This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Last night I thought, I wish this heat wave would end. And then this morning when I got up and it was cold, I thought, what have I done? So anyway. Thus have I heard. Once the Lord was staying among the Kurus, there is a market town of theirs called Kama Sadama. And there the Lord addressed the monks. Monks, Lord, they replied. And the Lord said... There is, monks, this one way to the purification of beings, for the overturning of sorrow and distress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of nirvana, that is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness.

[01:16]

The Zen tradition, which I think most of us are pretty used to by now, doesn't really give us a lot of specific information about the practice of meditation. Although we have all recited many times the Fukan Zazengi by our founder, Ehe Dogen Dayosho, we are given a little bit of instruction as follows. Eat and drink moderately. Cast aside all involvements. And cease all affairs. Do not think good or bad. Do not administer pros and cons. Cease all the movements of the conscious mind, the gauging of all thought and views. Have no designs on becoming a Buddha. Sanzen has nothing whatever to do with sitting or lying down. I remember when I first went to Zen Center for Zazen instruction, There was a lovely young woman there with a shaved head, our current central abbess, Linda Ruth Cutts.

[02:27]

And when she asked us at the end of the instruction, do you have any questions, I thought to myself, you've got to be kidding. You know, that's it? I did not raise my hand. I'd already learned that. You don't do that at Zen Center. But I thought, okay, so you cross your legs and you sit upright, and then the only other thing I could remember she told us was, wait for the bell, which I've been doing now for about 40 years. So all of the well-known teachers of Zen who came to America from Japan, Taizan Maizumi Roshi, Dainan Katagiri Roshi, Kobanchino Roshi, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi, I think they gave us what they felt we needed in order to do Zazen. that is, to just sit, with no designs on becoming a Buddha. And so here we are doing just that. And clearly that is just fine, and I would be quite happy to stop right there.

[03:32]

And yet all of those teachers had been well-trained in Buddhist theory and traditional practices. They had grown up in a Buddhist culture, often at a Zen temple with fathers who were priests. They had studied in Buddhist universities, and they could speak fluently about the varieties of methods and influences that led to the formulation of the Zen tradition. And not only that, they could do it in several languages. I don't think any of us have any of those advantages. So before I turn toward the second turning of the wheel, in the classes and lectures up ahead, wherein we will find the Zen school and our lineage of teachers from India, China, and Japan who transformed the language of Buddhist practice. I want to continue to share with you some of the more detailed instruction about meditation attributed to the Buddha and the Buddha ancestors of long, long ago, beginning with the Maha Satipatthana Sutta.

[04:39]

the foundation, the great discourse on the foundations of mindfulness. As I mentioned in class, right mindfulness in Pali Sati, as in Satipatthana, is the seventh fold of the eightfold path and considered to be a precondition for entering into right concentration, Samyak Samadhi, the eighth fold of the eightfold path. Samyak Samadhi, when sustained over time, is then called jhana, the Sanskrit word from which the Japanese word zen is derived. And although it's pretty clear that we are all one big family in the Buddha Dharma, something happened over the years, perhaps somewhat like what happened in music and in literature, as jazz appeared from Mozart and haiku from Shakespeare. Pared down to the essentials, like the essential art of zazen, you know, just sit.

[05:41]

But even so, mastering the jhanas, sitting upright in samadhi, is somewhat akin to mastering a musical instrument and was considered essential to accomplishing the arhat path in some but not all of the traditional meditation schools that are based in the old wisdom teachings. So those jhanas are described in poetic detail in a number of suttas, such as the one I read in class, the Potapada Sutta, states of consciousness, or the Shamanapala Sutta, the fruits of the homeless life. And it's also pretty well understood throughout the entire Buddhist tradition that we meditators can't simply open a door and step right onto the Eightfold Path. Instead, we have to negotiate what appear to be various obstructions. that are blocking our way, such as old views, habitual behaviors, and then there's all those feelings that we have. All that stuff that is going on in our awareness when we just sit.

[06:48]

Much of the Buddha's teaching is concerned not so much with walking the Noble Eightfold Path as with finding the Noble Eightfold Path. just as the young prince himself had done in the latter stages of his journey to enlightenment. At that time is when he said, so I too found an ancient path, an ancient trail, traveled by the fully enlightened ones of old. The traditional method for cleaning away the appearance of obstacles is through sincere right intention. Right intention to be ethical. you know, in Sanskrit, shila, ethical conduct, meaning to be generous, friendly, and kind, no matter what, no matter what you are feeling. Right speech, right conduct, right livelihood. And then, as we recite in the Bodhisattva initiation ceremony, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way.

