Well, tonight I want to get really into the heart of what Buddha discovered during this enlightenment night. And for me, it's the real ground of our practice, of what we do. we go over again review what led up to his enlightenment and what he discovered and what he discovered is what the self is and isn't and it's a somewhat complex presentation on the other hand it makes great sense so that's what I want to do tonight. I hope most of you have your handouts here. Do you?

[01:02]

Yes. Good. I'd like to look at, we haven't talked about one that is entitled Skillfulness and it comes from this book called The Wings of Awakening which is by Bhiko Thanissari who is an Englishman or an American Theravadan monk who lives in Los Angeles And it's quite a nice book. It's devoted to the wings of awakening. And I guess there are six or eight wings. And he takes, each wing is a theme of what enlightenment is. And he, for each wing, he takes wonderful quotations from the Pali text and just uses them to exemplify the wing. And so the wing that I copied for you is the wing of skillfulness.

[02:02]

And we touched on skillfulness last night. It's such an important theme. that rather than talking about right or wrong, good or bad, it's more useful to talk about what's skillful and what's unskillful. And as he says on the page before, your handout begins on page 28 and on 27 that I didn't copy, he said these passages included in this section cover three themes. How the distinction between what is skillful and not is fundamental to the practice. And how to determine what is skillful and what isn't and how to become skillful in developing states of mind. So that's what this passage is about.

[03:12]

And the reason I'm presenting it tonight is that in fact it's another slightly different account of Buddha's enlightenment experience, which was, amongst other things, an incredible feat of skillfulness. uh... what are these sections he refers to section 2, section 5, section 6 each section is taken from a particular sutra so section 1 which goes up to page 32 is from M19 you'd have to look up, I don't know what that sutra is It's a section of this book. Yes. This book is a compilation of excerpts from sutras.

[04:13]

So, the editor gives this little exposition of skillfulness and then on page 29 We are going to go into the, again, a slightly different account from a slightly different sutra of the awakening. So, before my self-awakening, when I was still just an unawakened bodhisattva, the thought occurred to me, why don't I keep dividing my thinking into two classes? So I made thinking imbued with sensuality. thinking imbued with ill will, thinking imbued with harmfulness for one class, and thinking imbued with renunciation, thinking imbued with non-will, thinking imbued with harmlessness into another class. See, so he's following the yogic tradition that he was born into, which is to observe the inner states.

[05:29]

And now he's deciding, he's really going to watch whether his inner states are involved with positive energy or negative energy. And so, as I remained thus heedful and ardent and resolute, He noticed that thinking imbued with sensuality has arisen in me and that leads to my own affliction or to the affliction of others or to the affliction of both. It obstructs discernment, promotes vexation, does not lead to unbinding. So he's making, he's skillfully studying suffering, his own suffering. He's watching it carefully. And As I notice that it leads to my own affliction, it subsided. As I notice that it leads to the affliction of others, to the affliction of both, and so on and so on, it subsided.

[06:37]

So it doesn't last. Very important observation. So whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness. And now comes a lovely paragraph which is an example of the very accessible metaphors that he used, many farming metaphors. Just as in the last month of the rains in the autumn season when the crops are ripening, a cowherd would look after his cows. He would tap and poke and check and curb them with a stick on this side and that. Why is that? Because he foresees flogging or imprisonment or a fine or public censure arising from that if he lets his cows wander into the crops.

[07:42]

In the same way I foresaw in unskillful qualities drawbacks, degradation and defilement and I foresaw in skillful qualities related to renunciation, promoting and cleansing. So it's a nice definition of what's skillful, unskillful. And as I remain thus heedful, ardent and resolute, thinking imbued with renunciation arose. Just naturally, if one remains focused, gradually there's a kind of settling down and thinking imbued with renunciation, that is detachment arises. It's a kind of natural process that he was observing. Thinking imbued with renunciation has arisen in me and that leads neither to my own affliction nor to the affliction of others nor to the affliction of both.

[08:50]

It promotes discernment, promotes lack of vexation and so on and so on. So he noticed this process carefully. And then, I'm 31, just as the last month of the hot season when all the crops have been gathered into the village, a cowherd would look after his cows while resting under the shade of a tree or out in the open. He simply keeps himself mindful of those cows. In the same way, I simply keep myself mindful of those mental qualities. So, does this have anything to do with our Zazen instructions? Just watching what happens. The extraordinary power of that. Just being present. Just watching. So, as he did that, what happens when we do that?

