Good evening. Good evening. Even I wanted to talk about samadhi and prajna, concentration and wisdom. But then I thought, this is Zen, why not? have a direct experience so here's what I have concocted is we'll do three short meditations and and and then we'll discuss them okay so for each one of them the foundation is sitting upright in Zazen posture for each one you want your body to be upright You want your torso, your abdomen, your throat to be relaxed.

[01:05]

You want your body to be balanced. You want your body and your breath and, as best you can, your mind to be available for the activity. So let me describe the first one. And then we'll do it two, three minutes, then I'll hit the bell. The first one is using Mu as the object of directed effort and attention. You know, the directed effort requires attention to happen. Especially when the directed effort has some kind of exertion and detail to it. You can't do an activity that requires exertion and engagement in detail unless you're paying attention.

[02:16]

So on the exhale, you extend the signed Mu. But for this exercise, you can make it slightly audible. Don't do it real loud, but certainly so you can hear yourself. Okay? And through your mind. So it'll be like this. And then also extend the exhale. Not so that you're gasping forever at the end of it, but extend it quite deliberately. Pause and then let the inhale happen. And then start over. And there's no rush to your breath. You just do it all at your own rhythm.

[03:27]

So let's do that. For the next one, this tip requires a little preparation.

[06:04]

Preparation is this. You just let your body totally relax and let the breath happen as naturally as possible. But see, can you notice as you breathe in exactly how that registers its physical experience. to let the breath happen as naturally as possible and try to notice the physical experience. Is there a tingling in your chest, a movement in your abdomen, whatever it is, whatever that physical experience that accompanies allowing the breath to happen? And then with each breath, bring attention to that experience.

[07:06]

If it's a tingling in your chest, you bring attention to your chest. If it's a softening in your abdomen, you bring your attention. So as you're breathing in, you're also engaging the accompanying physical sensation. So first, take a couple of breaths. Let your body relax. And allow the inhale and notice the physical sensation. Do it two or three times just to see what it is. It's a night of meditate guided by letting the breath happen and bringing awareness to the area that became evident when you allowed the breath to happen.

[08:48]

Letting the breath happen and bringing awareness to the area that became evident, that had some pronounced experience, sensation. And so with each inhale, bringing awareness to that area. And letting the breath be quite natural with that addition, attention to that area. Okay, one more.

[11:48]

In this one, we get very close to doing nothing. What the intention is to just watch how what comes to mind, what comes into the realm of awareness, what comes to attention, is constantly changing. So when there's a sign, just awareness of sign. When that gives way and there's awareness of seeing, awareness of seeing. When it goes back to sand, just noticing that too. When it moves to breath, noticing that. There's no attempt to have any particular experience.

[13:02]

There's no attempt to have awareness and attention reside anywhere. Stay with any particular object. Sometimes called objectless concentration. Sometimes called being aware of awareness. Sometimes entered into by a willingness to experience whatever's happened without an agenda. A willingness to experience whatever's happening without any agenda to make it more or to make it less.

[14:02]

So just to notice And I would suggest you at least have your eyes half open or maybe even fully open. So how was that?

[16:21]

Bewildering? Confusing? Any comments? How was it? Yes, and your experience of it was? Same. The same? It changed. It changed. Body, sight, smell. How about all three? Do you have any comments about... The second one was rather pleasant. It invoked me a meditation I did long ago with Aum. You mean the first one like doing Mu? Yes. The first one. The second one I sort of fell asleep. I really enjoyed the second one as well.

[17:46]

I feel it very calming. It was nice to be in my body. The third one, I felt a little overwhelmed. And by how my attention was constantly moving, it was kind of disturbing to my older grandfather. Just experiencing a multi-mind that was so evident. Thanks. Tunit? I enjoyed the feeling of the sense of reverberation in the room, the energy of all of us. And like in the first one, to feel our voices in the front way, it felt really lush and spiny. It was very... It really made me notice the difference between the energy that I walked in with and then, like, how way old that was.

[18:48]

Just in its body, it was really. And I keep exploring that. And then what about the other two? I think that the first one, just really, like, I felt more open and more settled to this. In my first and second, they're going a little more intellectually. Had we started with them, I feel like the first one just kind of dismantled that habit. Yes. The third one, I kind of knew I was being watched by myself. I saw it react different. I feel like a person reacts when they're having a picture taken. Like if I'm just meditating in the Zenda, and I'd wander off, and then I'd catch myself with my mind wandering, and catch myself listening to a car.