[07:51]

This word faith, shraddha, is akin to a latin word for heart and so it is with our hearts that we return again and again to an awareness of our intention of our posture and our breath and most importantly to an awareness of one another mindfulness of others kindness towards others curiosity about others were we to be following the development of right concentration Samyak Samadhi, as presented in the old wisdom teachings, we might enter, after a time and a great effort, a transcendent discernment that's called prajna, or wisdom, that would once and for all put an end to our suffering through disjunction from the impure dharmas, the very thing that Master Dogen may be talking about when he says, set aside all involvements and cease all affairs. So the actual living of that transcendent discernment is called nirvana, as in unbound or blown out.

[09:02]

When a person has been blown out, they become arhats, or noble ones, destined never to return to the endless rounds of suffering, samsara. An arhat is one of the epithets for the Buddha himself, and although this accomplishment of becoming an arhat is considered extremely admirable, Within the Buddhist tradition, it is not viewed as equivalent to the full, complete, perfect enlightenment of the Buddha, Anyuttara Samyak Sambodhi. I don't know if you have all noticed, but during service, the doshi does not do a full prostration when the sixteen arhats on the noble path are being honored by the kokyo. It's just a standing bow. There is respect, yes, but there is some holding back. And there are reasons for that, having to do with some very old disagreements about the path. Being that enlightenment is the path and the path is enlightenment, these disagreements are not insubstantial.

[10:10]

The primary disagreement has to do with the two major types of barriers to awakening. A Buddha is said to have destroyed both of these barriers. the first being called afflictive obstructions, the klesha avarana, and the second, the obstacles to omniscience, nyea avarana. Arhats have only destroyed the first category of defilements or hindrances, the klesha avarana, which, as you may recall from our class, include greed, hate, delusion, slothfulness, restlessness, and corrosive doubt. The obstacles to omniscience, or also called cognitive obstructions, are way more subtle and in effect are the undergirding for all of the afflictive obstructions. It's kind of like the dark basement where the creepy things hang out, which in turn are a product of a fundamental misapprehension of reality.

[11:14]

So I don't know if you remember from first class or not, but a basic definition of the Buddha's enlightenment or true knowledge is the right understanding of the true nature of reality. And without that, it is just what it is, which is whatever way you happen to see it. So one way I understand the term omniscience, which may sound a little daunting, is not that you know everything. but rather that you know how everything works. You are basically on to it, the formation of fantasies. As the Buddha said at the time of his awakening, deceiver, I know you, at which time, sad and disappointed, Mara, the evil one, vanished. So it's around this distinction between an arhat and a Buddha that the path of practice within the Buddha's tradition began to diverge. Track 1, toward the personal liberation of the arhat, referred to by Track 2 as the Hinayana, or the lesser vehicle.

[12:23]

And Track 2, the Mahayana, meaning the greater vehicle, values itself for being headed toward the universal liberation of a Buddha, vowing never to enter nirvana until all beings have been saved from suffering, meaning awakened. Only Buddhas on the bus. The traveler along this path, as you know, is called a bodhisattva, a category that was inspired by a young monk by the name of Sumedha, who had made just such a vow, to remain in cyclical existence until all beings are liberated, resulting in his arriving here on planet Earth 2,500 years ago for the benefit of us all. There's even in the Mahayana literature a description of the extreme effort a meditator must make to avoid slipping off the bodhisattva track in error and onto the arhat track toward final extinction. The image given for this effort is that of a master archer shooting one arrow after another into the shaft of the previous arrow before it can hit the ground.

[13:35]

Kind of like Legolas in Lord of the Rings. Pretty fast. This metaphor clearly implies that the gravitational pull of extinction is very powerful and that the vow of the Bodhisattva must in turn be exceedingly strong. So a great deal has been written about the rise of the Mahayana tradition within the Buddhist monastic communities of ancient India, much of it having to do with a perennial effort to return to the imagined purity of the Buddha's own lifestyle and practice. and fundamentalists, basically, kind of like us here at Tassahara, modeling the posture, the clothing, and the deportment of a young male mendicant. I often see what we are doing here as a kind of theater, you know, the lighting and the costumes and the behavior, hopefully all for the good, which may only be possible if we don't take ourselves too seriously.