[09:58]

Naturally, concentration arises little by little concentration arises and the next paragraph is the description of his concentration before Jhanas and I'm not going to get into that tonight it's another wonderful subject and then after and now now the account is very close to what the account was in the sutra that we read last week. After the concentration then comes his experience of the recollection of all of his past lives. He knows them. And then After that experience, bottom of the last paragraph in 31, sees all of his first lives. Thus I remembered my manifold past lives in their modes and details. This was the first knowledge I attained in the watch of the night.

[11:01]

Ignorance was destroyed. Knowledge arose. Darkness was destroyed. Light arose, as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, and resolute. So with the knowledge of all of the past lives, ignorance lifted. And then, when the mind was thus concentrated, purified, and so on. Well, it's nice, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperveribility. I directed it. Now he has a lot, in this mind state, there's a lot of, not control, but direction. Intention is very strong and the mind is malleable and wielding.

[12:04]

I directed it to the knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. I saw, by means of the divine eye, purifying and surpassing the human, and beings passing away and reappearing, and I discerned how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, according with their karma. These beings who are endowed with bad conduct of body, speech and mind, and so on and so on, were in the lower realms of hell, and those who held right view reappeared in the good destinations in the heavenly world. Thus, by means of the divine eye purified and surpassing the humans, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, and I discerned how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, in accordance with their karma.

[13:06]

This was the second knowledge I attained in the second watch of the night. Ignorance was destroyed. Knowledge arose. Darkness was destroyed. Light arose, as happens in one who is heedful, ardent, and resolute. So the second knowledge was this understanding of karma, understanding of the patterns of human existence, how they arise and how they resolve and how they arise again. And then, when the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of affluence. I discerned, as it was actually present, that this is stress. This is the origination of stress. This is the cessation of stress.

[14:09]

This is the way leading to the cessation of stress. So he understood the knowledge of the Four Noble Truths came to him as direct knowledge. The Four Noble Truths? Yeah, the way they're written, the way they're stated there. I directed it to the knowledge of the ending of affluence. Affluence. So, affluence. That's with an E, affluence? Yes. Affluence, what flow out. You know, sometimes we say, ah, in Zazen instruction, don't leak. You know, just be there. Don't have anything extra going on. these effluences, effluents, these outflows, all the extra stuff that we generate. He saw, I discerned, as it was actually present.

[15:15]

This is stress. This is the origination of stress. This is the cessation of stress. This is the way leading to the cessation of stress. These are the effluents. So, we don't want to get stuck on the, dukkha is the word, is the Pali word here, but we don't want to get stuck on one particular translation, like suffering, that's the usual translation, but dis-ease, dissatisfaction, now it's a very subtle and deep word, so it's, we don't want to pin it down, and here it's effluence. So, This is the ground of Buddhism. It's what all the schools rest on, is this discovery that he made in this night.

[16:19]

And this is all before leading up to the Enlightenment. and then next week we'll be hopefully on the chapter of after the enlightenment and we'll see that even then he kept having major insights kept coming to him so it was all all this wonderful flow this process that was happening so now I'd like to talk some and I hope it won't be too dry about the basis of this teaching that what karma is and what the self is and how we live in this way that we do

[17:24]

So there are three models that I want to present that are in this territory. And so I'm just going to present them and ask questions as we go along. It's very large stuff. It's a huge fabric. It's the wonderful aspect of Buddhism. It's just this enormous fabric that includes everything from the blink of an eye to all of the cause and effects that have gone on from the beginning. It's all kind of set in this fabric. So there are three models I want to present. One is the Two are the way that experience comes to us moment to moment.

[18:32]

And the third is this wheel of life. So I'm just going to launch out and you ask questions whenever you want. In a certain way, this and these teachings come out little by little later on in the Sutra. And this is partially familiar, I think. First of all, how do we relate to the world? What is the basis of our experience? So there's this table of the six sixes. We have our six senses. eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. And then each of the six senses takes an object. Eye takes form, ear sound, nose smells, you hear the sound of Kai here.

