphasis on all kinds of metaphysical beliefs, ideas. But then if you look and see, what did the Buddha really teach? And this is a hard thing.

[13:14]

I mean, here, this fat book here is the Middle Lang Discourses. And this maybe is about, if all the different discourses of the Buddha got put together in volumes, this is probably maybe about one-sixth the size of it all. One-fifth to one-sixth, maybe one-sixth of the size. So there's a lot to go through. And so to kind of make simplistic statements of what the Dharma is, it could be a little bit challenging to go through it all and collate it to get the summary. But there's a number of ways we can try to get some kind of idea of what might be the essential teachings of the Dharma. And one way to do that is to look at statements where he talks about this is the Dharma. People ask questions. What is... You know, can you teach me the Dharma in brief? What is the essence of the Dharma? And here is one...

[14:14]

statement. It's a quite famous one. Doing no evil, engaging in what's skillful, and purifying one's mind. This is the teachings of the Buddha. Isn't that a little kind of very brief statement? This is the teachings of the Buddha. And what's interesting about here is that the first two can be considered ethical. Avoiding evil, and doing what's skillful. It's a kind of like behavior of what you do. It doesn't say what is skillful, and then purifying the mind. Somehow cleansing the mind, doing something with the mind. A little bit longer passage that ends with the same statement, this is the teachings of the Buddha, goes this way. Not disparaging others, not causing injury, practicing restraint by the training rules, knowing moderation in food, dwelling in solitude, and pursuing the higher states of mind.

[15:18]

This is the teachings of the Buddha. I've thought about this quite a bit. It's possible that those three pure precepts were modeled on those. My suspicion in trying to study the origins of it all, it might be a little bit, but it's also a little bit of a coincidence, I think. It's possible because it's such basic dharma. It comes out and surfaces many different ways. So here again, we see an emphasis on principles of conduct as being central to what the dharma is. And, you know, how we behave, not just how we see and what we see and what we understand, but how we behave becomes so important here in these teachings. Another place where we see how we behave and conduct ourselves is how the Buddha taught his foster mother.

[16:25]

You know, if you're practicing for a while and your mother comes and asks you for the Dharma, you know, you probably want to get to the point. Really, you know, it's pretty, you know, this is your chance. She gives you one chance. And so Mahapajapati came to the Buddha and said, can you teach me the Dharma in brief? Give me one chance, right? And so this is what he said. As for those qualities of which you may know, these dharmas lead to dispassion, not to passion, to being unfettered, not to being fettered, to simplifying, not to accumulating, to modesty, not to self-aggrandizement. to contentment, not to discontent, to seclusion, not to entanglement, to aroused persistence, not to laziness, to being unburdensome, not to being burdensome, you may definitely hold, this is the Dharma, this is the discipline, this is the teacher's instruction.

[17:29]

So for someone who, you know, has been studying... philosophy of Buddhism and have a chance to ask the Buddha, what is the real essence of your teaching? There's no philosophy here. There's no kind of tradition where we think of doctrine, but there's an emphasis on conduct and behavior and attitude, how we live in this world. And I think that that's kind of key. Maybe that's not the whole picture. It's not only a teaching on ethics in the Dharma, but that this is kind of a central stage of I think should be kind of interesting, that behavior, how we conduct ourselves, is so important. Another interesting statement the Buddha makes about what he teaches is one that he made when a debater, back in ancient India it was a debate culture among the other kind of spiritual teachers of the time. It was a big deal to debate back then because you can get lots of rewards by the local king.

[18:31]

If you lost a debate, you had to become the disciple of the person who you lost it to. There were some people who were really good debaters and went around the countryside debating people. One of these people came to the Buddha and basically wanted to start a debate. He, in a point-blank way and very confrontationally, asked the Buddha what he proclaims. So he was going to set up for a debate. And here's Buddha's answers. I assert and proclaim. Probably got his attention. Okay, he's probably gearing up, warming up. He's going to let the Buddha have it. So Buddha says, I assert and proclaim. Such a teaching that one does not quarrel with anyone in the world. Such a teaching that concepts no longer underlie a person who abides free of sensual desire, confusion, worry, and craving for any kind of identity.

