Majjhima Nikaya Class

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you the money
i success
as that that way
that approach the meditations that's characteristic of sizes and non-dual approach which doesn't include which a the under emphasizes a sense of judgment states of mind
i think is very good trust because we have a whole
cultural background that causes and judgment of of our own states of mind to be often
tremendously corrosive and disturbing
because we're so conditioned to think of the minds as me those words if i have bad sauce and a bad person should have as bad as some sort so identify you're working with positive and negative states of mind can be a little dangerous for us because we will tend to take it for
such as chief resident just say okay let's roll up our sleeves and work with mind we were tested until and repression this gusta
so that's why it always does in is quite good for us because it doesn't emphasize that size
but in reality if you really undertakes in practice that site is there the side of cultivation is there and the sutra emphasizes that sides aren't just say that so that we don't have a profusion of only to supposed to be doing something different says
this is in a way another approach to meditation another approach to working with mind it is an approach that weekend if we hold it lightly and don't take it to literally we can actually use it i think we can reflect on our know how how we could use it a whether it really really work
i just weren't partner that it isn't that since different
so
the cetera
begins as all such as began thus have i heard
that has always the speaker
this i heard
on one occasion the blessed one meaning the buddha
was living as of t and grow and not authentic is park
and this is face location would have often went to j this girl that are not authentic a spark
not a pinnacle was
a very good friend of the buddhist a lay supporter
who attended many the buddha's teachings and all his life must be less study with buddha it was with him when he died
and this girl was a particular location in the next part and
and there he addressed the because thus because
better will serve as your life and the blessed one said this
in the other cities that we read i think i forget
how many cities regret that i think all the ones that we read it was a little story it's beginning
the that explained a set a frame around the teacher africa motor was giving explaining you know why the growth of move to get this particular teaching because of what somebody said i want somebody did hear there's no such story the would adjust to the launches into his discourse right away
the in stone sutras are like that don't have a story connected to them
the stories are interesting because they give you a really good sense of the way that the buddha worked with people and the way that students and the in those days related to teaching and where their lives were and so forth but in this case we don't have any that we just have
immediately a a teaching about how to
work with mind so because winnebago is pursuing the higher mind
from time to time he should give attention to five signs what are the five
so
the higher mind ah
means
meditation meditative state
and
as we were saying the other day in our i'll be darned with seminar one of the striking things about the buddhist view of life
is there
this world that we understand as the world that we accept that this is reality this is the world
and it's the only world
was understood by a buddha and his students to be
one world that was real but not the only world it was real they usually talked about three different worlds one of them was this world which was called canada to the world and desire
in which things appear to certain way and there were certain it's consciousness and since fields operating but then they were also to other worlds one was called rupa to and that was a world in which that was this world only purified
and removed of certain kinds of
a troublesome aspects that this world has and then a third world was called aruba doctor which is a world even more purify in which which was a wholly mental where are you yeah world without any manner and at all
and these other two worlds where worlds that one entered into through trend stage because they practiced
a very deep meditation states which in which they would remove themselves actually from the comedy to entirely so that they would not be aware of sounds or
visual objects and so on closing the i and in removing themselves from the world that we take as ordinary a reality and they felt that information and insight that appeared to them in those realms was valid information and just as real as this world
and they understood that in order to understand this world when needed to penetrate those other two worlds and and receive insight
that can only be received from entry into those are the world's again this is quite different from our understanding of zazen in which we are in a sense or see maybe the three worlds folded into this one you don't see them as three separate worlds but they are delineated in a separate worlds so when he says that
when a beaker was pursuing higher mind he means when a beaker was entering these other worlds that are that are ontologically just as valid and and as real as this one
in those worlds you could see past lives and various kinds of phenomena you can you could you can understand reality in a way that you couldn't understand and accommodate to and they accept that this is just the same way that you know we we have the whole notion of the laboratory in a scientific experiment of figuring out being able to get an angle on what's going on with the world in ways that week
couldn't in this ordinary world they have the same idea only they were they were masters of mind instead of matter so they have these other two worlds where they were we could work anyway
when you so is necessary for the path to be able to enter these worlds and receive insights from this from these locations
so when you're working on entering those worlds and perfecting your meditation
you need to give attention to five signs
i am here
this what this means is five size means five
five different
you could say kinds of medicine to be applied
when there's distractions
which distracted mind prevents you from entering into these other realms the only way that you can enter into rupa doctor in our group adaptive is with a totally concentrated mind a mind that's one point
when the mind because one pointed you use a slip out of come out to into the other doctors and so
if you notice your mind and in with income a doctor the mind is distracted all the time there's various distractions coming up because of attachment and aversion producing the energy of a taschen and aversion is always producing further thoughts and if you say i'm just gonna focus on one thing with powerfully gathered
forces of my mind and one point you find that it's very hard to do that because the energy of the tasman is constantly bringing the mind over here and yet to keep bringing it back and so in order to enter these other realms you have to have a one point in line
and new and you are because come about to is very persuasive so
in order to bring the wine to one point this and be able to enter of these other realms here's five things that you can apply so that you can make him my my point and that's what this suit was going to be about what of those five things in one of the characteristics of them and how do you work with them
so number one ah well it's number three with the first one is here because when a biko is giving attention to some sign in the here now
