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. After Dogen had been teaching for about 25, 30 years, he wrote a fascicle called Hotsu Buddhaishin, arising the mind of Buddha, the mind of awakening, or the mind of the way, as in Tao, which in China became synonymous with awakening.

[01:10]

And in that he said, there's three kinds of consciousness. Citta, Pradaya, and Vridha. And of those three kinds of consciousness, it's citta that initiates the awakening process, the discriminating mind. So, as far as I can tell, I've tried those... It's particularly the Vriddha one tried that out on various people. What does that mean? It seems to be a bit of a puzzle. Even Gil Franstull, who I thought knew everything, shrugged. I guess it's good to know what you don't know. Here's my current guess for rummaging through various Sanskrit dictionaries and the like.

[02:12]

Well, citta is discriminating mind, the act of consciousness that we're usually involved in. And then hridaya is like in the Heart Sutra, Hridaya Sutra, the essence. It's interesting because This phrase that we have in the Jijiu Zamai, mind, grass trees, walls and pebbles, is actually coined from a Chinese description of Hridaya. That's what I thought. Hridaya. It's the same as in the Heart Sutra. H-R-I-D. A-Y? A-Y? H-R-D.

[03:15]

Well, it's Japanese, it's spelled with an I in there. Sorry? And then the vridda, sometimes described as experienced, knowing. My notion is it's in the process of practicing, experiencing directly what is. experiencing the moment beyond what the self may conjure up in relationship to it. And that creates its own kind of consciousness.

[04:22]

And maybe we experience that directly, you know, when we're sitting in Shishin and we have those moments where there's presence and thought is either... fallen away for a few moments or hours, or it's quiet enough that this direct experience is palpable, tangible. That consciousness, what that consciousness in a way learns, and I add in a way because it's not the learning of discriminating mind, it's the learning of realization. And if you think back to, you know, Bendawa or Dovitsis, and this learning, this learning of realization is what's transmitted. That's how and what is transmitted in the process of Zen.

[05:27]

So with that as a backdrop, my strategy has been Well, let's lay out the proposition of practice, right? A willingness to experience whatever arises in the context of interbeing. In contrast to the context of what the conditioned small self creates. Do I like this? Is this pursuing whatever? We all know them. We've all had plenty of them. Actually, we sort of know them. There's still lots more to learn. What's happening now?

[06:31]

And then really this arousing, way-seeking mind is like, how do we engage it? How do we persuade our conditioned self to commit to that proposition? Laudable as we may think it is, I hope you do at this point. And so what I wanted to try to do this morning was look at both what we might call the yogic process of arising it, and which goes along right beside that, what hinders the yogic process. And so I offered a couple of notions.

[07:39]

You know, I offered notice, acknowledge, contact, experience. I was kind of gratified during the skid night. You know, even though it was wonderfully irreverent of some of these details, I thought, oh. Some of it's getting across, that's kind of lovely. Especially the cheese sandwich. I did, and the cheese sandwich's got a whole palm. Is Steph here? No? Oh, thank you Steph. Notice, acknowledge, contact experience. Just some mnemonic... some way of remembering the proposition of practice. And then in offering that one that we could say something flowers, something comes into being imbued with the likes and dislikes and other characteristics of the self.

[08:59]

And then rather than get carried away by that proposition of reality, how do we see it for what it is? Or how do we begin to see it for what it is? How do we begin to unpack it? Notice. Oh, this is what's going on. Oh, okay. Acknowledge. Contact experience. And then the other notion I've offered incessantly is reputation's always good in experiential learning. You just keep doing it and doing it and doing it, and then your body and your mind can learn in that experiential way.

[10:01]

It's like we learn how to be aware. Directed attention, receptive attention, and then this notion of relating to the breath as letting the body breathe the breath. And just a few words on that. So this is a messy process. If we were doing shamatha, we would be focusing in on a particular consequence. And then we'd keep directing our effort towards that consequence. Anything that came up that was extraneous to that consequence, cast it aside. But this process of directed and receptive, I've been trying to sell as Dogen's GGU's Amai. And from the stuff I've read, there's some plausibility to that proposition.

[11:06]

But we could say this is an integrative process. From the place of awareness, the attributes of who you are appear. The emotions, the perspectives, the conclusions, they appear and then when they appear in the realm of awareness, they can be witnessed and experienced in something other than just, how does this fit into the world according to me? And this creates a different kind of integration, a different kind of learning, in a way. I would really encourage you, no matter what your mind and emotions and the rest of you come up with, don't discard it.

[12:20]

Sometimes there's a wonderful teaching in our most blatant, selfish, regressed response to something. For example, someone does something that seems relatively trivial, you know, moves your towel at the bathhouse. Okay, relatively trivial. And in that moment you find yourself, you know, Who did that? How dare they? That's my place. Just something like that. Just that, I want it the way I want it, and anybody who interferes with it is wrong.