[19:41]

Identity. Identity. So... The texts say that the guy just kind of walked off in a huff. There was no one, he couldn't debate someone like that. And so what kind of teaching, how does one teach that one doesn't quarrel with anyone in the world? Quarrel about doctrine and religion. That, again, has to do with your conduct, how you live. Don't quarrel. Don't argue about doctrine. And then a teaching where concepts no longer underlie a person, but not just any person, but a person who is free of sensual craving, free of worry, confusion around identity. So this idea that the Dharma is visible here and now, this next quote is part of the liturgy of Theravadan Buddhist monastic life. They chant this every day, so it's a very common thing to chant.

[20:50]

It comes from the ancient texts. The Dharma is well proclaimed by the Buddha. It is visible here and now, immediate, inviting to be seen for oneself, onward leading, and to be personally realized by the wise. So these are visible here and now. It's pretty clear. It's about here. You know, it's not like some other time and place. Immediate. So it's really, again, you know, here, because a Zen teacher should do it louder. Inviting to be seen by oneself. There's a great, one of the greatest Chinese Buddhist philosophers, I forget his name, I apologize. In about the 6th, 7th century, he studied all of the existing Buddhist texts of the time to try to make sense of this huge corpus of Buddhism that Chinese inherited from India.

[21:56]

And he summarized it all in one little phrase. And the phrase was, liberation beckons you within everything. Isn't that nice? Liberation beckons you within everything. So that means, you know, everything. And what does that mean, it beckons you? How do you find liberation in the midst of anything and everything? So this idea here, inviting to be seen by oneself. Onward leading is a very important term. That somehow the dharma puts you in a flow, in a movement that goes someplace. It doesn't mean just accept the present moment and boom, you know, you're depressed and suffering. Just, you know, be depressed and suffer better. That's what, you know, just accept the moment as it is. It's onward leading to some kind of freedom, to growth, to development, to liberation, to something.

[22:59]

And to be personally realized. Then what does this mean? Is there any explanation of what this means, this phrase, this little teaching here? And there is. When you know for yourself there is no greed, hatred, or delusion within you, and when you know there is no greed, hatred, and delusion within you, then you know the Dharma. is visible here and now, immediate, inviting to be seen for oneself, onward leading, and to be personally realized by the wise. So again, the standard for the Dharma is very personal, in the sense of, not that it's your own opinion, but you can look within yourself to see, do you have the qualities that are being emphasized, the qualities maybe of character, the qualities of behavior. And so I've gone through a list of things here.

[24:04]

You know, there's not disparaging others, not causing injury, being moderation in food, being content easily, not being lazy, being unfettered, aroused, persistence. A variety of things that the Buddha kind of emphasizes is important. Here the importance that probably is more at the heart of what the Buddha said, because it's emphasized over and over and over again, is the absence of greed, hatred, and delusion. And that it's possible to know... when greed, hatred, and illusion is in your mind. And it's possible to know when it's not there. It's possible to know when you become free of it. And if you can see that for yourself, there's something about seeing that that shows you the Dharma. It doesn't require getting a PhD in Buddhist studies. It doesn't require reading tremendous amount of books. The book that you really have to study is the book of your own heart, your own mind. And one of the ways to see the Dharma is to see whether you're clinging to anything, craving to anything.

[25:09]

And then to see, but that's not enough to know that you're clinging, is to know the capacity to let go and be free. Not to have that. The Buddha said elsewhere that when you see this capacity, when you experience freedom from things like greed, hate, and delusion, this can give a person unwavering confidence in the Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha. Because then you know for yourself a potential, a possibility, and you know what it takes. You know what the practice is all about. It's not about some complicated teachings about emptiness. It's about something that's immediate, direct, you can see right now. And you can see it in your own mind in these psychological qualities, psychological states that we all have. But to recognize that seeing those states and seeing the absence of those greed, hate, and delusion is a very important teaching, very important teacher for you, something very important to learn there.

