If you have trouble seeing, you can always move your question. It doesn't have to be lined up in exact rows. Well, I want to remind you that this afternoon is Shosan, so please come up with a good question.

[01:23]

During this practice period we've talked about lots of different things which should give you some indication of what to ask questions about if you don't have anything already to ask questions about. So if you just think a little bit about what we've been dealing with for the last six weeks, plus this session, you should be able to come up with something. What else do I have to remind everybody about? Don't forget, Tuesday night, we're on the shuso ceremony.

[02:26]

This is not a light thing, so I would like everyone to attend the shuso ceremony, Tuesday night. And bring a good question for the shuso. That's two questions. You know, it can be a question that you want answered for yourself, or it can be a question that you think you would like to just see what he has to say about, a question for him to see what his understanding is. That's a good kind of question. What is your understanding about this? Anyone can think of that kind of question. Make a little effort and please come.

[03:54]

Today, we don't have too much time to talk about the last two foundations of mindfulness in connection with breathing. So, but the last, first two, mindfulness of the body in the body, and mindfulness of breathing, I mean, of feelings in the feelings. And the last two are mindfulness of contents of mind. and objects of mine. There's four. So those two are what I'm going to take up today. The way this book was put together, the 16 breathing methods are laid out just as they're laid out in the Sutra, in a very simple way, just simply stated.

[05:27]

And then there's the commentary, which is a kind of short commentary on each one, and then there's a longer commentary on each one. So there are actually three divisions here, three commentaries. And if I go to the long commentary, you won't get through. So I'll use the short commentary and maybe refer to the long commentary. So, starting with the ninth. The ninth through the twelfth methods. In the ninth through the twelfth methods, the mind is the object. Mind, citta, consists of all the functions of the mind.

[06:32]

So, mind in its big sense, entirety, is called citta. And then there are various other names for the mind, like mano, manas, and vijnana, which is consciousness. So mind, citta, consists of all the functions of the mind, including feelings, perceptions, and all psychological states. Buddhist psychology lists 51 mental functions, which I don't have time to go into here, If you studied Abhidharma, you know something about what the 51 mental functions are. They include our usual, our most common states of mind. Bad states of mind, good states of mind, and neutral states of mind. And if you think about it, you'd already know what they all are.

[07:35]

and they're called citta samskara. However, mind is also consciousness, discrimination, and reflection. And awareness during the ninth breathing method includes all of these. Whatever is arising in the mind in the present moment, So, simply stated, whatever thought you have at any one moment is your state of mind. The dominant thought is your state of mind. And there is no special object called the mind. If we try to find the mind, you know, the Bodhidharma and Eka, Eka comes to Bodhidharma and he says, please pacify my mind.

[08:43]

And Bodhidharma says, well, show me your mind. And Eka thinks about it. I can't find it. And Bodhidharma says, your mind is already pacified. So there is no such thing called mind. There are only mental states. continuous rush of mental states. And we say, this is my mind. In Buddhadharma, one model is the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, which has all the memory and stores all of our information. And the alaya-vijnana is like a torrent of water rushing over the rocks, continuously producing thoughts.

[09:54]

But without the thoughts, there is no mind. Mind is the thoughts, and the thoughts is mind, mental states. So, states of mind are continually changing. Continuous change of states of mind. And when we sit in Zazen, we become aware of the continuous roar and rush of continuously changing states of mind. There's nothing to think about, right? When you sit in Zazen, there's nothing to think about. Yet, the torrent of thoughts rushing out of the storehouse consciousness is continuously moving.

[10:57]

That's its function. And to be aware of each state of mind as it appears. is where we put our attention. Sometimes people say, well, you should have a blank mind when you sit in Zazen. This is what Hakuin was criticizing, people who sit with a blank mind. Sometimes people think Soto Zen, Zazen, is to sit with a blank mind, which is a big mistake. We don't try to suppress thoughts or to stop thinking or to stop thoughts. To stop thinking is different than to stop thoughts. to let go of all the objects of the conscious mind doesn't mean to stop the flow of the conscious mind.

