I have been talking about The 16 breathing methods in the Anapanasati Sutra as they apply to the Four Foundations of Mindfulness in the Satipatthana Sutra. It all sounds very complicated, but as you know, it's very simple. The four foundations of mindfulness are awareness of the body in the body, awareness of the feelings in the feelings, awareness of the mind in the mind, and awareness of mind objects in the mind objects.

[01:28]

And the last two talks were based on the first two. awareness of the body in the body, and awareness of the feelings in the feelings. But I didn't quite get to the end of the feelings in the feelings yesterday, because everybody jumped in. So if you can wait a little bit before you ask your questions, it won't take so long. But it was a nice discussion yesterday anyway. But in the course of a discourse, our minds anticipate what's coming without knowing what's coming.

[02:33]

And then we get anxious about the question. So, I'll say something about when to ask questions. So I want to talk a little more about the feelings and the feelings, and talk about the mind, focusing on the mind in the mind. And of course, with the breath, that's the important aspect here, is that whatever we focus on, Wherever our attention is focused, we do so with awareness of breathing. Breathing in and out.

[03:36]

Breathing in, we focus on our attention, our feeling. Breathing out, we focus our attention on whatever feeling is most dominant at the time. and I've been reading Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary, so I'll continue that. I was reading, I think I stopped on around the seventh method. The fifth and sixth, you know, the fifth method of awareness of the feelings within the feelings is the food of the joy of meditation.

[04:46]

And the sixth establishes the awareness of peace and happiness, transforming any feeling into a peaceful abode, peaceful dwelling. The fifth is observing the feelings. I mean, excuse me, the seventh and eighth breathing methods aim at the observation of feelings, all feelings, agreeable and disagreeable. Feelings of irritation, anger, anxiety, weariness and boredom are disagreeable ones. And whatever feeling is present, the meditation student identifies it and recognizes that it is there and lights up the sun of his or her awareness in order to illuminate it.

[06:01]

You know, we always say to let our thoughts and feelings appear in consciousness when he gives us an instruction. That's what we always say. He said, let the thought arise, or let the feeling arise. We say thought, we don't usually say feelings, but it's the same, because it's mental feelings, or physical feelings, all feelings. We just let them arise, both thoughts and feelings. And we don't chase them away, and we don't try to get rid of them, and we invite them in, but we don't serve them peace. That's how we act toward our thoughts and feelings. Or, you know, this applies also to not just sitting, but it's like allowing everything to be without becoming attached to anything.

[07:08]

So we know it's present. And whatever is present becomes the subject of meditation. When a thought arises, that becomes the subject for that moment of your attention. And always has been so in zazen. When we can allow that to happen, then all the trash in our mind is no longer trash. just what it is. We think, oh, all this stuff, this terrible stuff is racing through my mind all the time, and I have no moment of peace. But because we become attached to our thoughts and feelings, we have no peace. But we can't have peace by getting rid of them either. Recyclable. We recycle them, as Ron said.

[08:14]

So, whatever feeling is present, the meditation student identifies it, recognizes that it is there, and lights up the sun of his or her awareness in order to illuminate it. So, consciousness is the illuminator. Consciousness illuminates all objects. And in Zazen, our attention becomes very focused and magnifies, seemingly magnifies whatever is most dominant. Sometimes it's painfulness, sometimes it's irritation or agitation, sometimes it's bliss, happiness, whatever. So whatever we turn our attention to is like a searchlight or like a magnifying glass.

[09:25]

And when our attention is very one-pointed, it's like it catches that light and it's like a very sharp beam illuminating whatever its object is. And then consciousness and the object are one. In Buddhist practice, observation meditation is based on non-duality. It is non-duality between consciousness and its object. Therefore, we do not view irritation as an external enemy coming to invade us. We see that we are that very irritation in the present moment. Thanks to this approach, we no longer need to make an effort to oppose, expel, or destroy this irritation. When we practice observation meditation, we do not set up barriers between good and bad in ourselves and transform ourselves into a battlefield.