[26:11]

This is so important that the way the Buddha defined nirvana is as follows. The destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion is nirvana. This is a very important statement because in the ancient world, the word nirvana was part of the local religious environment besides the Buddhists. And people had a lot of ideas of what nirvana is. Very lofty ideas. Transcended states. All kind of rarefied states of concentration. All kinds of special things. And here, in a way, I think the Buddha kind of grounds this idea of nirvana into something... maybe almost so ordinary, so boring, so non-religious, that we might just kind of dismiss it offhand as, this can't be it, this is not enough.

[27:14]

But he says the destruction of lust, greed, hatred, and delusion is nirvana. And to drive this home, that this is so important, this destruction of greed, hate, and delusion, just going through these ancient texts, I pulled out these next four quotes. The destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion is called arhatship. The destruction of greed, hate, and delusion is called the unconditioned. The destruction of greed, hate, and delusion is called the deathless. The destruction of greed, hate, and delusion is is called the final goal of the holy life. And here we see that these kind of concepts that lend themselves to kind of mystical interpretations, like the unconditioned, the deathless, are here defined in psychological terms.

[28:22]

And I've been part of many discussions over these decades with people who wanted to kind of... had elaborate definitions or ideas of what nirvana is, what the unconditioned is, as transcendent state. And there's been endless debates down through the centuries about what these states are. And the big divide has been those people who see it as a transcendent state, a reality that's completely outside of our ordinary world. And those who say, no, it's imminent, it's here right now. And statements like this point not just to here and now, but point to here and now in terms of our psychology, how our mind works. So that's the first part, what I want to say. I have more of what I could do, but now I think I would like to hear from you if you have any questions or comments about that or any protests. Yes, and if you could say your name, that would be helpful for me. I'll try to learn names. Um, I guess I could protest on your name. Oh, Benson.

[29:25]

Benson is my name. Yes. Um, I guess, uh, it's not as much personal protest, but, um, a phrase or a concept like the final go of the holy life or another thing the Buddha said a lot in the polyphone is, yeah, the goal of the holy life, which is pretty distinctly un-Zen thing to say. Um, I don't know, how would you reconcile that with... Yeah, and then it's also a little confusing because Joga also says all the time, like, generates people whose thought of enlightenment is driving them, you know? Yeah. So, how do you reconcile that with the flavor we have? Practice the way as though saving your head from fire without any gold. The... You know, I think that, you know, different language, different rhetoric, different kind of orientation.

[30:29]

I think it's a very good question. And, you know, when we see goals, when we see outcomes, when we see progress and growth and recognize it as something important, and when we focus on not having any goals, is a question of context. the context in which we're understanding the situation. So I think here at Zen Center, I think it's, I believe, that those who are in senior religious leadership roles see people come into Zen Center as a brand new student, and they see that they grow and develop in certain kinds of ways, mature, and some of them, they become maybe priests, there's teaching, some eventually end up being seen as being their mature and ready to kind of work with other students. They're ready to become abbists or abbots. And so they see a development and growth and change that is consequential in the community life here.

[31:34]

And people get certain kind of positions, privileges, authorizations in that process. Is the goal of the practice to, I hope the goal of the practice is not to end up being abbot or abbess. Like that's, you know, that's kind of silly. But there's a recognition of the maturity of that person that happens over time that is consequential. How do you define that? How do you recognize that? How do you talk about that? Is that the goal of being here? The rhetoric often says, no, we don't talk about that here as a goal of practice. As soon as you're goal-oriented, then you're kind of missing the point. But I think that Soto Zen has a very powerful and very meaningful way of practicing. that um that emphasizes in the moment-to-moment practice we don't practice with a goal but it doesn't mean that there can't be a goal uh that you've uh got you to the zendo but you know in the zendo or you know in the moment-to-moment practice you put aside those thoughts about where you're trying to go i mean if you're just really miserable if your suffering is horrible you know you grew up in a war zone you've been traumatized and uh you know you're depressed and and uh