[13:26]

To see that mind, to witness it, to experience it. And that's why I threw in reckless and shameless. There's something reckless and shameless about witnessing that mind. And of course, that mind is held by a sincere, disciplined engagement in awareness. Otherwise it just spins off into its own stuff. So that's the proposition, right? That's what I've been trying to communicate this first part of the practice period. And then a little bit more on the integration.

[14:34]

So then when that mind appears, and we see the attributes of it, and we see the self of it. I'm in this world where people are doing wrong to me, where they're harming me, where they're violating my rights, or whatever else stirs up. And when it's held in awareness, even though we've gone through that drama thousands of times for all sorts of reasons. When it's held in awareness, we get the message in a way that we don't get when we're just inside the drama of it. It's like, huh, look at that. And something of vriddha is learned. that experienced consciousness.

[15:42]

And now when the mind settles and consciousness settles, and the mind is both more illuminated, brighter, can perceive more clearly, and also in its settling, it's more astute. It's literally its capacity to perceive is enhanced. And so these two are a natural couple. The receptive mind that's open to anything and everything that arises. And this directed consciousness that, you know, in the language of Zen, returns to the Source, where we experience elemental existence.

[16:47]

Not singularly phenomenal, but certainly attending to what comes in through the senses and experiencing it as it does. in letting the breath breathe the body and letting how the sense of self is embodied in our being, our physical being, letting that start to soften and loosen. As we continue to do that with each breath, this more returning to the source. If you think about it, I'll talk more about that word in a minute, that afflictive emotion, when it's held in awareness, something is seen through. It's like returning to interbeing, since we're using that word.

[17:52]

The phenomenal expression of existence that's not defined by Self. Returning to the Source. And so, seeing the Self and returning to the Source. And they're intertwined. When we practice them, it's like in our sitting. We can talk about directed attention and receptive attention, but in our sitting, they're intertwined. Because we're not trying to practice one to the exclusion of the other. Okay, so far? Yes? So seeing the Self. Seeing the Self? Seeing the Self, the awareness of seeing your experience. Seeing what happens when someone moves your towel at the bathhouse.

[18:57]

And returning to the Source? Returning to the Source is... We see the construct and it's like we see through it. We see it as interbeing. Oh, you know, this perception, my towel has been moved. This associated thought, someone, or conclusion, someone did something inappropriate, they moved my towel. The accompanying emotion, how dare they move my towel? That's my spot. What kind of people are they here? Whatever else. And then even there we can watch is there a kind of like a visceral reactiveness? There's something that's churning for you that can't be fully expressed conceptually.

[20:07]

Or is your narrative stimulating, accompanying emotions? Is it closer, in Buddhist terms, is it closer to Vedana? Or is it closer to emotions, which are usually closely linked to the story? The story stimulates the emotions, and the emotions stimulate the story. Okay? So, the first part of the story, and then the returning to the source, could be, no idea, but could be, the seed that we have that make us... react that way or experience that way or whatever about the towel? What was it? The seat? Seat. Seat?

[21:10]

Seed. [...] Oh. Something that is enough? Not exactly. It's seeing with awareness the conditioned arising in contrast to being hooked by it. That's because the awareness comes into being when the attachment to the story has dissipated. And that's the liberative realization. The attachment to the story has ceased. That's Dogen saying, Practice, manifestation, experience, realization. When we practice, we see what's going on.

[22:13]

When we experience what's going on directly, realization. Well, I had quoted that piece from where Dogen says, without practice, the moment isn't apprehended. If the moment's not apprehended, it can't be experienced. If it's not experienced, realization doesn't manifest. Is that another way of saying your mnemonic? Could be, yeah. I mean, that was... My mnemonic was an attempt to kind of, well, how do you... How do you turn that into a catchy phrase? Or something that your mind can keep close, rather than, oh, I need to go and look up that phrase in Dogen again. Which is little use to you when somebody moves your towel at the bathhouse.

[23:18]

just puts us on these different trains that head towards a collision and that keeps happening and there's no sort of origineering, you know what I mean? Yeah. When I first started to study that term vriddha, I actually thought it was talking about subconscious in that kind of embedded impulses or characteristics, however you want to talk about them. But Buddhist psychology, and I'll go through it very briefly in a moment, but Buddhist psychology tends towards more to, in the moment of experiencing what are the contributing factors rather than what are the causal factors?

[24:57]

What brought all this about? I mean, from a Buddhist perspective, from an old Buddhism perspective, the hindrances are what initiate the workings of the self. Now, where did the hindrances come from? It doesn't attempt. Well, actually it does. It just says greed, hate, and delusion. And maybe we could say, because we do chant from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, or beginningless time. It's a different kind of causality, rather than saying, well, you got that from your mother, or you got that because you grew up in this kind of environment. It's interesting that Western psychology has explored that a lot. And this early Buddhism and even the more sophisticated notions of it, like Yogacara psychology, it doesn't.