[19:33]

Tongue tastes, body feels, and mind thinks. And just these two, the eye and form wouldn't work without consciousness that the eye sees and the eye has a certain consciousness of what it sees and the nose smells and has a consciousness and there's no way, you know, and the tongue tastes salt or sour and there's no way that you can really explain what salt or sour is you know because it is the tongue consciousness and so on and then there is the mind consciousness so mind thinks and also is aware of having thoughts so these these just in looking at Peter's toes

[20:41]

These three factors immediately arise, as do three more, that there has to be contact. I have to, with my eye, look at Peter's toes, see form, and have contact. And then some kind of feeling arises, and Peter's toes are a fairly neutral sight for me, but nevertheless some slight feeling colors them. And then finally craving that the some response, negative, positive, or pretty neutral but some response, So for every thought moment, every moment of our experience, something is going on which involves these six factors.

[21:49]

So Buddhist psychology says that all we are are these succession of thought moments, moment after moment after moment, these events we just are experiencing these events well for a long time now when I recite those sutras I've always thought this doesn't make sense to me to make them all equal to make six all equal because the first four to me are all part of body and the first five are all part of mind and it seems unbalanced I'm sorry. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, to me, a part of body. And then eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, everything is encompassed by mind. And I always thought it was strange to kind of give them equal weight, because mind is all powerful. Eye, ear, they mean nothing without your mind, you know, you just said. Well, but see, because conscious, right?

[22:51]

Yeah. About consciousness. That's little mind though, I believe, isn't that little mind? Probably, probably more little mind than big mind. That's also the consciousness. But each, yeah, what is a mind? Again, mind is one of these words that's so inclusive, it's almost like love, meaningless. It's just the organ of thinking. Yeah, right, right. The Sanskrit has several different words, many different words even, for mind. So, the mind which is, sometimes it's called, sometimes consciousness is called the leader of the herd. for reasons that you're suggesting. But it's also this I consciousness is that's, although you could say it's mind, it's a particular mind. It's using mind in a very particular way. So it's breaking down the categories.

[23:53]

It's just taking them apart very impartially. Yeah, I think even to say that we are just, moment after moment, these events, even that is a little bit misleading. Yes it is. Yes it is. So I'd like to move on to the next model, which begins to, which addresses that. You know, I didn't ask about homework. Okay, I don't want to do it right now, but at the end let's do it. And I just thought of homework now because perhaps a good assignment for next week is to think about what we're doing here and think about our sutras and what is very, our very familiar Zen literature and think about linking up. We are really in Heart Sutra territory tonight with this.

[24:56]

I mean, you just hear it. You hear how this is the basis of the Heart Sutra. Okay, so this is one model, the six sixes, the senses and the sense bases and the sense consciousness. And then, the second model is the skandhas. our ways of knowing the world and if you forget the skandhas just recall the heart sutra right no form no feeling forms feeling perceptions impulses consciousness so we are according to this psychology we are these aggregates an aggregate is a heap We're heaps of these little elements. So, and these heaps are always, they're never single, they're always in very complex interactions with one another.

[26:05]

So the first is form, body, the material, and then feeling, and then perception, And perception and feeling are pretty, they're very close. And then this very important one, impulses. Sometimes it's called impulses. Sometimes it's called called formations. Sometimes it's called mental concoctions. That is what, you had homework from Buddhadasa and, Buddhadasa, I'm sorry, and he calls them mental concoctions. And, Cerro calls them, volitional formations, I think.

[27:12]

Mental concoctions, right. And then there's consciousness. So every thought moment involves these aggregates. Now these mental formations That's the way continuity is passed along. You know, you can say, well, suppose I'm just this bundle of aggregates and thought moments and everything's just irrevocably happening and happening and happening, yet I have a sense of continuity, of sameness. Where does that come from? And it comes from these this fourth aggregate of mental factors, that's another name. Now, the different Buddhist psychology schools have different lists of what make up this mental formations, mental concoction, aggregate.