[32:49]

You know, and you tell someone, you know, don't practice with a goal. You know, it's hopeless for them, for people. What then? I'm going to just live this way the rest of my life? Traumatized and suffering and afraid and depressed? Sometimes it's helpful to show people, yes, there is growth. There is some goal. There is some possibility. There's some kind of growth that can happen. But at the same time, you might also tell them, when you get into the Zendo, or when you actually practice moment to moment. We want you to get better. We have a goal for you. But put it aside. Don't think about it. Because there's something very powerful that can happen when you're not concerned moment to moment with growth, with progress, and all that. And so maybe if we have time in this presentation that I want to do, tomorrow when we come to the end of my presentation, we can pick up this idea again and And see something about the reconciliation about a practice that emphasizes a goal and one that doesn't.

[33:54]

And how they can be seen to be in harmony. You okay? Yes? Can you say more about the intersection between phenomenology and ethics? Yeah. Yeah, so what's the intersection between how we behave and our direct experience of the moment, right? I think one simple way is that if you're really in touch with what's going on here and now with yourself, and often what the phenomenology of the Buddha is often your direct experience, so your own experience. An emphasis is on not so much what the world is out there, but what your experience of the world is, how it's experienced subjectively. It's probably a fair way of talking about it. So if you're really present for your subjective experience, you'll feel that it feels very off to do things unethically.

[34:58]

You'll feel that if you do something out of greed or out of hate, or if you do lie, or if you steal, it's just like something inside of you gets made into knots and gets contracted and tight. But it requires very careful... mindfulness awareness of what the impact of your mind states are and then it's like you know you pick up a hot cold you drop it right away does that explain it for you are you content with that answer or is that not quite to the point for you that's one way you're quite okay and so therefore the the the The determinant for ethics is not external rules, but rather inner sensitivity, ethical sensitivity that comes from being present. Yes? So when people kept asking Buddha in various occasions to sort of sum up the teachings, like, oh, well, you should do good, you should engage in what's illful, you should avoid evil.

[36:05]

In the examples you gave, he doesn't seem to say, because then, or like, give a thing and so one thought i had was like well that's something that is unique to buddhism is that there's no like not doing it to garner favor with the deity and then go to heaven right not doing it for this another at the same time i do recall it's uh exchange where buddha says he just teaches suffering and the end of suffering so it seems like he's teaching us to do these things or as you were just saying in the present moment to respond not out of craving or not out of selfish interest not out of hatred you it it you won't feel any dis-ease that that's a sufficient answer to the question why do these things i think i think that's the primary motivation in this early tradition is the ending of suffering and that's that's motivating to to end it um yeah so i agree

[37:09]

so as not to suffer. I think it's fair to say that the goal is not to suffer. And a lot of greed, hate, and delusion is one of the primary causes for suffering. That's why it's so important to do away with them, to overcome them. Yes? Oh, I forgot. I keep asking. Remember to say your names. Oh, sorry. I'm Chris. Chris, yeah. koji um so it's similar to this goal or no goal i've been thinking about desire yeah and um i feel that so there's a desire that i have for like costo hot dogs and um uh affection and um watching movies and things like that and then there's desire uh like the spirit of emerging from sansara thing And I have this, like, I'm starting to have this belief that if I trace them back, they're coming, they have a shared source, you know?

[38:23]

And I'm wondering what role I have in, like, resetting, recalibrating a compass or steering or resetting or something like that for things that I feel kind of fan the flames of suffering. me because i feel like that energetically they're coming from a very maybe even the same place but i'm trying to figure out how to like kind of trace back and change the trajectory and it seems like when one's present the other one is sounds wise but what is that place you trace it back to oh yeah i mean i don't know i think you have to know that first before you can answer your question I have a hunch that there is no answer to that question, that there's not a place I can trace it back to. But there's still an energy. What's that energy? I can't tell.