now the worst assigned me something different here hear the word sign means the meditation object because the idea was that what you do is you will take a meditation object and there were various ones suggested for example the breath
you will take the breath as a meditation object and then you would try to apply the mind to the breath and make the mind one point on the breath so that case that's what sign means whatever it is that you have chosen as a meditation on his various ones with them said the breath
here because when ambiguous giving attention to some sign
and owing to that sign that arise in him evil unwholesome thought connected with desire with hate and delusion
then he should give attention to some other side
connected with what is wholesome
so
unless sure about this
owing to that sign the horizon him evil and wholesome process will bit confusing to me i think to me i understand this to me not the fault of a sign that there should arise
evil unwholesome sauce and someone but rather in the effort to pay attention to that sign and the process of doing you will find
evil and wholesome fats connect with that desire hate and delusion arising now
evil and wholesome talk sounds kenneth lurid arm i'm like you know you would have devilish thoughts or something but i don't think it means exactly that i think it just means
a counterproductive distracting thoughts kind of productive ah to the goal of one point in this you have counterproductive sauce
ha which did not tend toward liberation did not tend toward concentration in those thoughts were generated
by desire the attachment hey many version
andalusia meeting confusion about what was your purpose was in lawyer for you are doing
so in other words these words make it sound like something in a very
ah
yes numerator extreme but i think it just means our average everyday stupid in a deluded
confused
thoughts which we are which we all have you know
tulsa has point an emotional state on ten yes and couldn't imagine air
oh yeah certainly yeah but i think that that's a good thing to bring out than that
it is in obvious ways or are not so obvious ways our unskillful relationship to our emotional life that creates distraction to begin with so sometimes we sit with we know that were overcome with strong emotion and we call it emotion but even when we're not
conscious that were overcome with some emotional state there is almost always present and least some shadow some of
held desire or aversion which then produces distraction
so
when that happens when you find that your you are having these unwholesome thoughts connected with desire great head delusion then you should apply
an antidote some something you should then bring up on purpose
something else as an antidote to those stats so that you can neutralize them see i do
and
although he doesn't say here exactly what does ah
and would be there are many and other texts you know many traditional evidence that would be applied for example
if you have distracted thoughts arising in the mind in relation to a living being
thoughts
produced by desire
ah romantic desire and so on let's say
or
a desire for food or some like that the antidote to that is the meditation on foulness
so you you rent your recollected you meditate on like there's some very
quite uninteresting notations in relation to the human body that you can do like remember that this body is just full of nor eight miles of intestines and inside the intestines is filthy stinky material that was formerly food and it's a very if you if you saw
at in front of you you would be disgusted by it the urine bile phlegm pus constantly president the body the internal organs are not pretty and is lot of hair follicles everywhere and so on and you would meditate all this and you would on all this a you would say to yourself well so this is what i'm so attracted to and when i'm
it was distracted me is no desire for this disgusting
bag costs and shirt and so on and in a
and there's a kind of organized meditation on this where you go through all these points and then this would this would take the edge off so speaking of
and the same with food you would regular food is stands up to be this you know disgusting in a very quickly on a feeling of knew somebody yeah somebody has a delicious dinner and then you know on one second somebody could put it in their mouth chew and spit it out put on the plate and would you want it then or you wouldn't want to
the bath and budget in august but yet this is what it is it really is that that substance so why are you letting yourself be caused by such a short sighted view of these things so then right where the ideas that meditating on earth and you train yourself you can imagine training yourself to see that which we tend to be a certain way
a to see that although it might be that way it's also a lot of other ways i mean really this is these are true things right i mean there are eight miles of intestines or our money in the body and are is disgusting things to abundance of were so you train yourself to bring out up and so take the edge off your desire if you had a desire for inanimate things
you that ended up to that would be to meditate on impermanence to know that you desire this thing but actually it's it's impermanent you can't really hold onto it and so you're you're you're spending time wanting it is beside the point you should remember that it's nature and permanent
yeah if you have a hatred or ill will toward a living being
and you're sitting there meditating you know when you mrs real soon i'm meditating and you see bill will arising in relation to another bit of living being usually a person
when you meditate and loving kindness so you actually as a whole organized meditation and loving kindness that he would bring up in order to
you know neutralize your obsession with ill will toward the other person
if you had a ill will toward a non living creature some inanimate thing than you would meditate on before elements that everything is only made up of in the buddhist
kind of physics you know this four elements earth water fire and air and everything is made up of different combinations of these things and then you have analyze the thing that you were and ill will toward in terms of those four elements and then you would neutralize you're feeling
and the antidote to delusion is to move into green gulch
this
yeah a delusion is a problem and the antidote is to move into a temple and study with teachers and apply yourself from the teaching listened to the teaching so that that's the antidote for delusional so if you were to notice these things arising in invitation you would actually try to apply the antidote to them and then what will happen says here when it gives attention to some other
sign connected with what is wholesome
in that way that i just described them
any evil and wholesome thoughts connected with desire with hate and delusion or abandoned and they subside
what the abandoning of them the mind becomes steadied internally it
brought to singleness like i was saying in a one point of this
and concentrate
just as a skilled carpenter or the carpenter's apprentice might knock out remove and extract a course peg by means of a fine one so to when a beaker who gives attention to some other sign connected with what is wholesome
her mind becomes steadily steadied internally quieted brought to single this and concentrate
and so
i guess that sir