[26:01]

But I think it's helpful to let it register. And I'll come back to this too, because I think there can be a process of integration. in a thoroughly non-verbal way. And in some ways, that's very powerful for us. I think many of us, just in sitting sushin, have come out of sushin feeling a little bit lighter and noticing we have either a slightly different relationship to the problems of our life or a significantly different relationship. And when we look at it, The content is still the same, the particulars are still right there, but what gets associated with them has loosened up. I think in a way we're all asking similar questions.

[27:12]

I was thinking about patterns and our pattern recognition and the difficulty of moving from that place of sheer reactivity, the tower is moved and you're gone. about studying patterns from the past, whether they're familial or some other kind of patterns, is that it's like training wheels for slowing down in that moment. You know, if you're aware of the patterns that have caused you to react in the ways that you do whenever your ancient scurries are, right, then there's a sort of moment where you think, oh, here's that thing again, right, and you may not be all the way to holding it in awareness, but I feel like it has some heuristic value to make you slow down in the moment when you might lose yourself in a reactive frenzy. Yes. Yeah? Yeah. And in the moment I'm going to talk about what we might even call within Buddhism a heuristic sequence.

[28:12]

But also to recognize the just... Yeah. In a way we could say the dharma in its articulated form is such a thing. And then in its non-verbal form, but what I was saying earlier, Jodi, is relevant because the non-verbal learning And this is, you know, to destroy a little bit, I would say, part of the contribution of the Eastern process to the Western process, is that it has more of a lore around than non-verbal. And that's, I think, what we're finding now.

[29:23]

In your Tao example, there's a chain reaction, a series of events, emotions that arise, and sort of naturally, I don't want to say naturally, quotations, calls for a reaction. So somehow or other, this has to be satisfied, and what you were describing to some extent is breaking that chain reaction. And Interestingly, James, excuse me, interestingly, experiencing. And to me that's an interesting and relevant distinction because the process of awareness is the process of yes. It's not a process of saying, this shouldn't be happening. This is happening.

[30:26]

It's happening. Get used to it. It's happening. It's also sort of a violence, what's felt like a violence, that calls upon a violence to satisfy. I'm not sure I understand what you mean right there. A violence to satisfy... But finish your thought. It's more, somehow or other, there's going to be a response, a response to this provocation, what's felt like a provocation, the towel disappearing. I just said move, but maybe that would be much more, I agree, that would be a true atrocity. and what you're proposing is a sort of suspension in that process, is it that also... Awareness of it.

[31:33]

Awareness of it. How is that satisfying? How is that satisfying? You know, that is a terrific question. How is that satisfying? That's satisfying... When we have... I wanted to say, how is it satisfying to react? I think that's not true, though. Well... But go ahead. Thank you. That's okay. And that's another great question. How is it satisfying to react? And as we settle into our practice, these which... in our conventional mind, our kind of trivial afterthoughts, these become the intrigue. There's something literally marvelous about watching yourself in a full-blown reactive state.

[32:40]

It has a power and an authority And it might not make that much sense to you if you actually paused for a moment and said, what exactly is happening now? I am enraged because someone moved my toe from this peg over to this peg. Because that reactiveness in Western terms is usually linked to a kind of regressed state. Something in it is deeply moved in terms, you have violated my being by moving my towel. That's how I feel. Don't ask me to justify it in conventional terms, but that's how I feel. So in that way, is that satisfying? In a way it validates a deep sensibility, and then in another way

[33:45]

it can almost be humiliating, you know, that I can get so wound up around something that I don't even know the story about. Just a second, I can go back. So how is it satisfying? So to go back to Dogen, arousing way, seeking mind. And he says, citta is the primary agent, discriminating mind. And really, this is, I thought when I first read it, no, really? I was when I was in Japan and I went to visit Harada Tangan Roshi, this venerable lion of the Dharma. At this time he was in his 80s.

[34:46]

He wasn't as ferocious as he used to be. Still pretty ferocious. And I asked him about Dogen's comment here. And he gave me this withering look. And said, more Zazen. what Devon goes on to do. He says, citta is the mind with which we persuade ourselves of the validity of the intention of practice. To put it in sort of simple terms, which is more appropriate to do with the human life? Keep reactively acting out your selfishness or to make a commitment to awakening? And literally, James, the alchemy of letting that commitment be heartfelt, that's how the awareness becomes satisfying.

[36:00]

In that involvement, there's a resonance with a heartfelt vow. And we could say, Part of the process, the alchemy of practice is nurturing that heartfelt commitment. And should may stimulate it, and it may not. Should might just frighten you or leave you dissatisfied. Oh, I should do that. So again, there's a kind of a careful attention. But to get back to citta, so that's why we say, okay, well, here's the proposition. Here's the proposition of starting to access interbeing.