[28:24]

And they're a list of qualities. They are, in fact, our mental habits. But we have many of them. So I'm just going to read a few, for instance. There are five mental habits that are always present in order to experience a thought moment. You need these five. Contact, feeling, perception, intention, and attention. These have to come up whenever there's an experience. And then, there are lists. This has about 40, and other Abhidharma lists go up to into the hundreds. But the lists are something like, there are positive mental factors like non-attachment, diligence, alertness, non-violence, equanimity, and so on.

[29:30]

And then there are unskillful formations, anger, attachment, ignorance, indecision, dishonesty, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, each thought moment, each time we have, say, a more or less full-blown thought, it has its own quality, which is, very composite. It's based on the senses and it's based on what the body is doing, what the feelings are doing and so on and then the whole history of what our mental operations have been to date. So karma which is action and volition, karma is carried in this fourth skanda, in this impulses skanda.

[30:37]

So every moment of consciousness is a karmic moment. Every moment of consciousness is carrying some kind of momentum from the past to the future. It has some kind of result. So a thought arises, oh, she irritates me. That little minor thought carries what it carries. Or the thought, I'm contented. I'm not fat. carries what it carries. So that everything in this way is incredibly interconnected and not without significance. So every time you catch a thought moment and you discern what its quality is and you pursue it or leave it alone, it's a significant moment.

[31:54]

Karma fits into the mental formations because that includes, that directs our actions? Yes, it directs our intentions. See, when Buddha was reviewing, was seeing his own past lives and the past lives of others and noticing what happens to people He had this panoramic knowledge of cause and result. And that comes to us in this very intimate way. But isn't there an implication that the mental formations, especially if you call them concoctions and so on, They're illusions. They are concoctions.

[33:01]

They're constructions. They're constructions. I mean, they're the stories we make up about experience. Totally. Right. And they can be closer or further fit from reality, but nevertheless they're an abstraction of the actual reality. Of things as they are. That's right. So if you free yourself from those, is that how you free yourself from karma? And by praying yourself, you start telling the truth that you've created those. That's right. You use them skillfully. You use them skillfully. And then you approach each moment just as it is without the superimposition of all of these formations. And that's how you don't cause any more bad karma. And you don't get caught by past karma, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's a little, I didn't make a picture of it, but there's a little drawing that somebody made of, a thought comes to you, and you have no idea where the thought comes from, just arrives.

[34:24]

And then in this teaching, in the Buddhist teaching, there are a whole series of thought moments that are imperceptibly fast. And in this book, Embodied Mind, it's a very interesting book that's one of the three authors is a cognitive psychologist. And she and I took a nine month course in the Abhidharma with Ussila Nanda some years ago in this room. And both of us really bewildered by the extraordinary complexity and arcaneness of it. But nevertheless, and she being a cognitive psychologist, she really took it back and did a lot with it. But cognitive psychology now is able to look at brains and thought processes in a way that we never could before. And what is apparent is that there is no center of the mind.

[35:29]

We imagine ourselves as these solid blocks with a center, me. Well, the brain has no center. It's this extraordinary, complex system of localized organization, aggregates, that are somehow mysteriously and marvelously in touch with one another and stimulate and are stimulated. Much of this book is beyond me in terms of the cognitive psychology, but the way she brings it or the authors bring it back to our Abhidharma teachings is really wonderful. This is The Embodied Mind by... Oh, Varela is the first author, Thompson and Rauch. Do we have that in the library?

[36:31]

No, we don't. Should we request it? Yeah, we could request it. Probably close, near to out of print, but I just got this second hand at Live Oak. So, now why was I saying that? Oh, thought moments. That a thought comes to us. And in the ancient teaching, there's there, I can't remember, I think it was 39 thought moments before there's even consciousness. You know, it's like, bing, [...] bing. All these events happen too fast to know what they're going on. And then finally there's a moment of consciousness. And then all this other stuff goes on, the feelings, perceptions, the cravings, the formations. So usually a thought moment is well along into the cravings, into the grasping, into the becoming before we recognize it. Because we're not even bodhisattvas, we're just sentient beings.

[37:33]

But a bodhisattva would catch it maybe just at the moment of consciousness would know what's going on. And a Buddha would have no mental constructions. A Buddha would be bare attention, moment after moment. So we get caught. So suffering is this proliferation that we get caught in way out here. Yes? So isn't like the fact that we come into a human body begins with a thought, doesn't it? Well, when does infant, when does consciousness arise? It's probably, probably the fetus, probably, right, a fetus has some amount of consciousness probably. So, uh, so consciousness is, is a thought, is mind. So this leads to my birth. Each time that a thought arises along with the impulse, I don't know all about this, but I take that back and say, this is not who I am.