[10:32]

That is the main thing Buddhism seeks to avoid. We must treat irritation with compassion and non-violence. We can come face-to-face with our own irritation, with a heart filled with love, as if we were face-to-face with our own baby sister. We can light up the light of awareness, which arises from meditative stability, and by breathing in and out mindfully, allow the light to shine steadily. Meditative stability is like equanimity. In order to have real stability. In order to have good concentration in Zazen, we have to have equanimity and stability. So that must be established first. But the only way to establish that is through non-discrimination, so that something doesn't upset us from this side or from this side.

[11:38]

Once we start Once we start discriminating, we start rocking back and forth. And our stability is upset. And then our ability to concentrate becomes agitated. So, to just sit really still and accept everything as it is. we can have good concentration. So, the purpose of, actually, of Buddhism, Buddhist practice, is to see everything as it is, see things as it is, without partiality or holding on to views.

[12:41]

Let go of all views and ideas about it and just see it clearly. So by breathing in and out mindfully, all this is done by breathing in and out mindfully. Breathing in and out mindfully is the basis of understanding. Under the light of awareness, irritation is gradually transformed, not destroyed. Every feeling is a field of energy. A pleasant feeling is an energy which can nourish. Irritation is a feeling which can destroy. Under the light of awareness, the energy of irritation can be transformed into an energy which nourishes. I remember when my son Daniel was born, and when you have a child, as any parent knows, it throws your life into disarray.

[13:49]

The patterns that you've established no longer hold in the old way, because it's constant interruption. baby, you know, is constantly demanding and needing something. And where parents are constantly interrupted, which can bring up all kinds of responses, and irritation can easily arise. And I remember saying that myself that no matter what kind of interruption was caused by this arrival in my life, that I wouldn't get upset. And I never have.

[15:00]

I've never been upset. And I realized, I accepted the fact that my life, what my life is about, is about interruption. My life is about being interrupted over and over again. And yours is too. And to be able to accept that, that that's what my life is. And never get angry or irritated because something that is being, not just a child, but anything. Who are all your children? That's right. Not only that, but events. And when you get into a position where you're relating to a lot of people and a lot of events, there's always, continually, something coming, interrupting your life. And the only way to stay

[16:02]

calm and not get upset is to just accept everything, every interruption, as not as an interruption. To be able to let go of what you're in the middle of and accept what's coming, but not as an intrusion. That's my practice. is to accept whatever comes into my space, not as an intrusion. Otherwise, it would be impossible. Feelings originate either in the body or in our perceptions. Perception means our mind, the way we perceive. When we suffer from insomnia, we feel fatigue or irritation.

[17:14]

First few days of Sashin, everybody's very sleepy. Especially me. A lot of fatigue somehow, you know, you come from the world of busy world into a world of sashim and can't sleep as well, you know, and you stay up the night before until midnight. Somehow it always happens, the first few days and then you're kind of stumbling through. So you can easily feel irritation. This feeling originates in the body. When we misperceive a person or an object, we may feel anger. Now you're talking about misperceptions. How many of our perceptions are accurate, and how many of our perceptions are misperceptions?

[18:17]

This is an interesting question. So you're talking about misperceptions of things or objects. There's the Indian rope analogy. a person in a dim light sees a rope, and because the light is kind of obscure, you know, he mistakes it for a snake, and he gets very frightened. And later, when he comes up on it, he sees that it's really not a snake at all, it's just a rope. And he realizes that his fear and anxiety were baseless. caused by some misperception. And this analogy is used a lot, how we misperceive reality. According to Buddhism, our perceptions are often inaccurate and cause us to suffer.

[19:24]

The practice of full awareness is to look deeply in order to see the true nature of everything and to go beyond our inaccurate perceptions. Seeing a rope as a snake, we will cry out in fear. Fear is a feeling, and mistaking the rope for a snake is an inaccurate perception. So are our fears based on accurate perceptions or inaccurate perceptions? Some of our fears are based on accurate perceptions. But a good many of our fears are based on inaccurate perceptions. And the ones that are based on inaccurate perceptions are the ones that we really need to look at. And when we work with each other, very often what we were working with is helping people to see where their inaccurate perceptions of which cause fear, what they're based on.

[20:34]

If we live our daily life in moderation, keeping our body in good health, we can diminish painful feelings which originate in the body, and by observing each thing clearly and opening the boundaries of our understanding, we can diminish painful feelings originating from perception. To observe a feeling in order to illuminate it is to recognize the multitude of causes near and far. The multitude of causes are usually headed under the groupings of raga, dosa and moha. Raga is greed or desire. or sensual things. And dosa is aversion. These are the two opposites, right? Grasping and aversion. And these two basic desires are what give us the most pain.