[37:04]

And interbeing has this wonderful, non-intrusive proposition. You are what you are. Who's going to argue with that? I'm not who I am. You are who you are, the conditioned existence that you are, and each moment is itself. And to facilitate awareness, You don't need to be somebody else, and the moment doesn't need to be some special improved version of itself. And then how can that in a way soothe usually the relenting character of our discriminating consciousness?

[38:17]

And then Dogen comes along and says, you know that discriminating consciousness that causes you all those problems? That's what initiates awakening, initiates the vow, the intention, the process, the aspiration. Did you still have a question, Diego? Yes, I can understand being aware of the Taoist situation and your reaction. But, for example, when you're in the face of Well, the reason I used the towel on a peg was because

[39:19]

illustrates a human capacity. And we don't have to get into an ethical debate over is there ever a moral or ethical justification for moving a towel from one peg to another. I don't think we need to have a heated debate around that. So he's picking something non-controversial. But as such, I think it's helpful. Of course, you know, basic Buddhist teaching from a place of wrong view, from a place of being gripped by selfish desires and aversions. Each of us behaves in a harmful way and collectively we do harmful things to each other. And you just have to look at what's happening in the world on any day at all

[40:22]

and you see heartbreaking examples of that. And so, so far I've been focusing on what you might call the individual process. And in a way we could say, It's creating a capacity for the first pure precept, don't harm. Because Western psychology would say quite correctly, when we have a charge of our own dissatisfactions and pains and the emotional accompaniments, what is our tendency? Project them onto others. and hold them responsible.

[41:25]

The more we can own our own stuff, the more we can allow others to just be who they are. They no longer need to be a ploy in our own psychological drama. So it's enabling us to uphold the first pure precept. Don't harm. Is that to trivialize injustice? No, in some ways it's to make us available as an agent, as a vehicle of the second precept, do good. And interestingly, as Dogen goes on in his fascicle, he makes another surprising move because When I started to read this, I thought, oh, he goes into citta, and now he's going to go to... Okay, and citta consciousness is what learns the Dharma, learns the particulars of practice.

[42:36]

He doesn't go there. He goes, citta consciousness is what makes the bodhisattva vow to awaken all beings. So he goes to the second pure precept, and he says, and this is... the, what would you call it, the primary agent of the alchemy of vow. And I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. When I read it, I thought, hmm, seems Seems like we need to work more on the first pure precept. So the second one, quite literally, is heartfelt and not another should.

[43:44]

Do you have any thoughts on that? Go ahead, Linda. shadow side is really where the light comes in. You know, that what we can't know, can't, like we're grasping things with a discerning mind, but we don't actually see our discerning mind. That's actually dark to us. We just see what it's busy doing. We see all the objects on it. And that it's because we don't have, what we don't have a handle on is where there's actually some opening for transformation. because we don't have such fixed ideas about it. That was one side. And the other side was that the Buddha taught that wholesome shame is essential for practice, not corrosive shame, where you're just flagellating yourself.

[44:51]

But sincere regret about what's actions is necessary for practice, because it's part of discerning mind to actually see there is harm. It's an impact. of what I've done, like I can actually see the impact of what happens. And without that, there's really no compass to navigate the path. I thought that was very interesting. Well, just to reference that, in Abhidharma Kosha, very interestingly, shame and guilt are one of the few factors that have the capacity to be either Positive factor or negative factor? Yeah. Koda? I wanted to suggest and ask about the possibility of Hriddha and... How did you pronounce the third one? Hriddha?

[45:52]

The third conscious? The second one was Hidayah. Hidayah. And then the third one was Hriddha. is where it seems as though there's a deep resonance between the heart, between essence and citta and the sort of satisfaction that can arise through that. And then the value of experiential learning in informing how our citta operates. The value of experiential learning. It's important to remember that there are different modalities of consciousness, and of course they inform each other, but the same way our emotions inform our thinking and influence it.

[47:02]

But then in another way, the language of emotions is different from the language of our articulation. So they influence each other and then in another way they are their own modality. And that's why when we're engaging something like being heartfelt about our vow, it's just not the product of our sophisticated thinking. Our sophisticated thinking can inspire us and as such. So they influence, but they're also different. But I wanted to know if you had any response to the bodhisattva vow, saving all beings, being primary.

[48:04]

Is the question not clear? My sense is that most of us came to practice because something was not working in our life and we were unhappy about that and essentially we wanted to do something about it. No? He's not saying that, but he's saying what initiates the aspiration to awaken is the bodhisattva vow. And my own notion was, well, maybe, but what seems to my own observation in myself and in others is alleviating suffering, learning how to relate to it. Sometimes our own and then sometimes

[49:11]

our collective suffering, sometimes the suffering we have in relationship often to our own family, you know, people who are close to us. and we were doing all of a sudden it was very hard, you know, and it became very clear to me. I stayed for just one year. You know, I didn't feel like I could stay very grounded and I didn't feel very effective or even doing that work because I just couldn't keep it together, you know, so there was kind of this codependent arising of feeling like how much my own impacted my ability to be able to help others.