[39:24]

I think the answers are on you, if you can get to the bottom of those two things. What's that place and what's that energy? Sometimes in practice, I feel like what I'm trying to wake up to is seeing impermanence as a way of, um, unraveling greed, hate, and delusion. But, um, and that feels like it's kind of like phenomenon oriented, like seeing compound phenomenon as impermanent. And then also this new, this kind of scanning inwardly for greed, hate, and delusion as like a like previous, like as like that, instead of like kind of like trying to contemplate the impermanence of something, like doing it or like looking for the greed and delusion inwardly. The two don't have to be opposed to each other. The ability to develop a strong, steady powers of observation for the moment, so you see impermanence in the way that this tradition wants you to see impermanence.

[40:31]

will naturally lead you to see the presence of greed, hate and delusion or the absence of it. It doesn't have to be two different things. And also it doesn't have to be a project to see it. I think that as we develop strong attention, strong sense of presence of being here, both impermanence and seeing how the mind functions will stand out and highlight. And in fact, sometimes it's better not to make it a project to look for these things. It's better to let them be revealed. as the practice goes deeper I think it's best not to look for anything except for what shows itself to really be present for what is because looking is to go beyond and rather be really present with what is and then as you're really present with what is then it begins to morph and change It begins opening up the cracks in it, and you start seeing what's through the cracks.

[41:33]

More and more stuff gets revealed. I put a lot of trust in not having much of a project except being present. Yes. I'm William. On that theme of greed, hate and illusion, I feel like I'm fairly aware of the many ways in which greed manifests in my life and hatred. I can... I can notice. I would really appreciate some insight or some unlocking of how to notice where the delusion is. I think for me, that's maybe still a mystery. Yeah. Yeah, it can be much harder to see. But one of the things that helps a lot is to have the ability to watch the arising of a thought. If you can really see a thought occur as it's arising, and you're kind of observing the thought, then you have a chance to evaluate the thought a little bit and see, is that really accurate or not? And probably you'll find that a lot of your thoughts are not that accurate.

[42:36]

You know, there are interpretations, there are assumptions about people, and you can see and watch and evaluate it pretty easily many times. You know, that's kind of, you know, it's kind of maybe a delusion, it's an assumption, it's a guess, and it's an interpretation. If we don't see the arising of a thought as it occurs... then it's all too easy for it to be running the show. It's almost like it becomes reality. Fishes don't see the water they swim in, they say. We don't see the beliefs that we swim in because we don't see them even as something that arises in the past. We just see it and it just is. And they operate kind of like glasses. But so to be able to have the kind of strong presence and stillness and mindfulness... So you can really watch the thought arise. That's probably one of the best ways to study your own delusion.

[43:53]

Yeah, one of the problems with doing this, any kind of inter-religious comparisons, is that the words can mean different things. And so if someone uses, like for example, the Mahayana loves the word compassion. The Theravada loves the word metta, loving kindness. And so the Mahayana says, we have compassion, you don't. You know, you have this measly little loving kindness thing. But if you actually study how they talk about, how the Theravada talks about loving-kindness, almost the same terms as they would talk, the Mahayana talks about compassion. It's just a different word for the same reference. So the words nirvana and samsara might be the same way. You have to be very careful. You have to understand what people are talking about when they say that they're different or they're talking about they're the same. And in Mahayana even, There's been a variety of generations, evolution of what that means.

[45:00]

Even in Mahayana, there's different teachings of what samsara and nirvana means. I believe in Nagarjuna, who was kind of responsible for this little mischief, he said that the limit of nirvana is the same as the reality limit of samsara, meaning that they all occur within the same realm. So in that sense, they're in the same place. They're not like two different places. So nirvana happens in this world, samsara happens in this world. In the early traditions, samsara is not a noun. It's more of an action verb. And it means wandering. The mind or the lifetimes wander on and on and on. So the mind spins and spins and spins. were caught up in delusion and greed, which you can't, you know, cycling around and around and around. And to say that... And nirvana was the stopping of the cycling, the stopping of the spinning of the mind.