[38:57]

Because for me it used to be, I used to think all these things, this is who I am, this is my destiny, and then I keep cycling that back and saying, this isn't who I am. I don't even have to think about those things anymore. They don't exist, only up here. Right. Right. That's it? That's it? Yeah. And so across all situations, I just am. I'm nothing, in a sense. I mean, I don't know how to put it any better. You're right here. Yeah. Yes, you're no thing. What was this quote? of all the stuff. Yes. And just going, staying inside and unburdening myself of all these things that I think about people and myself and things around me and just going inside and being happy with who I am.

[40:11]

Or not even happy. Sometimes happy and sometimes not and it really doesn't matter. Right. You know in the last week when we were reading the account of Buddha's enlightenment That sometimes he was in a terrible state. Sometimes he was fearful of the beasts in the forest and so on. And sometimes he wasn't. But it never, it didn't matter. It didn't disturb him. Either way. This is not who he was. Yes. Right. Right. Exactly. Nagarjuna says, nothing is found that is not dependently arisen For that reason, nothing is found that is not empty. Nothing is found that is not dependently arisen. For that reason, nothing is found that is not empty. Yeah, well, yeah.

[41:23]

Is it just 27 zillion Charlies in a row? Or is it one Charlie in a row? Probably 27 zillion. You know, because how many habits do you have? You know, the proliferation is just extraordinary. But we just have endless little habits that visit us non-stop. and do what they do. Sometimes they do a lot, sometimes they don't do so much, but they just, we hum with them. But we have a chance to let them go. Yes, we do. With every breath. Yes, we do. Right. So, yes. Well, if we are born in the moment, moment to moment to moment, and there's no evidence that anything exists outside of the moment, then it's not, I don't know that it's a meaningful question, because you can't prove that there's anything other than this instant.

[42:35]

That's right. Right. That's right. That's right. Because you could be creating your 27 zillion habits right in this moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Regarding this issue of when is a person conscious, I was reading recently that the fetus is a collection of, first it's a very amorphous collection of cells, but each cell has a certain beat to it. And at a certain point, the organs begin to differentiate. And so there are a number of cells that constellate to become heart cells. And they're just there, each cell having its own beat. And they become a heart, but they don't know how to beat until they listen to the mother's heart. And so the beat of the mother's heart

[43:37]

informs the fetal heart how to beat. So that's a wonderful example of just cellular consciousness. So we just don't know. Consciousness, you know. We took the death class here, Alan and Guy. Who was it? Alan and Guy told this story of a woman who was pronounced brain dead. She actually, I mean, there was nothing happening in her brain at all. and her lungs were kept breathing by machines for six months and she gave birth to a perfectly healthy infant. She was pregnant when she died. And I've always had such a profound impact on me because what it says about machines kept her organs, her necessary organs functioning so this being could come into the world.

[44:47]

Well, I think that you've been asking just the right questions and we're now in line for this Wheel of Life, which is the third model. But this seems to be an area that's not well dreaming when you're asleep when you're asleep right because the mind continues to take the mind never stops uh... whatever the mind is it doesn't stop and so mind consciousness continues and the dreams arise and so this mind this mind and this dream and this mind consciousness Yeah, it's just an extension of our waking mind, or a variation of the waking mind. But objects can be internal just as well as external.

[45:50]

But there's something else, I don't know how it quite fits in, but you're talking about the cells and how they learn what to do. You know, we start to feel at some point or another that we have a path in life, you know, that we take this turn and not that turn. And I can't quite put my finger on it, but somewhere, when you were talking about the skandhas, it seemed like that should become part of the conversation. Okay. Well, let's just go on with this, because that's exactly what you have led us to. The pictures, the prints I gave you, are a little bit different from this. So here we have Buddha.