the carpenters still do such things as they can find a pagan used to knock out of course repay the choir carpentry tichenor were in japanese person fairly that was something that they did then they would i guess if you had a pegs in wanna get written up as a packet puritan and smaller pagan
hammered and and that it would papa big flag without having the smaller pig stick in there
so that in that way
so the the positive state of mind that you're using as an antidote is a peg also
ah but that peg won't get stuck in the whole because a smaller different kind of cancer but and is capable of knocking out the other pay
but one interesting thing is that i often find my release all citrus i should write up a monograph about this but many phrases that are commonly used in in zen chinese antics that seem anomalous like where do they come from but they actually come from these old suitors and this is one of them because maybe you remember those of you
who have studied a lot of literature one very common phrase in zen literature is knock out the pigs and wedges
they often say that the purpose of the that teaching and the teacher is there to knock out the pegs and wedges which means knock out all ways that we're putting ourselves together so that we can be free
you can imagine like we're all stuck together with pigs and wedges and the ideas that it's all very flimsy kind of you know i mean it's always like it's all these different parts that are that are somehow knock together with pigs and wedges and and because it's all knocked together with ties and wedges it's it's
it's on free it stuck so the purpose of meditating and and with the teachers knockout pegs in and is why i think that comes from this expressions mr to and other suitors much using
in santa course the ideas not to knock i want tag with another but eventually no pets
so that in non dual meditation you see it's not about let's have these states are mine and not those because these are better it's about let's just
be free aim with with whatever state of mine arises
but hear what's being emphasizes using one state of mind to as an adult or to a not
and that's the first of the five canada
second one is if while he is getting attention to attention to some other side connected with what as wholesome they're still arise in him evil and wholesome thoughts connected with desire hate and delusion then he should examine the danger in those thoughts thus so in other words
please go in order so first you apply the henna for you may notice that sometimes that doesn't work
if the and i think my understanding of the sutra is that this is in in
ascending order
have difficulty in other words you may have noticed that when you are in a particularly nasty state of mind
you know like you really definitely pissed off at something rather and then you say okay well now wait a minute you know i should apply the end and i'm going to meditate on loving kindness say meet him the hell with that and forget that i can no way of and ability loving kind it's i'm really upset here you loving kindness doesn't touch this
the
so that happens right but there are but on the other hand that there is a there is a degree of your will write and which you could apply loving and it would work
subtle theater because there's so there's a time when you would work but there's another time when a degree is strong enough so that it so here says if it still you try that and still as worth here's what to do say so it goes like that an order still doesn't work you should examine the danger and while stocks thus the
his thoughts or unwholesome they are reprehensible the result in suffering
so this is pretty good i think this is a good i would recommend this method and the only way that this method will work is when you know it's true
an order for you to know it's true you might have to suffer a certain amount in other words
you need to
if you ill will is to hold onto a feeling of your will is a very
uncomfortable difficult situation for you it causes pain and suffering for you
if you have to really believe that in order to have the incentive to let go of know well how will you believe that will you believe it by observing your conduct in the case of ill-will so you know try it out have ill will encourage it insult your friends in a punch somebody in the nose see what happens you know and if you if you are sensitive to your life at
all and you will instantly in a room realize and be able to see that
it's really true that unwholesome states of mine aren't just not at they're bad or you should be good girl or don't like that is that they actually create no problems that you don't want and so i always recommended the practice of mindfulness to to actually look and see what happens
and it doesn't take all that long ah
for you to recognize that that in these so-called unwholesome states of monica the whole characteristic of them is that they cause you suffering when you know that on your own experience then when you see the thought of your will or the thought of obsessive desire coming you say wait a minute
i don't really want this i really don't because i really can see what's going on here i can see that this kind of thought this can feeling is really not what i want leading to suffering i really don't want it so that kind of reflection will
in a rough the habitual and natural grabbing onto the ill-will will or grabbing onto the desire and it will stop it and you'll let it go so that's the next thing you know and then if if that if you can do that then any uneven hold on wholesome fuss connected with desire hate and delusion
or abandoned in whom and subside
and then as you saw on the other cities reserve it's always repetitive the same thing is repeated over over again so here it's repeated also when they're abandoned her mind becomes steadied internally quiet there's dropped singleness and concentrated
a with each of five different similarly has given
just as a man or a woman
young youthful and fond of ornaments
would be horrified humiliated and disgusted if the carcass of a snake or a dog or human being were hung around his or her neck
that would be no direct think of the person hanging around your neck
the person
instead of a gorgeous you know diamond pendant or something
yeah
so to when vico examines the danger in these thoughts the mind becomes steadied internally quieted brought the single singleness and concentrate
so this is a this is a
i mean we have a lot of
socially given attitudes and notions that we have to shed i think in the course of doing something like this because there's things like yeah but i'm right about this and she is really rotten sansa
now you know we're all were brought up to a field was kind of righteous indignation about some like that so of course i have you will of course i'm going to get revenge in this case because and i should because she's like this and blah blah line on all those kind of things
a or of course is right for me to want this particular thing that i want course it's a good thing for me to desire to to have this giant car somebody that because it's my that's what i you know that's what i'm here for us and i'm working for and first we should all have that but i mean were encouraged to think this way right and our heart of hearts that we have them
looks like that actually we really do you catch yourself
justify thing so so you actually need to do a certain amount of the construction you know in your own mind and recognizing that that the obsessive desire for something outside yourself if if it if it gets out a scale and it's easy for it to get on a scale becomes something that causes suffering and