[46:10]

So you can't really say that spinning is the same thing as not spinning. It's a little bit hard to kind of argue that. You can, but it's a little bit convoluted to try to say how they're the same thing. And I don't know if it's helpful. But this early tradition really emphasizes that nirvana is a stilling of the agitation, and samsara is the agitation. It all happens in your mind, in this world here. Nirvana is not a world someplace else. It's not a transcendent reality someplace else. And I think when the Mahayanas were criticizing, they were saying that nirvana and samsara are the same, they tended to be a straw man that they were arguing against, where the people who argue that nirvana was some totally transcendent place. And in this early tradition, that doesn't seem to be the case. Make sense? How long do we go here? 4.30. Yes? Hi, Nate.

[47:12]

You're talking about not... You thought that it might not be best to look for anything, but just to sort of wait for... things to reveal itself? With ardency, yes. Ardency. What do you mean by that? You know, with a real sense of determination, presence, engagement, wholeheartedness. That's kind of what I was wondering about. I've come across several ideas that there comes a certain point in meditation practice during which you are... being very open and letting whatever come up and being with it. And then there comes a point when perhaps certain states of mind or certain beliefs or thoughts are kind of elusive and they'll show up and run away again. And you may need to follow them. Occasionally. Or something like that.

[48:15]

Why? Maybe because they're so deeply conditioned or... Why do you have to follow? What's the purpose of following them? To get to the root or something. Yeah, sometimes it's useful to do that, for sure. And so sometimes people go to therapy for that because they keep repeating the same unhealthy behavior or painful behavior and they just can't understand it. So they have to learn how to stay with it or focus on it or do exercises that keeps it in the forefront. So there are times when, because of the suffering that's being caused, that something like that is useful to do. And I don't know how to say this. I don't know what the hell to skillfully say. Maybe I shouldn't say anything. But I would say that those kinds of exercises are important and valuable. But in a sense, they're kind of like a little detour from the core way that practice is usually emphasized in this early tradition.

[49:25]

Just really focus on what's here. And if something disappears, don't worry about it. And then as you get more concentrated and more still, if it needs to be addressed, if it represents something that needs to be addressed, it'll reappear in its own time. And in fact, one of the things I like to teach, especially when I'm teaching retreats, is the Dharma knows better than you what needs to come up. So many times people come and retreat with a certain agenda, they think they're going to deal with something or face something, and then that doesn't come up at all. And they're surprised. But I think that your practice or the Dharma, I like to use the word Dharma, but your practice, your inner life, whatever, your heart, whatever you want to call it, knows better than you do what you need to do. deal with what you need to face any given time but if you practice and that's about i have such tremendous trust in the value of practicing you keep being practicing you know wholeheartedly sits the sheens and really give yourself over to logs steady being present for yourself more and more and more settle on yourself more and more and as you're subtle and really here for yourself then it's kind of like you're going through layers in your mind or your heart

[50:44]

And if there's roots of behavior that's in deeper layers, you'll get to that and have to deal with it. So it's okay if it skirts away for now. If it needs to be addressed, you'll have to face it sooner or later if you're able to get settled. If you can't get settled and concentrated, then you might need to take one of these little detours and do exercises, work with a therapist, work with someone. to help you understand what it is that you're avoiding. So I want to say, before we stop then, I want to make one other point about this importance of impermanence. It's probably the most important insight in this early tradition. It's emphasized over and over and over again. But usually in English, we translate the word anicca as impermanence. And the ah of anicca means not.

[51:47]

And the nicca means constant. And so anicca really means non-constant, inconstancy. And that gives a very different impression for many English speakers than the word impermanence. Because impermanence for many people has the implication that it's not going to last. At some point it's going to go away. It's here now. It's impermanent means I'm going to lose at some point. It's going to disappear. But inconstant means that it's arising and passing. It comes and goes. So, like, if you say the sun is impermanent, most of us will think, yes, in a few billion years, it'll just burn up, and that's, you know, it's impermanent, right? Like everything else. But the sun, I mean, sunlight, or... The days and nights are inconstant. They come and they go. They come and they go. The day begins, it passes. It returns again the next day, it begins and it passes.