[14:40]

a big point that Suzuki Roshi made to his students while he was living right here in this very temple. I don't know if you have noticed, but he is still here kind of sneaking around and keeping an eye on us like the good grandmother that he was. Anyway, this morning I'm going to review again a few of those elements foundational for the practice of the monks and the laity on both sides of the tracks, namely shamatha, tranquility, samadhi, and vipassana, insight. In all Buddhist traditions, these two, when brought together, form the basis for realization and for freedom. Calm the mind and discern what's real. In the old wisdom teachings, some very elaborate details are recorded for entering into samadhi, shamatha, meditative tranquility, which is the first step on the path to insight, vipassana. And the Mahasati Bhattana Sutta, one of the well-known theoretical elaborations of this approach.

[15:47]

So there's a caution that has been echoed down through the centuries regarding theories. It's using this example. In much the same way that we don't confuse theories about buoyancy with the experience of swimming, we mustn't confuse theories of meditation with the experiences of actually sitting. just sitting. And at the same time, theoretical learning can help prepare the soil from which a new understanding of our life can grow. It's just not a substitute. In fact, too much theoretical learning can clog our minds and interfere with our body's natural ability to float. So the best advice I can give about all of these teachings is to hold them lightly. After all, there are only just some sounds that are coming into your ears right now. As our head monk will say at the end of the Shiso ceremony, please wash out your ears in the sounds of the valley stream.

[16:52]

Really, we are just here to sit together for a while and listen to some of these stories from the Buddhist lore. Like this one. The greater discourse on the foundations of mindfulness. In the Mahasatipatthana Sutta, there are four different foundations, also called frames of reference, to show the meditator where and how to focus their intention. The first focus of our intention and attention is on the body, in and of itself. The second on feelings, in and of themselves. The third is on the mind. in and of itself, and the fourth, on mental qualities of the mind, in and of themselves. This term, in and of itself, means that each one of these frames of reference is simply to be observed as they appear in the present moment. For example, mindfulness of the body is the experience of one's own body as sensed from within it.

[18:00]

as opposed to some image you might have of your body doing things around the temple grounds. When at the time you're focusing on the body as your frame of reference, you may notice that a feeling or a thought suddenly appears, in which case you try to relate that feeling or that thought back to the body itself. Where is it? For example, the feeling of fear, where is it located in your body? How about restlessness or drowsiness, ill will or lust or doubt? These are all examples of the five hindrances, the nivarana, that block our effort at mindfulness, sati, and subsequently concentration, samadhi. As it says in the sutra, the mind disturbed by the hindrances will never know its true nature. So the antidote to the hindrances is to return our attention to the body in and of itself.

[19:04]

There's another example that's given in this text. Imagine holding an object in your hand, better yet in both hands, maybe like a cantaloupe, that you've taken from a fruit bowl. And then while you're holding the cantaloupe, notice how all the other types of fruit that you could easily have taken left behind as you continue to hold on to the cantaloupe with both hands this would be the same idea applied to your own body as if in both hands you are firmly holding it until the mind settles there until your being is your body being bodies so here's an example of what to do next under a subheading of the body called Mindfulness of Breathing. And how, O monks, does a monk abide, contemplating the body as the body? Here a monk, having gone into the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty place, sits down cross-legged, holding the body erect, having established mindfulness before them.

[20:18]

So you're already pretty calm. Mindfully breathing in and mindfully breathing out. Breathing in a long breath. The monk knows he breathes in a long breath. Breathing out a long breath. He knows he breathes out a long breath. Breathing in a short breath. She knows she breathes in a short breath. And breathing out a short breath. She knows she breathes out a short breath. She trains herself thinking, I will breathe in. conscious of the whole body. He trains himself thinking, I will breathe in, calming the whole body process. She trains herself thinking, I will breathe out, conscious of the whole body. He trains himself thinking, I will breathe out, calming the whole bodily process. First conscious, then calm. What I really like about these old teachings, as with many of the sutra readings, is that they are so soothing in themselves, you know, kind of like a lullaby.

[21:27]

On the inhalation, the world arises. On the exhalation, the world descends like a bright green turtle on the open ocean. Wonderful, wonderful. The next short reading immediately follows the first, and it's called... the insight that comes from mindfulness of the body. So she abides contemplating body as body internally, contemplating body as body externally, contemplating body as body both internally and externally. He abides contemplating the arising phenomena in the body. He abides contemplating vanishing phenomena in the body. She abides contemplating both the arising and the vanishing phenomena in the body. So here's the insight. Mindfulness that there is a body is present to her just to the extent necessary for knowledge and awareness without elaboration, prapancha.