[12:22]

It just means let it flow. When we just let it flow without using a thought as a foundation for a fantasy, then each thought just becomes the subject of meditation when we turn the light of awareness or concentration on that thought. So when a thought appears in our consciousness, it just becomes illuminated by our attention, and then it disappears. And another thought takes its place, and that becomes the subject. And when that thought arises, Inhaling, there's this thought. Exhaling, there's this thought. There's no fighting or judgment.

[13:28]

There's no judgment about the thought. This is a good thought. This is a bad thought. It may be a good or bad thought, but we don't get caught up in the judgment. Because we don't take up the thought. We don't act out on the thought. We just let the thoughts appear. And they become, as it's sometimes described, the scenery of our life. Emotion and thought just become the scenery. Like riding a train. You see the landscape out the window. But you don't jump off the train. when you see something interesting. So we just let our emotion and thought come up, come and go, come and go. There's no need to become entangled with it.

[14:32]

But sometimes you say, well, must be important stuff. My whole life is bound up with that. And what about the future? If I figure this out, I'll have it all. But we're dealing actually with, we're removing ourselves from the present. The present moment is the most important moment. The present moment is the only real moment. And we're sacrificing this present real moment for trying to figure out what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. And we get very tied into it. Now, it's okay to do that. There's a time and a place to do that.

[15:36]

When you want to figure out the past, you sit down with your psychiatrist. And focus your attention on that. When you want to figure out the future, you sit down with your spouse. Astrologer. With your astrologer. mind joyful. Now this is interesting because in each one of these quadrats, each one has one method about making the mind joyful. The body, then the body,

[16:41]

One of them is to make the mind joyful and at peace. And in the breathing method, there's one that says, make your mind joyful and at peace. And this one says, the 10th method makes our mind joyful and causes it, because it is easier for the mind to become concentrated when it is in a peaceful state, peaceful, happy state. So in order for the mind to really be concentrated, we have to have some peacefulness, some settledness, some equanimity, and some feeling of happiness or joyfulness, even though there may be difficulty. So it's a kind of prerequisite. You know, if the mind is only bumpy, sometimes we sit through a whole session and the mind is just bumpy, and the breath is bumpy, and the scene is bumpy, and very difficult to concentrate.

[17:46]

Even though that happens, some concentration happens, you know, something happens. Wonderful, but it's important to let go of our anxieties about the past and the future, and our destiny. and our worries, and just be present and allow ourself a moment of happiness, a moment without worry and flurry, so that we can just be here and concentrate. And sometimes that doesn't happen until the last day or the last Zazen period. And then we think, let's do it seven more days. I wish this would go on. But all the rest of the time we think, when is this going to be over? We are aware that we have the opportunity to practice meditation if there is no moment as important as the present one.

[18:54]

Calmly abiding in the present moment, immense joy arises. So, but often we feel like, well, we're escaping. See, if I let go of my anxiety, I'm escaping my responsibility. It's true. Think about why it is that you don't want to let go of your anxiety. Because you'd be escaping your responsibility to it. See, anxiety is our, not our punishment, not the way we punish ourselves, but we do, but it's our do, you know, it's our way of keeping our attention on our problems. We say anxiety arises because of the problem, but anxiety also feeds the problem, and they work back and forth with each other. Don't they?

[19:56]

I think so. My experience is that they do. So it's a kind of fear of letting go of the problem, because if we let it go, the problem, then we're not being responsible to the problem. And it might go away. And then what will we do? That's right. And who would I be without this breath? That's right. Using the mind to observe the mind, the 11th method brings us to deep concentration. Mind is the breath. Mind is the oneness of the subject which observes and illumines and the object which is observed and illumined.