[50:14]

So I don't know if I could say which one came first, like my desire to help myself were others, but they seemed very closely linked, you know, that I needed to help myself in order to help others. Yeah, they seemed absolutely equal in their, one needed to be in place for the other. Go ahead Linda. I think my own experience has been that whenever I let go to whatever extent of my fixed world in which I as a sacristine suffer, then I am connected, you know, and in the depths of the suffering that I am now willing to notice, acknowledge, contact and deeply experience. then I am in interbeing. And I don't know that I can explain why compassion arises, but it's out of the connection.

[51:19]

And I have the clearest memory of walking into my father's hospital room. I've seen him a few days before, and he was now in a coma. And I walked into the room, and it was just this overwhelming feeling that was not a thought, that was the only thing that matters is being kind to other people. That looks like absolutely true. And I've come to some version of that over and over again. When I stop being in opposition to the world or having to defend against it or other people, there's just this outflow. And maybe it's kind of a rebound effect. Kim? I was going to say that my own experience in coming to Zen practice really had nothing whatsoever to do with my suffering and anyone else's. I was quite clear about wanting to get wisdom. What has been curious is over the years, I've recognized that any kind of wisdom has always come through suffering.

[52:23]

And I've been learning that understanding the nature of things has come through understanding my own suffering. And in that, actually understanding the suffering of others, and so recognizing the nature of that interbeing. So it seems to me as well that wisdom and suffering are very closely linked to one another. And we could also say wisdom and compassion. Yeah. Just a second. Tanto-san? I think the necessity for the Bodhisattva Thao, what we find out, is kind of relating to what Lauren was saying, When you learn to see or experience with the eyes of inner being, I think sitting less of Zazen, that becomes our experience. Like, completely felt sense that it's not all about little me. It just isn't. It is not thinking this. It's completely embodied.

[53:26]

Then, nothing else works. Nothing else is going to work. My enlightenment can't be separate from yours. My awakening can't be separate from all beings. So better go there. Because I think nothing else is going to work. Okay. I was very shocked with a movie I saw. This is beings in another room. It was a lion and a little deer. The little deer was just born. She'd walk or he'd walk, and the lion was a big lion. Well, the lion, mother, and didn't meet the little deer for, I don't know, a long time. And, of course, there was this TV crew following this. So the lion, it's the only task he or she had was to take care of this little deer.

[54:31]

And they sleep together and whatever. So at one point they were walking and the deer was very weak. And the lion was kind of all chunky too, you know, like just going there. And another lion ate that little deer. But the point is worse, yeah. And it was horrible because it jumped and it ate it, you know. So where does this awareness of doing good comes? Because it's all beings. Not only humans, right? So, I think it's what relates... Well, I don't know. That's my own story. But the story makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Did the lion eat there? The other lion. The other lion. So the lion, that one lion is aware. Unenlightened. Unenlightened. That second lion hadn't been reading Dogen. Right. Yes, my... Well, am I included in all beings?

[55:37]

Well, I'll look that up and see. When I think of all beings, I always think of me as being a part of that group. Well, of course. Yeah. I mean, you know, we can say that the very process of practice, what opens us up to the needs of others is that the preoccupations of separate self start to dissipate. It's like when you have a really bad toothache. Usually you don't think so much about how's everybody else doing. You think, I have a really bad toothache and it hurts like crazy. How am I going to get rid of it? I think there's a kind of a simple equation when the intensity of self-suffering starts to diminish. that way our heart opens to others just starts to arise. Oh, just a second.

[56:38]

I've also found that when that self-suffering exists and you can open to the idea that others are suffering in similar or the same ways, one of the things that I've gotten at a Zen practice is that We all do a lot of things the same way. We all dress the same way. We all chant together. We all reinforce the fact that we're all the same. And so when I see myself suffering, I can see that, oh, wait, everyone else is too. And that helps to want to alleviate all suffering because other people suffer in the same ways that I do. So if I can see how badly I dislike this, then I want to help other people get past their own dislike of suffering as well lovely yes Lauren I think one other idea that came to me I mean it's almost an elaboration or clarification maybe of what I said earlier was that I think I have also found that it's that it seems a little easier to sort of work on my own suffering first or you know I have no choice but to focus because I myself all day to

[57:54]

You know, it's kind of like how with yoga practice, you know, you often, you'll start with a half a body practice because the body is a little easier to touch than meditation or breath or whatever. So there's kind of what's most available to you immediately. So then you start looking at, okay, well then you have a partner and maybe that partner, they are, you know, that's maybe the next person. You're very intimate with them. So you can see their suffering in a way that maybe, a stranger across the room you can't see, or your child, you know, and there's this rippling effect, perhaps, of ease of which we can identify with other people's suffering to where we can eventually suffuse it over the entire world or translate it to strangers or whatever. And then, just to add to that, the nature of spiritual community is that there can be that mutual support that Genzan was talking about, And it isn't born out of the familial dysfunction.