[22:33]

No mental elaboration. And she abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. that monks is how a monk abides contemplating the body as the body so this is the first foundation of mindfulness it's the easiest one for us the body basically meaning that which can be hit is easy for us to find it gets more difficult as we go through the next three of these foundations but the same instruction is given for all the other parts of the body. It's also given for posture. It's given for somebody else's body when it's dead. These are the famous graveyard meditations, watching bodies as they decompose and rot away. So the next foundation is taken up is contemplation of feelings. And under feelings, the mind comes to know itself as lustful, hateful, or confused, as developed,

[23:39]

or undeveloped, as concentrated or unconcentrated, and eventually, ultimately, as liberated or not liberated, something that no one else but you will ever know. Although it is not a bad idea to check it out with somebody like a good friend. So the next section is the contemplation of thoughts. This is the third foundation of mindfulness. Again, getting more subtle. So we've gone from body to feelings to thoughts. During which the meditator, once they've settled on the object of their awareness, namely thoughts, will first come to know whether those thoughts are skillful or unskillful, wholesome or unwholesome, whereupon there also is a direct experience of the lightning speed with which the thinker and the thoughts are arising and passing away. like lightning in a night sky.

[24:41]

One may further notice how beyond our control it all is, and therefore how unsatisfying, particularly if we would like to have some control. There is no abiding self, and therefore no agent of control. Until ultimately the insight arises that there is truly no one that is conscious or aware, in other words, merely thoughts, without a thinker. The thinker becomes a kind of excess baggage that's left behind. And finally, there's the fourth foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the objects of mind. Again, the most subtle possible level of awareness. This meditation is so extremely subtle that it takes place only in the most concentrated states, which is possible during seshin, meaning very calm. It's kind of shamatha all the way down. At such a time, attention is turned onto the objects of the mind, which in this case are very specifically referring to the varieties of thinking that are relevant to the path of liberation.

[25:52]

I think that's one of the criticisms of the mindfulness movement, is they don't necessarily think it has something to do with Buddhist practice or morality. It could have something to do with getting a better job or... doing a more efficient work at your office and so on. But actually in the teaching, the mindfulness teaching is directly connected to insight into the Buddhist teaching, starting with the five hindrances, desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, worry and flurry and doubt. And then the five skandhas, form, feeling, perception, impulse, consciousness. And then on to further divisions of the five aggregates, which I'll be talking about in our last class on the first turning, the 12 ayatanas, culminating in contemplation of the seven factors of enlightenment. Number one, mindfulness itself. That's what I'm talking about. Number two, investigation of mental and bodily phenomena, which is this particular number four of the four foundations.

[26:57]

Number three, energy. Virya. Number four, delight. Delight is a necessary ingredient for enlightenment. Number five, tranquility, shamatha. Number six, concentration, samadhi. And number seven, equanimity, upeksha. All of which together lead the meditator to the realization of right view, samyak dristi, the first of the Eightfold Path. which is, as you know, the four noble truths. Suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the path. Whoever monks should practice these four foundations of mindfulness for just seven years may expect one of two results, either arhatship in this life or, should there be some substrata left over, the state of a non-returner in the next life. let alone for seven years, whoever practiced them for six years, or five years, or three, or four, or three, or two, or one, down to just one week, may expect one of two results.

[28:15]

Arhatship in this life, or the state of a non-returner in the next. I thought that was very good news. One week. It's a bargain. And there at the end of the sutra, the Lord says, There is, monks, this one way to the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and stress, for the disappearance of pain and sadness, for the gaining of the right path, for the realization of nirvana. And that is to say, the four foundations of mindfulness. And it is for this reason that after the Lord had spoken, the monks rejoiced and were delighted at his words. So my current understanding of how one might best work with these instructions, you know, again as bodhisattvas, being very careful not to go over the edge into final extinction, is by utilizing these foundations for the development of good and useful mental habits. It's like building up your muscles, you know, by picking up crates of chard or doing weight lifting out in the flats here.

[29:20]

By and by you will get bigger and stronger muscles. And the basic point of this training program for us as bodhisattvas is to build up our muscles of concentration by using three inherent qualities of the mind as tools for doing so. Effort, we've got that one, effort. Alertness, are you awake? And mindfulness or remembering. Remembering to keep at it, just like every other kind of exercise. Mindfulness and alertness help the meditator to remember where the mind is focused, for example, on the body or on the breath or on the cantaloupe. Energy or effort allows the mind to keep bringing that focus back to the object. According to the commentary of this sutra, these three qualities help to seclude the mind from preoccupation with the senses and from unskillful mental qualities. thereby bringing the mind into samadhi, true meditation, transitioning in turn to the first jhana, the Sanskrit word for Zen.

[30:32]

So that concludes the discussion of the seventh fold of the eightfold path, mindfulness, leading to the subject of tomorrow's talk, which will be the eighth fold of the eightfold path, samyak samadhi. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[31:08]

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