harm ah never mind to others which isn't a often the case as well but even forgetting about others and how much it harms others just considering oneself ah you know the state of mind that one is in and grab enos remove oneself from from the present moment of one's own life and
since the well being and your aunt your of you're not even of constantly on of yourself you are looking for something and when you see how painful that is so as i say this is not a small thing about i'm trying to say it actually takes some work so really reconditioning and really understanding for sure by your own experience
that
you know aversion attachment and confusion about the way things are
does lead to suffering that you you really do have an unpleasant experience as result of that and you begin to identify those habitual thoughts and attitudes and everybody has their favorites in know according to karma that get you trap you and that our sources particular sources for you have your own suffering and you're big
going to see wow you know even though all my life i felt good about that and i justify that and i thought it was all right i now i'm beginning to steve by observing my my conduct in my mind that that is is actually causing the pain and i really don't want pain so let me reflecting when i see it coming
residents say yes yes yes i'm not going to say in a whole new on so this is a big one and this is very real i think that the
in a sense you see working backwards you'd have to a
apply the other ones did you get to the place where the the arising of these states negative states in you are
low enough and energy that you can apply animals and it doesn't become
impossible or on the other hand feel like you doing a number on yourself because the i can be the other thing you know your brain washing yourself by trying to apply loving kindness when you're actually full of hatred you're kidding yourself but if they using the other ways you can you can lower the intensity of the feelings then you can actually apply law
and kindness and it doesn't feel like you're doing a number on yourself and it doesn't feel stupid or what you can hardly bear to do it you can actually work with that because possible
so this is a real good night and i really recommend that and like i say it begins with
the simple observation of what happens
and here and again meditation practice and not only meditation practice for the whole context of a situation in which you're given the space and time to actually be able to observe simple enough situation where you not so beleaguered by the difficulty of your life that you can barely keep your head above water
here to give us to be given a special situation say in place like this or any situation you can create in your life life where you have enough space spaciousness to actually begin to see what's going on when the words begin observe the contents of your own mind observe the causality of what happens once this
happens that happens to be able to observe observer and see that tom
this really true that excessive desire aversion and confusion do lead to suffering and asked you can begin to see those things arising in the mine and begin to say well that's a second one
the third one if while she is examining the danger in these thoughts there's still room for houses that presented or either you tell yourself to obviously forget it you know i really do want to beat him up and i never mind about the stuff about this is gonna cause me something is i don't care because and be suffering and and i'm gonna do it anyway
so you still have a evil and wholesome fats connected with desire hate and delusion then
you should try to forget those thoughts
and not give any attention to them
ah what he tries to forget these thoughts and does not give attention to them then any evil and wholesome thoughts connected with desire or abandoned etc etc cent of repeating the same as before so for how can you do that i'm going to forget them
well
you put your mind somewhere else so in other words practically meet you know go do go out and chop wood you know if you if you're feeling full of hatred and aversion towards them a go on chapo had gotten run ten miles you know
i go volunteer in the kitchen and then chopped vegetables even not sure your are
because otherwise you're gonna spend the entire day obsessed with this these things so there's something else apply some withdraw the attention from it and meditation practice very simple example of that kind of thing would be
that you would really make the breath more interesting or just as vivid as mental state that was arising a mental state that was arising that you couldn't get rid of
my plan the antidote which seemed stupid you know
you know cause you didn't believe it you couldn't get rid of it by noticing how its destructive because it that you get you your your your feelings were stronger than all those kind of arguments and yeah whatever knowledge of have it in their direction but maybe you could shoot an invitation practiced having cultivated of vividness with the breath because
say okay it's true that i'm all upset about this and i can't apply i don't and i can't talk myself out of it but i can turn to the breath and really breathe in breathe out be with each breath
so anyway some version of that something else that you can substitute or something immediate and that would draw the attention away but that's another
like i often recommend the people mindfulness of the body one urine in strong emotional states you tend to forget that you're even walking around and body you don't notice your seat you don't notice your hands you don't notice to you breathing you don't know issue because you're all entirely in your head and in your in your in you're distracted heart
so in those times i usually recommend the people that you really focus on mindfulness of the body when you walk your really pay attention to your walking when you're in an emotionally strong emotional state when you when you lift something you really pay attention to the way of moving your body and work and so as on for that's the third one the fourth one
yes
it seems like you're saying like to distract yourself from a distracting thought and that stood out of the time
well the thing is that the nature of this thought is it's not so much that the set is distracting the major of it is that its leading you to suffering
whereas if you stay with the breath that's not lead you to suffering that's neutralizing in thought that's that's going to lead you to suffering
so next one is if
while as she is trying to forget those thoughts and is not getting attention to them and and implied is giving attention to something else the still arise more he will not resented the work either this is getting serious know if this is a strong mental state and then you know maybe you've had
we are really strong male stays where you just couldn't let go of it then you should give attention to stealing the thought formation of these thoughts
and then that's gonna help so what does that mean that means
investigating the cause
finding out where that comes from
syrah know full of hatred
in relation to someone
where did that come from why does that arise what's the root of it investigating like that
now i think that the weather i've done and then i've also practice this and
the argument is not so much
and this is a very certificate in approach to it is not have much to analyze to think about why do i feel this way about this person and speculate know maybe it's because of this or maybe they remind me of my father something like that but not letting anything wrong with that that