[59:00]

The mandala that's set up is our endeavor to set up a functional way of being in contrast to a dysfunctional way of being. And so we recreate family in the spiritual context. And that's why in this environment, in a wonderful way, it brings the best out of us. Not just because we see our suffering, but sometimes Sangha is described as people of shared intention or aspiration to practice. So we see that in each other. And, you know, of course, we also see other things that annoy us. But, you know, we see that in each other. And that's part of what allows the sangha intimacy to grow, too.

[60:09]

Okay, one last one. Go ahead, Jodi. are suffering. And I think there's something about exhausting other possibilities, some of them, let's say, healthier than others. And watching the kind of damage that we did to ourselves and the things around us. And this word ache keeps coming up for me. Which word? Ache. I feel like when people describe what aroused their wasted mind, it's an ache that starts with the soul. Otherwise, you know, I think people don't stick with practice if they come with the heroic ideal and the better to save all beings. But there's something about this resonating ache of noticing our own suffering, perhaps noticing the suffering of our ancestors, noticing the suffering of the people around us that I think it doesn't seem so strange to me, this statement of that.

[61:19]

even if we couldn't articulate it without the language of practice, if he's actually talking about way-seeking mind, way-seeking mind seems to be inseparable from that ache of the ache of entropy, right? The suffering and the suffering of everybody around. Yeah. And maybe just to contextualize it a little bit, by this point in his life, he was in a Heiji, he was with his monks, And so that was the context in which he was presenting. Whereas when you think of Bendawa or Genjo Cohen, they were much earlier. He'd just come back from China, and he was addressing the population at large. Genjo Cohen was written in response to a letter that a layperson, a merchant, had written him about some questions about practice, and he wrote that in response. So in some ways it makes sense.

[62:21]

But I do think it's helpful for us to ask ourselves, you know, this alchemy of heartfelt involvement, you know, and how it translates into vow. You think each morning's service, we make these extraordinary vows. That's how we start the service. and how does each of us relate to them? Let's go on. We're going to have another class. This is really a two-part class. But here's what I wanted to do. I wanted to, for my own edification, I looked at this notion of hindrance. So very early in Buddhism, as far as we can tell now, up until the modern scholars took it all apart, we had a notion of linearity to the evolvement of Buddhist ideas.

[63:31]

So now we have to qualify it by saying, this might be the linearity of how it evolved, and it might not. But anyway, The hindrances. So the notion was there were three underlying causes, sometimes ungraciously called poisons, you know? And they were greed, hate, and delusion. And then they give rise to five characteristics, you know? More bad news. Five hindrances. And those five hindrances were... attachment to sensual desire, attachment to aversion or ill will, torpor, a kind of heaviness, sluggishness, restlessness, a kind of restless anxiety where the mind or body won't settle, and corrosive duct.

[64:44]

And so that was the early formulation. And then And then as that started to evolve, as Buddhist psychology, in its early phase, it was about deconstruction. Deconstruct experience into its parts. And I mentioned briefly, one formulation is the 52 Chaitasikas. Characteristics of consciousness. Chaitasika. Or Chaitasika, as I've heard other people say. And then another notion came in on the next iteration of Buddhist psychology. And that one was the Abhidharma-trapidika.

[65:51]

and the main text was the Dharma Sangha, Sanghini, the Dharma Sanghini. And then, out of those hindrances can afflictive states. Greed, hate, and delusion are all favorites. Conceit, wrong views, doubt, torpor, restlessness, shamelessness, and recklessness. There you go. They're what I've been trying to sell as a virtue. In the days of the Dhamma Sangini, that was... And then, as you heard me say, the linda, you know, that shame and guilt in Buddhist psychology are one of the few characteristics that are considered to be either positive or negative, you know. that your shame can be a hindrance or your shame can spur you to more virtuous action.

[66:57]

And similarly with your guilt. And then the next iteration of Buddhist psychology, the Abhidharma Kosha, came up with this formulation. And think up until now, greed, hate and delusion was like the opening line to all the acts, you know? Where do we start? Well, we start with greed, hate and delusion. Abhidharmakosha, where does it start? Attachment. The core hindrance, attachment. Anger, ignorance, pride, doubt and wrong view. So I offer you that, not to say that the last one does a better job than the first one, but there is a way in which in the sincere and virtuous vow, the hindrance,

[68:19]

the reactiveness, the stuckness becomes the enemy. And actually, the teaching of the hindrance is a little bit the opposite. Actually, it's more than a little bit the opposite. It's like, rather than imply, okay, here's what you should never, ever do, it's more the teaching of it is, guess what? You're already doing these. And guess what? You're going to continue to do. So it would be helpful if you started to learn how to be skillful with them. How to study in the realm of sensual desire what's most appealing to me. And what's it like when it's appealing? When it gets stirred up, what happens?