[20:59]

It's a nice way of saying that because we say mind and its object are the same, or mind and its object are one. But it's the mind which is both subject and object. But what do we mean by mind? mind, what is it that observes? And what is it that's observed? We say the subject observes and the object is observed. And so when we say the subject is what observes, we take the subject for the mind. And we say the mind is observed. But we can't see how the mind is also the object. But we can't see how the mind is the subject because I am the mind, or the mind is me. But what do we mean by mind?

[22:02]

According to the understanding of Buddhadharma, a person is made up of five skandhas. In the Heart Sutra, five skandhas are empty in their own being, which means that form form feelings, perceptions, mental formations, which are the samskaras, as I just said, and consciousness are what constitute the human being. But there's no person. It doesn't say a person. It says the five skandhas. So five skandhas are like five rivers, which are continually flowing. and transforming. Just like mind is not something that one can grasp because it's like a torrent or a river that's just constantly flowing. And what it is, is in its flowing. And a human being is also five rivers of form.

[23:22]

The river of form is continually changing, continually transforming. There is no form that you can grasp and say, this is my form, except for this moment. This form that you grasp this moment is not the same form that you grasp the next moment. It's a different form. Even though we say, I am so-and-so, the name is the same, but the object of the name is continually transforming. So the feelings are continually transforming. The perceptions are continually transforming. The mental formations or thoughts are continually transforming. And consciousness is in constant state of flux. So where's the person? So all this is encompassed in mind. Mind covers both

[24:25]

ourselves and objects. Master Dongshan asked this question. I hear that inanimate beings preach the Dharma. How's that? The Dharma is not limited to human world. As a matter of fact, human world is not limited to human world. Human world also includes objects. It includes rocks, tiles, fences, trees, birds. So, where do you find your real self? Where do you find true mind? So always we say this over and over again, but it just sounds like an idea, you know.

[25:39]

Oh yeah, my true self is the whole universe. That's a great idea. But what does that really mean? When we let go of the idea of a self, which is just an idea, then our true self emerges. So, when we study, you know, Doguen says to study the Buddhadharma is to study the self. But there's no self to study. There's only forms. feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. So that's what we study in Buddhism. And when we sit Zazen, that's what we become aware of.

[26:45]

You sit there, all day, for five days, paying attention to form, to the continuously changing form of this body. and everything around you, all the forms around us, the way food is transformed from one form into another. And we pay attention to feelings, we pay attention to perceptions, we pay attention to the mental formations and consciousness. That's called studying the self. And there is no other self. There's a kind of unifying principle, which we call our self. But it's not substantial. It's continuously changing.

[27:47]

And flowing, intermingling with everything. So every time we take a breath, the whole universe flows into us. And every time we exhale, the whole universe flows out. So this is constant flow with the universe. That's all there is. And it's very apparent and very simple to actually realize. And the breathing is not our fault. It just goes on. And yet we say, I am breathing. What? Breathing is breathing. Seeing is seeing. Hearing is hearing. Thinking is thinking. Consciousness is observing itself. So, what stands in the way of seeing as it is,

[28:59]

is this I-consciousness, and I've talked about it before, the seventh consciousness, manas, which is discriminating mind, which gives us the sense of self, of an individual self, ego consciousness. So to observe the mind is just to observe the formations of the mind as they appear, without getting tangled up. It doesn't mean to be detached, but to be one with. This is this thought. or not interesting, or whatever. And sometimes, you know, we trail off with it.

[30:04]

As a matter of fact, a lot we trail off with it. That's okay. I mean, how can you not, you know? That's what the mind's effort is for. So you don't have to fool the mind, but you have to be able to say, I know that this is continually happening, but what I'm doing, or what this This one is doing. What this one is doing is observing. That's all. And the action is Siddhi Zazen. It's not that you're not doing anything. You're doing something in a very strong way, in an absolutely, completely doing way called Siddhi Zazen. We say doing nothing, but this doing nothing is the absolute doing something.