could be a good way of working with it but the way i have worked with it is make it it into a com
so i remember i had a period of a number of years when they had a lot of suffering and i had the colon and what is the cause of this suffering and whenever suffering that kind of suffering would arise and powerful suffering would arise i would you know bring to my breath what is the cause of the suffering whereas the cause of suffering when without speculating about i'm just focusing my mind on the
cause of the suffering because
in our way i was honoring the fact that is powerful mental state was not gonna go away i couldn't apply an antidote that wasn't gonna work i couldn't put my mind on something else in other words i was really there i wasn't gonna be able to for my mind elsewhere i couldn't get rid of it but i could inquire into it i could use the suffering itself as the way out of
suffering because when i said what's the cause of this suffering i was not spinning the suffering i was just present with dennistoun when i'm saying so then that then i did that for and and that was very helpful i mean it was not easy because the suffering was there at the time that i was inquiring into its cause but
the suffering that became a practice object rather than something that was spinning behind on on into into more difficulty so difficult it was still there but it wasn't increasing and it was becoming an object of inquiry and of course eventually practicing in that way reduce the suffering and then
other things became possible just like here
so that's what that's what this one is them before and then the last one
ah
if
doing that doesn't work and you still have
evil and wholesome notice this is like i understand this one to be like
ah yeah like almost semi psychotic obsession
now where are people you get this kind of like raging powerful and wholesome state and nothing works
then he says then you should with teach teeth clenched
and tongue pressed against the roof for the mouth
he should beat down constrain and crush mind with mind
no
the course you see when you read that you think wow that's like totally insane how that's how second help and of course it isn't say if the degree of your
intensity around these things is such that some of the other things can be applied and this would be counterproductive but this is talking about total in a mind numbing paralyzing terror or obsession in which you there's no way that you can do anything at all then just have to like you know tie yourself up in a straitjacket are good
yourself medication or something and i've seen that i have not too often been in states like that but i certainly have been with people who've been in states like that and really and truly there's absolutely nothing that you can do in and that's where sometimes nowadays they have medication anti psychotic or something medication or century and because sometimes like really and truly that's
you really need that you really need some kind of like special restraint and support because that kind of a mind if it's left that's just becomes suicidal it becomes or or homicidal have been right and the things like to happen we read about him in the paper every day why why do you detect ghosts fun when people are shooting people in so forth
these cars there and states alone like this and what they need to do as they need to be restrained
somehow either by others or by themselves knowing that therein raging states of mind that that cannot be encourage they have the stuff though states of mind somehow and the interesting thing is that buddha described this state of mind in his night of enlightenment is not astonished
that on the night enlightened buddha was beset by demons and you we could translate into our own modern day terms and our fears and distress to this degree in the process of his becoming like and like because
in letting go
there's a lot of fear involved here because you really have to mean more or less like when it comes down to his have to like conquered death right yet to conquer your fear of death if the let go of your life if you're gonna really be free at that level and so a buddha was determined to be free at that level and so these things came up for and that that's i find it very astonishing that
he had to start here and worked his way back and that's what he did he started here he worked his way back to where he could get to the number one where he applied the antidote and then he could make his mind one point and and when he made his want mind when pointed he could go through the concentration stays in rupert out to and i rip it out to and he could see the nature of life itself and we can live
read but he hadn't go will write down there entered into the hell realms
so that's interesting
i must talk about whatever you have a relation to the idea of working with states of mind because the whole idea you know just are are as i often say
our received notion is knock is is that works states a minor not unworkable stay some or me
in other words if i am this kind of motor that kind of a murder this kind of a habitual a point of view or attitude i just know heart typical thing would be well that's just who i am who i am and a period
but the whole idea of buddhism is that not period but and that as not me but this is the mind as arising can i understand it and i understand what occurs if i work within a certain way and when occurs by were for than another way and can i be clear about my resolve to
debate that way of life and work with my mind over time that's the whole point of books would actually pull out that idea there's no point in buddhism at all and i think that and like i say it is not
by large the attitude that we have been brought up with and and we understand feeling up in our culture becoming one that moment yeah ash said it just kind of bribe an interesting point when you're talking about this last st miami said you know while a mind like back and becomes style
reviews i it's sort of changes your whole perspective on you know it almost as liberating just to even look at it from that perspective it's just the mine it's a mind like that it's not a person like that grow can do this or that the once you change it suggested or once you start looking at is it's just another state of mind and a
the is more extreme and mugu a different one it seems a lot more work while doing so is and it's all on a continuum a room the seeds of that state of mind that could be suicidal or homicidal
our present in the first moment of attachment within an aversion it's not the same food but so what else what i'm saying is that that we can understand even though we might not experience suicidal or homicidal middle states
ordinary attachment and a version includes the seeds of it so we can understand that we can understand that whole continuum this that's where compassion comes from compassion comes from our appreciation of our own suffering and knowing that the root of are suffering is completely the same as the root of the suffering of anyone else and
so we can understand the mind of a murderer or a person who commits suicide and not feel that we protect ourselves by saying oh that that's something
over there and something in the newspaper and something but actually the roots of this kind of suffering are common everyday stuff for all of us and when you do appreciate that you know reduce to take a look at that in ourselves and accepted and work with it
you know we have a great word in our
culture called in denial