[69:25]

What's it like when it becomes an abiding preoccupation? And then also, what's it like when it's absent? When it's not there? How's that? And then similarly with aversion. You know, we were talking earlier about the almost instinctual authority and persuasiveness of reactiveness. You know, something upsets you and you react. And your energy flows. In a way, there's nothing more amazing than righteous anger. It has such authority. And there you are, the paragon of virtue, dispensing righteous anger in order to crush evil.

[70:44]

up the same part of the brain as crack cocaine. Yeah. And then if you've prepared yourself for such a momentous event, you know, with the notion that this will happen, you know, and maybe it will be a glimmer or maybe you'll walk around for days Or maybe it'll be one of your default things to feel. When you've got nothing better to feel, you can return to your indignation, your righteous indignation. You run there in Galway and you're waiting for the ninja. Well, now let him out by... I could fill a couple of minutes right here. Get some good righteous anger in. Hmm.

[71:51]

Keep your energy flowing, yeah. So part of the skillfulness is that we're not recreating, if you remember at the start I was saying, a non-dual approach. You know, we go beyond good and evil. So in holding this, not simply in the realm of interbeing, but also in the realm of beyond good and evil. This human condition is we arrived in the being with it. We come out of the womb and there you go. And of course, it developed from that nascent form. But we study the hindrances to learn about liberation.

[72:55]

We study the hindrances to learn about the human condition. We study the hindrances to learn about the particular attributes of our own version of the human condition. And so if we can remind ourselves that the hindrances are a Dharma gate, then it really helps us not to get too wound up in terms of good and evil. Sometimes righteous anger offers us a relief from self-criticism. And then sometimes when we start to see our righteous anger in our own sincerity, we transform it into self-criticism. Look at me, I'm criticizing everybody, I'm a terrible person. I'm really, you know, so mean and selfish and everybody else is so kind and compassionate. I'm the worst person here.

[73:57]

Remember, it's all impermanent. We take turns. And then... like things I've pondered on myself, is those five, you know? And I must say for myself, I have often found descriptors of the human condition from Western psychology more evocative or appealing, you know, than those five. No, would you... When they move out into the callacious, you could say the hindrance is a characteristic and it gives rise to the afflictive emotion. There is clinging to sensual desire and then it gives rise to the afflictive emotions that come with it.

[75:15]

the greed or the jealousy or envy or whatever that can arise when you're in the grips of desire. But from your own personal perspective, you know? So in our avowal, you know, from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, I now fully avow. And what I would suggest to you is to make a pact with yourself. A pact of radical honesty. Don't try to fool yourself. Oh, no, no, I didn't feel that way. Maybe you did. Maybe that brought up momentary rage."

[76:16]

Okay. I remember doing therapy, and one of the most pivotal moments was I was describing something to the therapist, and I can't remember whether it was anger, but it was some afflictive emotion. And he said, and then I felt angry. And then I remembered the Buddhist whatever, and he says, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let's go back to the anger. And the phrase he used was, don't be precocious. Don't get in there and sanitize it. Experience it. And it almost seems contradictory. If I start to experience my anger, won't it just burst into a volcano and destroy the whole planet? No. It's like feeling it is not acting it out.

[77:19]

In some ways, it's almost the opposite of acting it out. It's like acting it out is displacing it. I was like, I've got this volcano and I want to pour it all over you. Whereas feeling it is holding, embodying the intensity. So embodying, what are the physical sensations? What's the story? How does the emotion feel? What's the tenacity? What's the intensity? Is it singular? I mean, is it just pure anger? Or is there anger and some fear and some sadness and resentment all sort of mixed together? To turn towards and open to. This is the nature of practicing with the hindrances.

[78:22]

And then there are nuances. Sometimes the hindrances arise with a big charge of energy. And sometimes they don't have that kind of intensity, and we could actually push them aside. But I would say to you, sometimes it's a helpful practice, even when it's a more subdued version, to open to it as fully as you can. Because in that state, when it has a full charge, it's hard to hold it. It's a big demand to hold it with awareness, because awareness requires a certain non-attachment. It's a truly tantric practice to hold the intensity of an afflictive emotion with no attachment.

[79:31]

It requires a full dose of reckless, shameless involvement. Now, when it's subdued, then, you know, you can explore it too. Exploring what world is created by this state of being. What stories are most convincing? What descriptions of reality? Just a second. Then one last consideration in this regard for now. Sometimes we have the intensity, and true enough, we're not capable of holding it in awareness. It's too convincing. And we need to create, like you have an interaction with someone, and it's very intense and difficult, and you're just in it.