[21:47]

Not being able to have what we want and being forced to eat what we don't want. That's it. Attachment to what we want and attachment to what we don't want. Two sides of attachment. And moha is ignorance. Or delusion, actually. They're not being able to decide whether to go this way or that way, and not understanding what the causes are of our problems, and seeing things as they're not. You know, grasping something, thinking it's one thing and it's something else, and constantly being disappointed.

[22:51]

when we find that what we were actually running after is nothing, isn't what we thought it was. And the characteristic is going around in circles. And when we sit in zazen, you know, that mind is called the mind with the loop. The loop that continually replays itself over and over. And you can't get out of that loop. The mind can't get out of that loop. That's the loop of moha, delusion, or ignorance. So those three, we need to study them a lot. That's what we study in Buddhism, actually. So to observe a feeling, in order to illuminate it, is to recognize the multitudes of causes near and far, and go deeply into what we recognize, or to discover the very nature of feeling.

[24:01]

So to actually take feeling down to its root. When we sit, we don't... You can call it investigation, but it's not investigation in the sense of mulling something over. It's investigation in the sense of noticing. just being with what's present. And this being with what's present, if we could actually be with what's present, undistractedly and non-dualistically, we won't solve our problems. But our problems will be resolved. the problem that you have on any one moment will be transformed and dissolved through becoming one with reality.

[25:06]

What solves our problems is not figuring things out, but becoming one with reality. Because the human race has been trying to figure things out for a long, long time. It just gets to be a stickier and worse mess all the time. Things do not get figured out. So, when a feeling of irritation or fear is present, we can be aware of it, nourishing this awareness through breathing. Fully aware of our breathing with patience, we come to see more deeply into the true nature of this feeling. In seeing we come to understand. With understanding there is freedom. So the seventh method refers to the activity of the mind. I am breathing in and am aware of the activities of the mind in me. I am breathing out and am aware of the activities of the mind in me.

[26:11]

Activities of mind here means feeling. Activities refers to the arising of a feeling, its duration, And it's ceasing in order to become something else. It doesn't become something else. Something else takes its place. A thing doesn't become something else, even though everything is transforming into something else. But it doesn't become something else. We don't become something else. We say there is a steer, right? And it's an animal which is moving. and eating and so forth. And then it goes to the butcher and gets killed. And then it's a carcass. And then it goes into the market and it's meat. And then it goes into the pan and it's cooked and it's food. In talking about Genjo Koan,

[27:18]

comment on Genjo Koen, Nishari says, he's talking about one thing about firewood and ash. He says, if you say to tofu, you were once beans, or you were once soybeans, Tofu would laugh at you and say, what are you talking about? Soybeans are soybeans. Tofu is tofu. The eighth method aims at the transformation of the energy of feelings. I am breathing in and making the activities of mind and me common at peace. I am breathing out and making the activities of the mind and me common at peace.

[28:21]

With a feeling, this feeling, right? With making, can you make yourself at peace? That's the kind of question that comes up. Can you make, can I make myself, and should I change what's there to be peaceful? It's not that you eliminate something in order to be peaceful. is that you find equanimity within yourself with the object, with the feeling. So when a feeling of irritation arises, I'm breathing in with irritation. I am breathing out of irritation. The attention to the breath calms the mind and allows it to see or to be with irritation or with anger or with whatever without being attached to it.

[29:31]

Breathing in means, you could say, breathing in means without attachment This is irritation. Without attachment, this is anger. You just allow everything to be without attachment. But we don't say without attachment, we say breathing in with awareness of breath. So by observing the true nature of any feeling, we can transform its energy into the energy of peace and joy. When we understand someone, we can accept and love that person. Once we have accepted him, there is no longer any feeling of reproach or irritation against him.