[46:54]

Buddha sits up here supervising and teaching. See in this he's teaching there's some beings. In a terrarium. There are beings called terrariums. Oh thank you. here. Thank you. Can you sit too? Yeah. And in the copy you have, Buddha has this wonderfully pronounced arm, which is gesturing for enlightenment. And over here, there's the moon. There's always the moon. Right. We have a Japanese one. Yeah, that's right, the Chinese moon with the rabbit. But there's always the moon and the Buddha teaching. What do you mean the Chinese moon with the rabbit? Because they have the rabbit in the moon instead of an ant in the moon. Oh, really? Yeah, they have the rabbit in the moon. Did you see it the other day?

[47:59]

And then here we have Yama, the god of death or sometimes the god of impermanence. You see, he has got us firmly embraced in his claws and in his grip. Where is this from, this painting? This particular one? I mean, is it Tibetan? It's Tibetan. Yeah, it's called The Wheel of Light. It's one of those pretty ones that was painted. This one? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And now, at the center, of the hub is greed, hate and delusion. The cock, the pig, the snake. Sort of around which everything turns. And then this next circle is just bodies plummeting around. Then the next, these wedges, are the realms of existence.

[49:06]

moment by moment. This is the God realm. Now these are quite different. Warrior, fighting. We know what they are, we just have to decide which is which. They're very clear on the handout. The God realm is at the top. And then the fighting warriors? Oh yeah, the fighting warriors. Oh yeah, I think these are the fighting warriors. It's not very clear on this one, but it's pretty clear on the one that you have. The fighting warriors, the assurers. And that's the realm of competition, aggression, envy. My turf. You know?

[50:10]

All the variations of that thing. And then the next one down is the hungry ghosts. I can never get enough of it. The addicted, our addicted soul. They can't. The huge stomachs and the tiny necks. our misplaced needs. Why can't they drink? Because their necks are too small to swallow. I don't want to go into some more grisly details of their anatomy. Oh, tell us. Well, they can drink, but they can only drink us in blood. I mean, think about the process of addiction. I don't need to go into it a whole lot, but that's what it is.

[51:13]

Craving. Is that the Buddha that's ministering to them? Yes. Now in every one of these realms, there is a little picture. Is that true, Pam? Yes. There's a little Bodhisattva. So in every realm, wherever you are, there's always the possibility of liberation. It's a little bodhisattva. If you allow the consciousness of where you are, again, Buddha's experience. If you know, acknowledge where you are, it can settle down and your attachment to it ease and there will be a release again and again and again. And so after the hungry ghosts there is the animal realm and that's the realm of perseverative behavior, you know, being stuck.

[52:22]

A friend of mine who's very anxious to do the right thing, kind of perfectionist, says that she will just go at something, getting it better and better and better, and have no perception of what the people around her are thinking. You know, it's the realm of obsession, just perseverating in one thing. And then, of course, then there's the realm of pure hell. but this is the one at the bottom, where it's just intense suffering. That's all. And then there is the human realm, where the conditions are mixed. And then there is the realm of the gods, where everyone's just blissed out.

[53:26]

From the point of view of karmic success, from the point of view of stepping out of this samsaric wheel and finding some ease and some liberation, the human realm is the realm to begin. Not the top, the godly realm? Well, that's just bliss stuff. That's not desirable? No, they lack perspective. That's fine. They're just attached to their bliss. Like mummies. You wouldn't want to be there, Julian. Well, I don't know much about these illustrations. I thought that one at the top was supposed to be where one was aiming. Well, it often is, but it's not good aim. One should aim to the 11 o'clock Now we're warmed up. I think I'm going to put this down though and we'll just go to our little chart is these 12 links because that's how this whole deal works.

[54:35]

It seems, though, that we're passing through most of these all the time. Exactly. Yes. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Well, not as much as some of us, but... Yeah. Yeah. So... It also looks like, in the inner circle, people are falling out of the God realm and passing through all the others. You mean in the one next to the cocksnapper? Right. Yeah. Yeah, right. That's just the kind of the... flow of our fall. So this is the wheel of life and sometimes it's said that this is a story of our rebirth from life to life. That's one interpretation of it. Now I gave you a handout from this book, from Buddhadasa, and I don't know if you got to read it.