[19:58]

And I'm just like, oh, whatever. Yeah, I was just listening to a car. But... Since you asked to pay more attention to the distractions, I found myself, I don't know, being absorbed with distractions differently than I normally would. Sort of like a person, like in journalism, you know, people react and they're taking a picture. You can't take a natural picture of anybody. I found that the first was very interesting. I spent a lot of hours doing thousands of monitors. And so to have the voice box near the spine in a low grade of activity, there was, for me, this sense of an energy that was coming from the voice box to the spine.

[20:59]

And then, you know, it was very, you know, because it was very subtle, it wasn't like an active repeating of a monitor. but was a subtle thing that kind of each gave each other energy, you know, and so it was very engaging. I've had a very long day, so the other two were kind of very subtle. Thank you. So, you know, paying attention, my breath showed me just probably uneven and probably not smooth my breathing, actually. And then the third one. I've been sort of thinking about that fact that a lot in between all the different senses, occasionally really locked up in thoughts.

[22:11]

Mm-hmm. shot for me, and suddenly, while it stops, it shifts to the hearing. Mm-hmm. And it's like, I thought it was paying attention, but I wasn't actually looking. Mm-hmm. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes. I like the way it started just putting us in the body. Something very concrete, obvious. It took engagement to continue the attention.

[23:12]

You had to physically engage with it to make it happen, to make the sound. in which case there was energy going someplace focused, as opposed to energy ready, open to going wherever, or picking up whatever. So I liked that it focused the energy into the body. And then with the second one, kind of felt like, you know, the first one is kind of like getting into the, just getting into the pool, going down the steps, You can feel the water. And then the second one, it seemed important to me that you said just, however, just breathe naturally, whatever natural is. Don't try to breathe in a particular way. Notice wherever that is in your body, wherever you feel that. And then just kind of put your attention there.

[24:14]

Yeah. One thing that's interesting I noticed, I felt in a place where I don't have it felt before. Part of it was the robes or the belt, just other things. I don't want to feel it other places in my body. But there was less energy. I wasn't trying to be breathing. I wasn't putting energy into doing something with the body. I was just letting the body do its thing, but still having the attention on the body, the breath. where I was feeling it. And because the breathing is a written process, it wasn't static. So there was always something still to sort of grab the attention or to pay attention to, as opposed to, yeah. And so that was going, sort of felt more like going deeper into the water. And then the last one was kind of like just going off the deep end. Okay, thank you.

[25:24]

Yes. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how calm I was and how much I recognized my voice. You did or you didn't? I didn't. but I don't detach from that. I actually feel much more connected than, well, I wouldn't say much more, it's just connected in a different way. And I also was very surprised at how much I just gave myself over to being exercised because I usually didn't have some intentional holding back And you're like, well, I'm going to do the line weight.

[26:41]

A similar question you said about the difference in the energy she had that she brought into the room, I thought that I going to be very uncomfortable because I had a headache, but just breathing and not learning about anything was much easier than I expected. Well, good. And you see from your own experience and the comments that are coming up that as we engage the moment, as we engage the experience of the moment, it can shift out of just being incorporated into the world according to me.

[27:59]

here's what I think about it, here's the feelings I have about it, my judgments, whatever. Something other than just this is about me is asserted. And as we experience it, something else can be illuminated, something more than just the world according to me. And we can start to see how attention, experience, and how it's used, how the bodies you engage, directed or receptive influences what happens. Usually we may think, okay, well, the object of meditation is to not let the mind wander.

[29:01]

But you can flip that on its head and say, the object of meditation is to simply watch the mind wander. And then some restriction has been removed, and that has a consequence. What exactly is distraction? Distraction is when this is supposed to happen and attention wanders away. But if you remember that part of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, where Suzuki Roshi says, if you want to control a cow, give it a large meadow. Just open up to whatever happens. The challenge is, that directing attention creates connection.

[30:04]

And connection creates energy. So the awareness is brightened, is stimulated by the connection, the engagement. And so there's something in that kind of assertion, you know? Okay, do this with your body, extend the exhale, make the sign to moo, and as you make the sign to moo, you're hearing your own breath. So there's all sorts of cues connecting you to the activity. And as that happens, it's potent, you know? And... And, of course, the challenge for us is if we do it repeatedly, then our beginner's mind, curiosity or naivete or innocence starts to get corrupted.