where we are in which which is where we refuse to acknowledge these roots of suffering in ourselves and then do a great deal more harm because they're operating in us and we're not able to work with them because we don't recognize that they're they're so recognizing what's there for what it is
is sir like the first step in bodhidharma you recognize the mind for what it really is not for what you would like it to be or what should it should be or something like that but you knew you step from first step is on on the mine as it actually is
so that's a very important point and that in that way i think buddhist psychology because we're talking here about buddhist psychology right with mine is a very consonant i think as far as i understand with some of the insights recent insights of western psychology
in a way more consonant them judeo christian approach which emphasizes should and you know and they get judeo christian approach
what can foster at least as it's traditionally been received can fast as you can i do not like i'm not supposed must be bad
so if i am and i got an notice because they're not a bad person
so i better not i remember i was telling again in the seminar that the i have some times and meditation classes which involved some fundamentalist christians down in my city people start coming in meditation class because their past or told them that you do not want to vote
it because if you meditate and you allow evil thoughts to appear in the mind the devil will get you
so what you want to do as not ever allow those stunts to be there
because you know your back from that even if you're not supposed to and then and so you better like not you've gotta run away from that to put something else in there but but
in buddhism that's poison you know you have to allow what's there to be there and then you work with it it is workable any state of mind is workable and as you see from these are all tools raise a bag of tools and throughout the such as as millions of of these kinds of things how to work with rooms there's a modern states some blender always workable
but not your fault see the state of mind that your in is not your fault
this is what am i was one of my ways of explain the state of mind that arise in this moment is not your fault it's the result of causes and conditions in the past
but the state of mind that arrives this moment asks of you what will you do and that's your responsibility
dennis then so are you can't say i'm a bad person because i've got this murderous thought know i have a murder stuff okay know how will i worked with it that's my responsibility no use complaining about the murderous stop it's their say that is beating yourself up about how you shouldn't have
abbott in of blog it's not your fault really the person who produce that murderous thought is gone now there's a person here who has the responsibility of working with it what will that person to and that's where you're responsible
so so so we have a survey it's a beautiful car of is a beautiful notion you know it means that we have total responsibility and total freedom now but the what what was not our fault say not to worry about it's not your phone
just my sister talk her laugh oh nice garden she's seventeen years since just now starting to break away from my parents conditioning and the churches condition mormon roman church chan shuffle lotta church nice to hear about situation even know
know what are what up with answer or hurt what feelings are hurt or are they understood what she's supposed to be on and
toby it you should be this way is why yeah such as new now it's her life oh yeah can be enormously confusing right moment and think how disorienting and disconcerting such a thing is it's not know it's no surprise that people and such troubles
and i was thinking about instead of this team
engineering am i
your mental state and what about
worst case we're not just for richard gere worse now state experiencing versus and who opposes total surrender
well that would be more than non dual a more exit that's what i said in the beginning of it you know that that this whole thing could easily sound like i mean it's not that in a certain way it's not that far away from manipulation or brain brainwashing yourself and someone you have to hold it in the right in the right way and that's why
why i think that the zen approach of just turning toward whatever state of mind is there without encouraging it or try to run away from it or substituted or anything else but just being like you say totally surrender and giving yourself to it is probably an easier approach for us because it's pretty hard for us to hold this kind of thing we have to actually be very familiar i think
with bodhidharma and have over appear a long period of time really made it our own to where we can work in this way and for many people
that's why i think
oh
the kind of zen approach is very in a way she did you take the zen approach to be basically the faith that we are already good
that's what arises in us fundamentally arises out of buddha that we can surrender and turned toward our or anything that we are
if you take that as in the essential point
the essential of underlying fact in the in the way that we work with our mind within zen then really and truly i think all western buddhism shares that point of view even the fastener which comes from terror vada in the west of the person that is has more like as in attitude towards was doing and i think that's
there's no there's no accident for the because that's because it's that's the out to the most skillful for most of us because of our previous condition
and can see the attitude but in my experience contacts and i said sales are typically mental state as how cases i was in our just try to clear extra costs down and a cat the more data mined areas and
putting my staff an angle for around ah ah i went on to something or which takes him and out of it it seems to be more helpful yes and town so like hearing what you read tonight us without me having read it before i can see
that i've time for for your every other than a national for her and like if there was some state a half like this morning i had a stay of mine i could watch that i have no control and off and no i didn't like that i didn't want to do it but my
i didn't want to why i didn't have any control of power except my awareness and after i didn't i just i don't wanna do this again and that was really nervous real can a darwin so i think those tools that can be helpful yeah definitely
oh yes and you know i think one of the things when you reflect on what's being said here
but you you can appreciate the subtlety and sophistication of all of this for example a you know what works for rain navy doesn't work for you and what works for you today maybe doesn't work for you to tomorrow
and what works for you in one mental state doesn't work for you and another middle states soldiers in the real the real issue is you know kennedy in alert enough and subtle enough to see what's going on so you know you try something and you see it doesn't work so you say okay well it might work tomorrow and maybe work yesterday but right now this is not a good way so you have to have
i had get the hang of it you know what am i trying to do here and what's this all about and can i be skillful and working with myself and what's really going on when it really the effects of what i'm doing her and as you say i have sometimes
we have to ah
suffer more in other words sometimes we have to do the thing that we know that we shouldn't be doing it we don't want to do and we can't prevent ourselves from doing it and we do it