[80:40]

And you need some temporal and or physical separation. the intensity of it diminishes. And then you're more available to experience it. Not to go away and figure it all out. Can you open to it? It's different. Don't go away and somehow wrap it in thoughts that sanitize it or give it an appropriateness you know it's almost more in that more spacious space place can you relive it can you feel it in your body feel the emotion yeah just a second so okay Cam and then usually the examples I hear are

[81:46]

negative reactions, negative reactivity, like Owl and all the others. Is there any sense in using, kind of engaging the same process with positive reactions, like delight? Yeah. I mentioned that a little bit when we were in Shashim. In some ways, I think we could even... argue that it's skillful to combine the two, the positive and the negative, because the positive offer their own stabilization, their own healing, their own way of alleviating afflictive states. And in some ways we could say, well, it would be skillful to combine the two.

[82:51]

So yes, there is virtue in that. Margie? I keep hearing how important it is or how organic it seems to be to recognize the feelings in the body. feel the feelings in the body. What if you're someone who has difficulty feeling the feelings in the body? Well, the mind, the emotions, and the body. You know? And maybe we can take solace in Dogen Zenji's saying that citta, discriminating consciousness, usually... a mental process, is potent. I think what's important is that whatever process we're engaging, it isn't a way to tell ourselves, I should not be having this experience, I should be having a different one.

[84:11]

I should be a different me. I shouldn't be this me, I shouldn't be a different me. Well, if that's how we've construed the teaching, we've sort of, we've mixed it up. So, however, and I would say, I think of it like learning. Some people are auditory, some people are visual, some people are tactile. And it's not like, well, less auditory is the best and the others are second class. I mean, however it is for you, That's where you begin. And usually, the other notion I have is just in learning, we will have our preference, but if that's all we ever explore, there's a kind of balancing that doesn't happen. If your learning's all auditory,

[85:16]

then it gets out of whack, you know? But we do, I would say, we start with what is most available. How about the attachment to good things? Like, we worship Buddha and then also they say that, kill the Buddha if you need one. So, when do we kill them and then do we worship them? When do we kill a Buddha and when do we worship him? When Rinzai came up with that phrase, he was really saying, at least I'm going to put these words in his mouth right now, since he's not here to contradict me. If you have some fixed external notion of Buddha, it's just getting in the way.

[86:23]

Let it go. And then being Buddha is more available. We are not killing Buddha, we are killing our construct of Buddha. Yes. And then you could say the devotion is more available. Maybe that's a good place to stop. And so I hope you can see the non-dual, the interbeing, the directed, the receptive attention, a mnemonic to create moments of awareness. in everyday existence. The yogic skill of creating moments of awareness in your sitting, they all contribute.

[87:34]

They contribute to a sensibility that's certainly supported, as Dogen says, by or articulated vow. But I think it's also important to remember that our vow is also kridaya and vridda, you know, that our vow is heartfelt. David White, the poet, says, the vows we make out loud are the vows we break. You know, essentially, Maybe he and Dogen might not agree on this point, but they might. If it's just an idea in your head, it doesn't have the resilience to meet the vicissitudes of a human life.

[88:43]

It's something heartfelt, something deeper in your being. It's like that what gets us out of bed in the morning when something in us is saying, but I'm still tired and I'm still, you know, whatever, and my bed's so comfortable and the air's so cold. It gets us out of bed anyway. Or when we're in the throes of some expression of our being that's so psychologically significant for us. And right there the vow to open the hand of thought and just let it go and look at it rather than imbue it with this is the most important thing. It's just another flowering expression of interbeing.

[89:46]

That vowel. And then we can start to carry... So in Zen terms, this is called coming from the mind of shunyata. Coming from the mind of interbeing, we inquire about the human condition. with marvelous convenience, we're a constant example of it. You don't have to go to the library and get a book on it, you are it. When we come from this mind of interbeing, this mind of shunyata, we're not... the impulse to fix it, the impulse to judge it, the impulse to make it something other than it is, starts to diminish.

[90:53]

What is it? What is it to practice with it? And what happens when I practice with it? The inquiry becomes the intrigue. The karmic agenda Does it totally go away? Sometimes. Does it usually almost always come back? Yep. But still we can examine, you know, we can examine the tenacity with which it returns. We can wonder at the spacious marvel of being when it falls away. and we can engage, as Kam says, we can engage its positive attributes and we can engage its difficult attributes.

[91:55]

From the mind of emptiness, it's all the Dharma. And when we allow this to sink in, our vow isn't about good things should happen, and bad things should stop happening. Our mind, our vow is about meeting each arising and discovering in the meeting the gate of liberation. Okay. To be continued. For more information, visit SSCC.org and click giving.

[92:59]

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