[30:37]

The energy of the feeling of irritation, in this case, can be transformed into the energy of love. What we usually do is react to someone at face value, so to speak. We react to what's coming toward us. And so our relationships take place on the surface. But if we really understand, if we understood the whole history of this person and their background, and the whole history of where all of this, that particular act came from, we would have a different understanding of what's actually coming at us. And we wouldn't see this person actually so much as an independent entity, but

[31:40]

driven by some force. You know, when you're riding in a boat down a river, and you see another boat coming, and it's kind of foggy, and you can't see who's there, but you see the boat, and you say, get out of the way! Move! What's the matter with those people? And the boat, as it passes by, you see there's nobody in it. And then you realize all this anger and frustration and irritation is directed at an empty boat. And actually, well, each one of us is an empty boat, but it doesn't look like it. And we can be hurt by the empty boat.

[32:49]

Nevertheless, in order to see things as they really are, we have to be able to see into them more clearly. And we think that we're independent. This is our idea. Well, I'm independent and I think independently. And my Whatever I do is my own karma, is my own volitional action. But it ain't so. The way we act and the way we think and the way we feel is all conditioned by our background, our ancestors and the whole world. And we're just acting out these ideas and feelings and what we feel is our own independence. life. There's no such thing as independent life. Where all of us are, most people are driven by forces which we don't even recognize.

[34:02]

And not to recognize this is called ignorance. So we end up building bigger jails and putting people into bigger jails, not understanding what are the causes, what's behind violence. And if you succumb to reacting, then you just get caught in a circle of ignorance. No matter how much it hurts you. to not be caught in ignorance. It hurts to not be caught in ignorance because you have to accept a lot of stuff that would ordinarily cause you to be reactive. And our anger, we always feel our anger is justified

[35:21]

And anger is a great release, and it's a great high, and gives us some feeling of power. But it also destroys perception, destroys equanimity, and then we just become a part It's very hard to transform ignorance into equanimity, but it's possible. So, do you have any questions about that? I want to really talk about the mind. or a series of copies that condition us to trigger moments of experience?

[36:37]

Well, one is to understand mentally that figuring out, which is important. It's minimizing the importance of thinking. But actual transformation takes place through being one with. There are many people who've got it all figured out, just right, but they're not transformed. The difference between philosophy in the West and philosophy in the East, generally, is that you can be a philosopher in the West and not have to do anything but think. And so it's a system of thought detached from doing. In the East, or at least in Buddhist philosophy, philosophy, thinking, and practice is one thing.

[37:44]

It's not two different things. They're not separate. If you are a Buddhist philosopher, you have to prove what it is that you're philosophizing. You have to embody your philosophies. You can't just be thinking. into psychology, which is mostly based on experience and not just... You know, I don't want to get into that. But I'm not trying to compare anything in that way, right? I'm not saying one's better, you know, this is, that's not... I'm just, for the purpose of answering your question, I'm saying that you're talking about, you know, kind of defending thinking, right? That's what it sounds like. It's like you were pretending to think you could get... It's the sheen, for example. It's important to have this one point of concentration and just illuminate a particular experience that we have at that moment.

[38:47]

We don't get into trying to understand all the causes behind the experience that we have. Right. But at another moment it may be important to understand. But that understanding arises. Without trying to think about it, you say, oh, I see. The understanding arises. So if you try to understand, that's one way. But if you just put yourself into the situation completely, then the understanding arises from that. So that's more the process. It's not that you don't understand. What I'm trying to say is that understanding arises from the experience. So in explanation, experience comes first and then explanation.

[39:48]

Experience comes first and then revelation. Sometimes it's the other way around, but mostly that's the way it works. Can you talk about how you balance that with setting some priorities? Yeah. It's hard to set priorities. But I... My priorities in my life come from limiting my activity. Because it's so expansive, it could be... If I didn't limit my activity, I'd be... in Europe now. It's really hard to stay away from that, you know. And so I limit my activity to Berkeley Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, Paso Hara, and my family.

[40:55]

So those are the big limitations. And then within that, there are other limitations. People don't usually call me at all, but sometimes they do. So I don't know how I do it. I don't have a method. I don't have a method. And I listen to music mostly in my car when I'm driving. It's hard to sit down. I was sitting down the other day listening to music in my house. And my wife came and said, what are you doing? Well, that's how I listen to music. I'm not doing anything else. Which is rare. So rare, you know. A question about terminal, or about the language, something I didn't understand. Body in the body, feeling in the feelings, mind in the mind, and mind objects in the mind objects.