you know and then having done it we really understand i really don't want to do that you know i did it and then i'd in doing it i really understand that i really don't want to do that sometimes that's what we have to do we have to do it in order to understood to really learn that lesson so does we have to do more than once
until wait until we really learn and as way cause so it takes a certain amount of suffering to understand that one doesn't want suffering and understand what what causes suffering
so you know that's what happened
i just think he met have
ah about tapping into our our amazon
ah he around and pushing to laugh a thoughtless was when you push from for something way or you don't like it is thought and and you you just feel bad about in to since it if you ah you say oh i don't like that i sent me you know it just seems to hang around with
here you know and then com
that i was thinking that that well you a while largest one day i thought wow just just
he was at an end just say okay this is just terrified and handa unless the person half just to just be with them
and it turned out wasn't that bad who are diabetic
seem like a frame and essence their names like up you know i i see this was like when you push why he pushed into wakes us off of law to have just who absolutely here that's why the three a kind of holding on energies our desire aversion
in confusion that's a version will talking about a version that the wanting to get rid of something is an unskillful way of dealing with if you don't want to be there and if you insist on getting rid of that they won't go it will go in because the aversion itself produces more of the same so one has to be willing to just be aware of
and accepting of whatever arises and thus more skillful way of working with it then thinking that you can push it away so there's a certain degree of equanimity and patients involved in all this
so if you're gonna apply the antidote if you if you apply the antidote if there's ill will to a present and you apply the antidote of loving kindness you have to do that with a spirit of not like god i gotta give her the zoo will right away and i hate it so i'll apply loving kindness if you do that of course work you have to just recognize the oh well as present
and this is what feels like i know that it leads to suffering
and but i can have some patients with and i'm going to apply loving-kindness to the best of my ability and see what happens that kind of spirit in a rather than longer had you know i shouldn't be feeling this might make it go away right away it will never work just like you say and you'll find this out is his trial and your sealer that trying to run away from your own mind is never
skillful
yeah it's funny how the mind works it's very tricky
right it's like applying asked one kind to yourself there a
and right and and the loving kindness meditation
begins with loving kindness toward yourself
it's it's it's a it's private practice which understands that ill will toward another is rooted in ill will toward oneself and conversely love for another is rooted in love for oneself you can't let go of your will turn another unless you love yourself
so that that isn't as a whole meditation i'm loving kindness which begins that way
well
nothing else
well i hope you enjoyed this little
sketch by the buddha and reflect on how you can work with your own mind and what works in and a
in a way these are thousands of years old and we can write these down and memorize and and so on so forth
but as jeanette points out first of all we already know them because we already ourselves stumbled into them on our own him also there are other ones that we can invent that the booted and mentioned in this suit or maybe didn't mention anywhere else
so there's a certain ah
degree of creativity possible with this imagination you know once you understand where you're going in and what and what the basic methodist for how to go there you can figure out for yourself different ways of creating practice for yourself to encourage
ah you to lecco in i suffer
so let me just finish off at the end of or less have on to thirteen of a the buddha sort of as a good any good instructor will do will do a little review enough so he used are all five of
the year
five signs that should be applied
and then it says that at the end

this is the very bottom of page two one three this vehicle is then called a master of the courses of thought
having mastered in other words these five signs
this bigger was then called a master of the courses of thought
she will think whatever thought she wishes to think
when she will not make any thought that she does not wish to thing
and what this means to me is
basically that the mind is is flexible and pliable enlightened easy
so that if imagine being able to have a mind where you know certain thoughts energy mind you said well that that's no that's no fun we'll need that and it would just go in you will have to be obsessed with it and you'd think a other thoughts that you'd like to thank our they liked to have the president the my they could be
there it can be that kind of flexibility and playability that the mind where it was not exactly under your control but in cooperation with your deepest desires instead of an opposition i was reading some book about psychology and it said that maybe some view i know on least one person user
a psychologist
this is and all of this isn't really true but what are the with it was saying was that that the basis of freud's idea of the roses was conflict conflicting psychological
necessities and another would you want this and you want that and they're both of them on they're in conflict in this causes problems
well this is the said the roses that's that's the generation of neurosis
in all sorts of twisted ways that we are that don't really work out so well this is the opposite of that
there is no conflict in the mind as an easygoing sense if you know what's in the mind is in cooperation with one's deepest heart's desire and everything is in the service of that and there's no problem about what one thinks what one can always work within deal with it it doesn't become troublesome and obsessive
and that's the result of someone who masters is five them
five of signs be able to have that kind of mind and then it says she has severed
craving flung off the feathers
and with the complete penetration of conceit
as made an end of suffering
and that's the end of the buddhist dharma talk know
these last words and involve the whole kind of complicated technical
this visited description his last words are description of a person who has
oh fully attained enlightenment completely
let go of all internal confusions that caused suffering in really is living in freedom and and ease and so without going into the entire thing which i was dutifully looking up and going over this afternoon and maya so
super confusion
try to as give you just the basic idea of what this is about
there are in the buddhist path characteristic of these old sutures they delineated four stages
of having
the idea was that
there was a very definite entry point
into having come to this place with the my in relation to the mind
and they were four degrees when you entered it and then they were four degrees up to completely no backsliding possible perfection with working with the mind and there were there was the identification of a series of but they call fetters like locks
now that that
we're on the mind that prevented you that that constantly get you messed up and the idea was you would throw these are one by one when you when every one of them was thrown off you will be free and these these locks these fetters could no longer subjugate you you don't mind with no longer be your own worst enemy current