[31:09]

So then the twelfth method can release the mind to freedom if it is still bound. Mind is bound either because of the past or the future. or because of other latent desires or anger. With clear observation, we can locate the knots which hold us, making it impossible for the mind to be free and at peace. Loosening these knots, we can untie the ropes which bind our mind. Full awareness of breathing breathes into the mind the light of observation which can illumine and set the mind free. So, although freedom is in this category. It also, I think, should belong to the four final methods, which are vipassana only. The first three methods are samatha and vipassana, stopping and observing, or concentrating and observing.

[32:19]

And the four final methods are for liberation. observing how everything comes and goes and how we are free from everything. So, in the four final methods, mind cannot be separated from its object. Mind is consciousness, feelings. attachment, aversion, and so on, as I said. Consciousness must always be conscious of something. That's an interesting statement. Consciousness has to have an object. If we say, I'm conscious, I have to be conscious of something. So, feeling is always feeling something.

[33:22]

Loving and hating are always loving and hating something. This something is the object of the mind. Mind cannot arise if there is no object. Mind does not exist if the object of mind does not exist. The mind is, at one and the same time, the subject of consciousness and the object of consciousness. But sometimes we have states of mind, which are angry states of mind. But we don't necessarily know what it is that we're angry at. Or we may have a loving state of mind, but that love doesn't have an object. And so we go around looking for an object to correspond to our state of mind. So, you know, often we see people are very angry all the time. And they're looking for, desperately looking for an object.

[34:27]

be angry at, because it's a mode which is hard to get out of. There are underlying causes for the anger. So there is an object, but we don't always know what the object is, and we misrepresent it and focus on almost anything to connect with. And the same with love, you know, or lust, or almost any feeling will have an underlying cause, but we miss it, or we hide it, or we, for some reason or another, and we're looking for some object over and above the object that's already there. And this is called being lost, of course, in wandering around in division. looking for the object which somehow is already there, but we can't find it.

[35:32]

But anyway, so feeling always has to have an object, and consciousness has to be conscious of something. So consciousness arises with its object. And mind objects can be anything from thoughts, feelings to objects outside of the mental realm. So all physiological phenomena, such as the breath, the nervous system, and the sense organs, all psychological phenomena, such as feelings, thought, and consciousness, and all physical phenomena, such as the earth, water, grass, trees, mountains, and rivers, are objects of mind. And therefore, all are mind. All of them can be called dharmas. So dharma with a small d means all of these things. Dharma with a big capital D means Buddha's teaching.

[36:40]

or the law. So Buddha's teaching with a capital D is about the dharmas with a small d. So dharma is about the interaction of the realm of dharmas. This world is the realm of small dharmas, individual things. mental states, feeling states, all the psychological and physical phenomena are in a big sense, wide sense, all dharmas. All dharmas are marked with emptiness. It's hard to just say, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. All phenomena are interdependent, have no own being, as well as all skandhas. both dharmas and skandhas have no individual existence that is not dependent on something else.

[37:41]

So, all of these things can be called dharmas. So, in the 13th method, The 13th breathing method sheds light on the ever-changing, impermanent nature of all that exists. All dharmas are empty in their own being, or empty, and all skandhas are empty in their own being. The psychological, the physiological, and the physical. Breathing itself is also impermanent. The fact of impermanence is very important because it opens the way for us to see the interrelated, interconditioned nature as well as the selfless nature. Nothing has a separate independent self of all that exists. So the 13th breathing method is to see the impermanent nature.

[38:57]

In other words, you can watch, be aware of the rising and falling of form, the rising and falling of, the rising, duration, and ending of forms. The rising, duration, and ending of feelings. the rising duration and ending of perceptions, the rising duration and ending of thoughts, mental thoughts, mind objects in mind, and the same with consciousness, to see how everything arises, endures, and fades. And that whole process is right in front of us, continuously. In zazen, we breathe in and out with the awareness of impermanence.