[42:05]

I think you talked about it in the first lecture, and I think I missed it. Right. But body in the body means not objectifying, so it's a way of saying not objectifying consciousness from its object, whether it's body or in the mind or in the feelings or in mind-objects. Not setting up a duality. That's right. Even though there is a subject and an object, it's not setting up the subject-object as a duality. Could you say like the body as the body? You could say that. Maybe as would be better than in. Maybe a bit. Maybe as a bit. Good word. Yeah. Is that like in the Heart Sutra when we say, in their own being?

[43:11]

In their own being. The five agandas in their own being. Are empty. Yeah. Yeah. In their own being? Is that like the feeling in their own being? Well, it means that they have no own being. Are empty of their own being. In other words, They're all interdependent. They depend on something else for their being. In other words, the nose depends on the face, right? And so everything depends on something else for its existence. Nothing exists independently. It's its own being. So all five skandhas in their own being are empty. Empty of own being. I like your job. Yeah. What are they? Oh yeah, Peter. You said before, you were talking about all of us being preconditioned by our ancestors and innumerable things that we don't understand.

[44:19]

And then you parted from it and you said, at least almost all of us. Oh yeah. Well, I meant those who are liberated are no longer conditioned. Or if they are liberated, they understand the conditioning. So, the purpose of this is to find liberation. Not to be outside of conditioning, but not to be caught by it. To be free from habit, energy, conditioning. which controls you. And that's that kind of freedom. I just wonder if liberated tofu would know that it was soybean.

[45:24]

Liberated tofu would not worry about whether it was soybean. But you seem to imply that it honored the soybeans. If it knew, it would say, soybeans are my ancestors. But we don't know all those conditions. Now, a Buddha is supposed to be able to look into past lives and see all the conditioning. But not only Buddha. In India, a lot of people can do this, you know, look into the past lives and see the conditioning. But looking into past lives can mean many things, right? Not necessarily his past lives, but the past life of which he is the

[46:29]

the living embodiment at this moment. Each one of us is the living embodiment at this moment in space of that progression which produced us. But we don't know what all that is. It's impossible to know what all that is. that progression which produced us. But we don't know what all that is. It's impossible to know all that, what all that is. I mean, maybe, I don't think... I say impossible, but nothing is impossible. Knowing that nothing is impossible, that's impossible.

[47:31]

Yes? Well, you know, what you said about liberation being... being understanding your conditioning, sounds really important to me. I mean, I think that a lot of us think that, you know, we're going to get liberated, we're going to kind of just break free from all this stuff, and there's going to be this big discontinuity between the way we were tied to our conditioning before and the way we're free. And I don't think that happens. Well, no, it can happen. That can happen. In other words, a person can be really completely free, detached, you know, from their previous conditioning. That is possible. But it's not... It comes from being willing to look at it. Oh yeah, of course. You can't be free from it unless you understand it, and look at it, and accept it, and swallow it, you know.

[48:36]

But also being free from it doesn't mean to leave it. It means to understand it and to actually be free within it. To find your freedom within it. So a monk, a home leaver actually cuts off all the conditioning. But a layperson, a non-home leaver, lives within the conditioning with understanding. In other words, finds their freedom within the conditioning. Yes? Well, a home leaver doesn't necessarily free himself from the condition, from the circumstances that form the condition, but a home leaver might be just or more kind of bond by conditioning than some of the... Well, what we mean is an enlightened home leaver.

[49:43]

What? An enlightened home leaver. Yeah. You're not making a case for... No, I'm not making a case for either one. No, I'm saying the object of leaving home is to cut off all the ties. Right. It would be like clouds and water. But a person who stays at home finds their freedom within the conditions. So those are just two different aspects. I think what he's saying is you can cut your external ties, but you're still bound in your mind, and you still have to work with that. I mean, just in terms of leaving home, not in terms of I'm talking about a realized person. One may leave home in order to do that. So the realized person is not bound either mentally or physically.

[50:47]

The cycle of rebirth within a habit energy is no longer at work, except at a very subtle level. and it always traces of that, you know, and there's karma, latent karma which accompanies that person's life, you know, they still have some residue of that. You know, there are always these questions, does the arhat still have this and does the arhat still have that, right? And the answer is yes, the arhat still does have, you know, latent from their previous life before they left home and were enlightened. But the one who stays at home finds their freedom within their conditions, which is actually what everybody does.