[52:49]

And the emphasis on impermanence in this early tradition is primarily on the inconstancy of things. How things arise and pass, arise and pass. And in many different words, the Buddha talks about despair, arising and passing, arising and passing, beginning and ending. coming and going. And there's something about seeing the inconstancy of things. And this is where I think in this fascicle by Dogen, he used the word discontinuity. And I suspect that he's talking about the same thing. Because when things arise and pass, there's a discontinuity from the time they pass to when they arise again. And there's something very important that can be seen, can be happened in that gap, in that discontinuity. And And so part of what happens when people get really settled and their observational powers get strong, just really being present with their experience, that the conceptual layer of the mind gets quiet.

[53:53]

The mind that interprets puts concepts on top of things. And if we don't have concepts to explain what's happening, then the direct moment-to-moment experience of things is in constant flux and change, moving all the time. arising and passing. And it's concepts which gives things the illusion of permanence. Because we put a noun, a label on it, a noun on it, and it seems like, oh, now I know what it is. And if we're spinning and thinking a lot in our mind, we tend to be spinning in concepts which keeps things in our kind of understanding locked in, this is how it is. And it can be very simple. You have a grudge towards someone, And they're the person who deserves the grudge. You think you know who they are. They're a jerk. And they're a jerk for you forever. And you can go around carrying this idea. They're jerk, jerk, jerk. And the whole story is about that.

[54:55]

But then you finally meet the person after a few years. You haven't seen them for a while. And they've changed and they're in a different situation. And the whole idea of a jerk doesn't stand up anymore to scrutiny because... you're actually seeing someone directly. But if you stayed with the jerk glasses on, you wouldn't see it, they've changed. You wouldn't see who they are as a kaleidoscope of different qualities. Sometimes they're wise, sometimes they're foolish, sometimes they're kind, sometimes they're not. Things are rising and passing all the time. So in many, many ways, we can get stuck in concepts. And one of the really powerful concepts we get stuck in that cause a lot of suffering is concepts of self. And so this emphasis on direct experience is the emphasis is to get underneath the concepts or let them kind of fall to the wayside. They're useful in their own time and place, but let them fall away. And so they really be in the, what is the direct experience?

[55:56]

In the free of concepts, free of ideas, free of interpretations, free of assumptions, free of expectations, free of self. And if we do that, What do we see? What's there? If you do that, the chances are very high that you start seeing that your experience of things, not things, but the way you experience those things, are constantly shifting and changing. And the more settled and the more still, paradoxically, the stiller and quieter the mind gets, the more you'll see that everything's in flux. Everything is changing. And with that, it sets in motion, a process of moving towards freedom. And in this early tradition, this is one of the ways it's described, is it leads first to disenchantment. Lovely term, I think, disenchantment. Because it implies that you are enchanted to begin with. You're in the spell of something.

[56:56]

So you're breaking the spell. And there's something about seeing impermanence, the arising of passing phenomena, that breaks the spell of of these concepts and interpretations and projections that we have on reality. And as we get disenchanted, in the spell, in the allure, in the expectations, the assumptions, the beliefs we have, and as we get disenchanted, it leads to what's called fading away. And fading away is a fading away of greed, hate, and delusion. Fading away of clinging. It's a natural process that if you see clearly, you'll get disenchanted. If you get disenchanted, you'll naturally loosen up on your attachments. So this is seeing things as they are, disenchantment, and fading away. So it's time to stop.

[57:57]

So that's probably enough for now. And then tomorrow, I'm going to pick up from here and discuss a little bit how this early tradition has a very strong emphasis on marga, on path, and the unfolding of path, the practices that go along on the path, and the states of mind or qualities of personal change that happens along the path. And it's fascinating to kind of get in there and see how this process and the mechanism by which this works. So, you know, so we'll continue tomorrow for those of you who come. Thank you.

[58:46]

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