well that's the fetters to the fetters are there's ten of them and basically with a nod to his them
well the visitor view of self
seeing the mine as me not saying that the mind is something that arises and passes away
it's not my fault it's as process i am a process rather than i am
an eternal fixed entities
that's the first one secondly and one is death
in other words not cooperating with the path toward freedom for resisting it which one does with that's to fetter to turn to have constantly corrosive doubt that will not enable you to work with your teachers so you have to have a willingness and ability to actually work with the teachings as appropriate so getting getting beyond the fedor of
down as a second one the third one is oddly
this was i think particularly one that was important buddhist time
the luke superstition and belief and rites and rituals as effective in ah
well as a way of working with them my mother works taking full responsibility that nobody's gonna do it for you you're not gonna take some special medicine or potion or some like that you're going to do this
the next was the is he not bolivian not believing that rituals and rites are going to solve your problems and the next one the fourth one is a
being caught by central desire not being able to be in the presence of sensuality enjoy for what it isn't let it go but rather been caught by it and having to have more than having to get hooked by it and also the fifth one is the opposite of that ill will or aversion nothing hooked i either go will
toward someone or or or ill will or aversion towards the central world
and then the sixth seventh ones are now we're into
the higher stages of
freedom
because six seventh ones are letting go of attachment to group adopting an our overdraft to which are the to meditation realms that i mentioned earlier three worlds those two worlds the idea is that you can become you become very strong practitioner a meditator and you really withdraw from the central work
url you will still have your will you don't have sensual desire your very pure but now you're attached to the purity and vacation helps you love internationally you put out another the doctor so those are fetters now they become prevented they prevent you from really being free because you just gotta and
in another words a higher class have a more subtle form of attachment and aversion
beyond the material realm but still it's tasman inversion so you have to drop that and then comes this one that's mentioned in the text can see
check this number date and and concede here doesn't mean conventional sense of concede alone is is that the were we mean i can see is just an intensification what's meant here conceit means
see where the earlier fetter his belief in herself right so now you what you understand that there is no fixed self you understand that you are a process can say you've gone beyond common sense of belief itself but you have a say
it'll attachment to sell so you're enlightened your and tight you are attached to your enlightened self he has some feeling of its of if that is really there that there's something to it
so you have this phenomenon of of people who are
enlightened people skillful spiritual teachers who have a shadow of an attachment to that and believe that they are there
a real person who's in our hot whose fully realized doesn't see any are hot anywhere they look around like a there's a famous story i this is exactly illustrated of this point but there's a very famous story suzuki roshi which i was talking to a woman who was involved in a story where he went to visit the cambridge buddhist
association and they were very excited about him coming so they were doing a big cleaning they cleaning everything from top to bottom because the zen master was coming and they were really wanted everything to be just right well he made a mistake and it came like two hours early
so he showed up and they were all you know madly with their aprons on cleaning everything in preparation for the great zen master and they explain that to and he said well i better help too
because the zen masters coming and going to create everything
according to this to her you know she said that he the best part was that he took off his robes and everything understand their in his underwear she remembers abstained from descending on a big ladder cleaning the windows preparation for the name as as an erosion i was gonna come i am shepherd three time
so on other words no shadow of attachment to the i didn't even even somebody so this the idea here is that somebody really is enlightened and they really are you know a spiritual master and they really can get raped this in that dharma talks and this everything except that they accept that they have this shadow they believe that it so they don't see that doesn't
nothing there you know it's just a fantasy there is no such thing so that can see as well as men are very so subtle form of conceit and that's one of the last things to go right so just goes to show you how powerful considers and then a night one his restlessness
when there's that kind of concede there's a subtle
one is is not what is there's still a shadow of
desire to escape or go on to something else not a total and complete
commitment to justice is it and whatever this is and then the tensile and his ignorance
ignorance about the nature of things the and the nature of things not not not appreciating the empty teenager so those ten fetters the ideas that for person in the first days they they have gone beyond the first three and next days and sour so here it saying that that this person has
several craving cut it off and freedom
i am and flung off all in ten feathers and really has left all of this subtle form of conceit and doesn't and then really has made it into suffering no no more suffering than each talk before and your was fast and other classes about that doesn't mean
that there's no more experience than an unpleasant or painful
because as long as there's a body or there's the possibility of an experienced and unpleasantness or painfulness even emotional unpleasantness are painful but the fetters which cause us to take the unpleasantness of painfulness and
spin it around and make it into is technically called suffering or duca that possibility is no longer there and when only confronts the suffering and suffering for the pain is pain and lets it go doesn't know the words there can be equanimity and acceptance within the pain that arises
so my understanding would be done in our hot particularly with our in our practice with my artistic sense of it would be able to feel sorrow and loss and physical pain
a activity
and would be able to accept and bear the and has the necessary and even a beautiful part of human life rather than anguished effort to escape
which leads to more so
so that's pretty good sounds like the first time also sound which was last week
yes it's a subtler for and they basically the ten fetters are
really come down to three attachment aversion and delusion except on more subtle levels
yeah so i think next time
ah three with will study the year by the carotid sitter
which is very short and i also think about whether or not it makes sense them
find another short suitor
how to read also can their last but maybe we'll spend the whole class or not i don't know
and that'll that's our last class next week
roma for them they're so next tuesday night
so thank you for your yeah
listening to the my popular thing in your husband is the material is of benefit
no