[31:09]

Oh, I did this yesterday and I had this experience. So that's... Or I really like what someone else said and I want to get that experience. Or, well... I did this yesterday and I sort of know what it produces and I'm not that genuinely curious. I'm more doing it because to be a good Zen student I should do this. Can we start to tune in and see those kind of attitudes and motivations that were added? It's like these are the extra we bring in. And in the directed applied exertion, it's like you give yourself, you give your energy, your attention to the application.

[32:20]

And it's like there's no extra energy or attention to go to these other attitudes and assumptions and whatever. And then we learn something in that about the chemistry, the alchemy of giving attention. Giving attention creates connection. Connection creates energy. Energy illuminates... and stimulates awareness. And as awareness is stimulated, the momentary experience has a kind of authority in its being. It's like it becomes more itself. As it becomes more itself, the world, according to me, quite literally, starts to pale in comparison.

[33:25]

Usually, The World According to Me is the big show in time. It wins all the Oscars. As awareness is stimulated, it becomes more vibrant, more significant. And the challenge is that in a way our effort stays innocent. We don't sneak in through the back door, yes, that's good stuff, and that's what I want. It's like the challenge is every time we sit down, we have to return to that innocence. that original mind, you know, that asks, that engages not knowing what the outcome should be or could be.

[34:34]

Then in the second one, the quality of allowing the breath to flow, allowing attention to be guided by the natural process of our being, and there's still attention, there's still connection, there's still directing attention. But it's not as purposeful, it's not as asserted as in the first one. So its teaching is about... letting the activity flow, letting the attention flow, letting something natural unfold. As we engage what we're doing, can we flow with it, rather than assert it?

[35:53]

And then in the third one, Well, to go back to the second one, and then engaging in the body, how that registers. As we start to experience being in the moment, it influences. It influences the body. It influences the senses. It influences the breath. It influences the patterns of mind and the states of mind. Now, they're pretty subtle. But often as you practice, you start to notice maybe, oh, as I start to settle, my breath shifts like this. Or my face softens like this. Or my shoulders relax like this. Little cues, little ways to help you stay connected.

[36:55]

know sometimes to help you stay connected and sometimes to stimulate connection attention follows the breath but also following the breath stimulates the breath too and then in the third one this having no agenda, just being open to whatever is happening. This irrefutable wisdom is what's happening is what's happening. It's always so. It's always such. What's happening is what's happening. And our condition in nature is to always want to do something to it, for it, against it, to have a comment about it, to have a judgment, to like it, to dislike it, to have a response.

[38:07]

So we can miss something very fundamental. What's happening is what's happening. What is original mind? what is the origin of all this stimulated story that's constantly going on, being fed back and forth in each moment, in each situation, in each relationship. And maybe we could say, that in our practice, and by that I mean in our zazen practice, shikantaza, just sitting, that we are upholding the third one.

[39:14]

But I would say our practice includes them all. that each one of them is asking for a skillful relationship to experience. Each one of them is a path of discovery. What's the discovery of applied attention? Whether it's to your breast saying moo, or to sweeping the sidewalk, or... to your field of activity as you do your emailing. If by some strange chance you email. Then our life is filled with occasions and opportunities to explore applied attention like that.

[40:23]

And our life is filled with opportunities to engage in a kind of flowing manner. When you're engaging with someone else, you say something, they say something. You have a response, they have a response to your response. The moment flows in an interactive way. How to have that kind of flowing attention. And then in the third one, how to come back to zero. How to come back to now as free and unhindered from assumptions and presumptions as possible. to let this moment just illuminate itself and the more we do that the more we start to see all the things we add in sometimes it's rather painful maybe we see the degree to which we can't just let it be itself there's a persistent voice it just won't be quiet

[41:56]

I should stop. What I wanted to do was link this to the process of insight. Insight? How attending to these states of mind and these ways of engaging, each of them helps to create a different aspect of insight. And, you know, prajna could also be translated as insight. In a stricter sense, that might be arguable, but I think in a general sense it could be. Just an insight. And let me just finish by saying that insight and prajna arises not through figuring out It's as we engage, something becomes evident.

[43:08]

Something about the nature of being becomes evident. It might be what becomes evident is the conditioned patterns of our own emotions. It might be what becomes evident is how when you enter into an open field of awareness, your sense of being shifts. It can happen in a variety of ways, but it's not the product of sitting down and I'm going to figure this out. That's just generating new thoughts, which are sometimes very helpful and very useful. But they're still happening within the context of conditioned thought patterns. The direct experience cracks that open. It offers it new data.

[44:11]

It gives it new possibilities and ways to experience itself. Okay. Thank you.

[44:19]

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