[40:00]

And each thought, I mean, each breath itself is impermanent. So you can concentrate on the impermanence of each breath, how each breath arises and has a certain kind of duration and they fade. And then you can, one way of watching breath is to, observing breath is to observe exactly when the breath ends and where the next breath starts. So you inhale, and then you notice where the peak of this breath is. And then you observe the breath in its exhale and observe exactly where the end of that breath is. And then the beginning of the next breath and its peak. And this is how you can observe impermanence of breath, each breath.

[41:09]

And then you can observe the impermanence all around you. and with everything. The 14th method allows us to see that every dharma is already in the process of disintegrating or fading. People say, jokingly, are you dying? Well, no, I'm living. Am I living or am I dying? What's going on here? We say, you know, to someone who is going to die in a few weeks, we say, that person is dying. But we don't say it about ourselves, unless we, usually, we say, no, but we're living. He's dying, but I'm living. So the 14th method allows us to see that every dharma is already in the process of disintegrating or fading so that we are no longer possessed by the idea of holding on to any dharma as a separate entity.

[42:24]

Even the physiological and psychological elements in ourselves. Doesn't mean that, you know, we should give up our life, you know. But, you know, sometimes we say, this happens, we say, well, let's see, it's already May, and pretty soon it'll be August, and then December, the whole year's almost over. And you do that. And you do that. And then I think, wait a minute, wait a minute, you know, like, this is now, you know, and then it's tomorrow, well then it's the next ten minutes, you know. What, whoa, whoa, So even though everything is disintegrating, disintegrating, it's also reintegrating.

[43:27]

We have to remember that. Everything is disintegrating, but it's also reintegrating. And so our life, although it's falling apart, it's also transforming into something else. And so we don't have to give in to dying. We can still enjoy our life just as it is, as it's continually reintegrating, disintegrating and reintegrating. And that process is called our life. So we have to be very careful of that and aware of it and take care of it moment by moment. That's why we have to live our life moment by moment. It's all we've got. So the 15th method allows us to arrive at the awareness of great joy. Here's great joy in the last quadrat. The joy of emancipation.

[44:34]

This is the joy of being free from worry and flurry and anxiety about what's happening to us. We should be concerned. of course, but on the other hand, to see what's really happening is the utmost necessity. So we're only worried about what we should worry about, and not worry about what we shouldn't worry about. And take care of what should be taken care of, and not take care of what we don't need to take care of. So, you know, it's very sad that we are born, that we endure, and then we die.

[45:34]

But it's also very good that we are born, that we endure, and that we die. It's also very good. And it's also neither good nor bad. There has to be some... When we see it clearly, this process is not a bad process. If everything stayed exactly the same, there would be no birth. There would be no endurance. Everything has to go the way it goes.

[46:37]

And so that's a kind of liberating process. Once we completely accept that, then we have liberation. Liberation from birth and death. That's what Buddha Dharma is about. So then the 16th method illumines for us what it is to let go of ourselves, to give up all the burdens of our ignorance and our grasping, and to be able to let go is already to have arrived at liberation. So in these 16 methods is already the road or the path of liberation through awareness of breath and the four foundations of mindfulness. And it's really the basis of Zazen. We can say, well, this is a kind of Hinayana method or something like that, but that's not so. And how does Zen differ from Buddhism?

[47:42]

It doesn't. Zen is just Buddhism with Taoist overtones. So in Zen practice, we're free to use anything we want within Buddhism. for instruction or for understanding or for practice. Because we have no special sutra, which is the Zen sutra. Zen sutra is our life as we live it in practice. Each one of us is writing our Zen sutra. which is called our life. And we're always studying this.

[48:47]

This is just another perspective on what we're always dealing with, always studying, and always practicing. And it's congruent with any Mahayana or any of the sutras. It's completely congruent with any Buddhist practice or sutra. And if you look at what we do in Zen, our Zen practice, it's all right here. So it would be good to study this more. It's a nice way to focus in on our practical way of practice.

[49:57]

And we don't have time for discussion today. So Sashina is not over, and let's practice fully all the way up to the end.

[50:20]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