[51:58]

And this is more... This is more Mahayana understanding. Nirvana is found within samsara. You don't separate. You don't get rid of samsara. You don't get rid of your conditions in order to enter nirvana. Nirvana is right there within the conditions. But it means within the conditions to not be attached to the conditions. to be free from them, within them. So you go about your daily life, but rather than being attached or caught by greed, hate and delusion within your daily life, you're free from greed, hate and delusion within your daily life. And so it looks the same, but the effect is the opposite. One controls their world instead of being controlled by it. I don't mean control in the sense of pushing it.

[53:07]

One is not controlled by greed, hate and delusion, actually. Yes? I'm confused about what you said about subject and object. About what? Subject and object. objects of our minds and perceptions one thing or what? Yeah, exactly.

[54:08]

So we say, not one and not two. I find this hard to understand. Yes, because you're trying to understand it. See, that's the problem. Because it's not something that you can explain. It's something you have to experience. You and I are talking, right? Yeah. And you're looking at me and I'm looking at you. And I'm the object for your subject, right? I guess. Well, who cares? Is that so or not? Well, I don't know that's what I'm talking about. Well, I am an object for your subject and you are an object for my subject. But in order for this, your subject, if I wasn't here, right?

[55:21]

Yeah. Then this situation wouldn't be occurring. So it takes Whatever it is that you're focusing on as an object of your mind, this idea arises in your mind about what we're doing. This perception about what you and I are doing arises in your mind as an idea. And the idea says, oh, you're over there and I'm over here. have a subject without an object, the subject wouldn't be perceived. Well, you can have two subjects. But the subject arises, the object arises in your mind as an object. Are you in my mind or not? I mean, sometimes I get the idea that what I'm hearing is that, you know, there's really only one existence.

[56:45]

That's right, and it's divided by consciousness. Consciousness divides the one existence into this and that. Well, consciousness is awareness. That doesn't answer my question, I don't think. You could say consciousness, you know, you can't say what is the one existence. You can't name it. It's not nameable. It's not perceivable. Does it belong to anyone? It doesn't belong to anything. It belongs to itself. And anything you can say about it is not the right description. It's indescribable. So, all of us are pieces of it, different expressions of the same reality. Ultimate reality is expressed as you, and it's expressed as me, but it's the same reality, only it has different shapes and forms.

[57:55]

So, because our way of seeing is partial, because we're only a part, we see each other as objects. But it's just one whole being, with different aspects. So yes, subject and object. But actually, when you're talking to me and I'm talking to you, we're just talking to ourselves. I find I can work with that when it's a direct transaction between me and another person. But I find it harder if I'm observing cruelty or something arising between

[59:12]

Well, my feeling, my understanding is that whenever I react to anything that my child is doing, it's a mistake. And the thing that brings the most results is when I'm completely calm and non-blaming and non-interfering and not making someone feel defensive. That's the only thing that works. It doesn't mean non-action. It doesn't mean non-action, no. Out of that, you do something. Out of that arises your response. That's my experience. When my response arises out of that kind of thoughtfulness, it works much better. And between two people, you know, problem solving.

[60:52]

Interfering can be a problem and not interfering can be a problem. Interfering can be a problem. Interceding or interacting can help solve something. So how do you step into that without getting beat up? in equanimity, you know, and not just reacting on your impulse. My learning has been that when I act on impulse, I get flugged. So, and my experience is that no matter what's going on, how much it hurts my ego, if I'm calm and Have equanimity and all those good things. Things just work out so much better.

[61:56]

Especially in between two other people. They listen, they want to hear the voice of reason. the war in Bosnia, or two kids who are just going to rag at each other for the next five years. And I find that whether it's the war or the anger, it leaves me with a residue of sadness. Yes, sadness is our, you know, when you're watching the feelings and when you're paying attention to the feelings and the feelings, pay attention to your feelings. You see the kids fighting? I'm feeling sadness. Breathing in, I feel sadness. Breathing out, I feel sadness.

[63:02]

That's all. You can't fix everything. I don't try to fix everything. You can't fix everything. You stop the war in Bosnia, and the war in Russia will start.

[63:16]

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