[56:10]

But it's a sort of simple little handout in a certain way about a girl whose doll breaks. That's the first example. Well, Buddhadasa takes great exception in this book to the way this wheel was presented in about the fourth century by Buddha Gosa, who authored the three-volume What is it, the path to liberation? Well, the name escapes me. Anyway, there is this, Buddhadasa says it is not necessary to believe in future and past rebirths. It just isn't necessary. That this whole system really applies to our moment to moment existence. And this whole system is totally verifiable by our own knowledge and experience of it.

[57:16]

So we don't need to get off into that big discussion, but it's a very heated one. So looking at these links, Yes. Can I ask you one question? Yes. You said a couple of seconds ago something about it's not good to get into the blissful state. To get stuck in it, right. To just get blissed out. That's not the same as, say, in the Hindu path of complete absorption all the time. See, I don't know enough about that. I can't say. I don't know what that is. Well, I just don't. There might be, but I don't know. Yeah. I mean, I can see that wanting, not wanting to be there all the time as an escape.

[58:20]

from what I need to be aware of in myself. Yeah, that's the point of it here. So we have Yama's two fangs. The fang on the right is into the picture of the person with his hand on a wall, this is the blind person. And it's ignorance. You see it? A blind person with a cane. So, this circle can begin or end anywhere. But it often begins here with ignorance. That our eyes, our ears, our nose bring us this consciousness and we're ignorant. And in our ignorance, we move to the second link, which is this formation skanda, the mental concoction.

[59:29]

We make something out of it, and this is a wonderful picture of the potter's wheel. We're just going to make, the situation comes, and we're going to make something. So, from ignorance to formation. And then the third picture is the monkey in the tree, the monkey mind, consciousness. Monkey just grasping about for whatever it's going to find and then hanging on. We're propelled into consciousness. And then the next picture is a person or people in a boat, and that's nama rupa body mind embodiment so this is all we're talking all about how experience arrives there is embodiment and then there is particular embodiment according to the five senses is the house the next picture is the house with the five windows in the door

[60:48]

how we perceive experience through which organs and then comes the kiss the moment of contact when we are all this apparatus is making contact with some event outside and then the fateful moment of the arrow in the eye feeling we have we put this this feeling stamp on it and then the craving a man and a woman in some kind of relationship with one another feeling moving to Craving either feeling moving either to I want it or I don't want it whichever and then craving moving to clinging the hand reaching up and clinging the fruit and Then clinging moving to becoming the pregnant woman

[62:11]

And then becoming leading inevitably to birth. The moment has arrived, has happened. And then birth inevitably leading to old age and death. The man carrying the corpse to the charnel field. So this is how This is how our consciousness, moment after moment, is carrying us along. And now there are some good questions that I didn't really move into because they are addressed here. Annette, didn't you ask something that I didn't quite answer about? When you were reading that or describing that, I couldn't help but notice how much it sounded like, just earlier, when you drew that little diagram that looked like the eye, and you said, all this stuff happens before we even realize it, it sounded like the exact same thing.

[63:25]

Well, it is. These models are not quite in sync with each other, but they are describing. It's the momentary understanding of that, rather than the life. That's right. And we don't even catch. That's right. Or we're giving birth. Or we're being carried off to the turtle field. Then it comes home. Yeah. So there are two places in this wheel of life, in this samsaric cycle, that the wheel can be broken. That we can step off into liberation. And the first break is between ignorance and the karmic and the mind concoctions between ignorance and the impulses formation so if we have an experience and we suddenly

[64:31]

move out in whatever kind of incohate beginning way we move out towards it. We can just stop and not get involved in what our ideas of it are. We can just stop right there. That's one break in the wheel. And then we have a second chance at it, which is the interval between the arrow and the eye, the feeling, and the craving. Can we just be with the feeling? Just, just. And no craving. Very disciplined place. Very hard just to stay with the feeling. Because whenever the feeling comes, we really are catapulted. There's an old image about a monkey is caught in a field of glue and wants one foot and so wants to get out and so one foot in the glue and then to help him get out he puts a hand in and then the other hand in and then the head in.

[65:53]

That's for a rabbit. That's our baby. Oh, right. Right. That's true. And that's usually our response when feeling catches us. So... I raised the question of path. Choosing the path. Choosing the path. That was the question. That's a very good one. Right. So how do we choose the path? Well, it's the other way around. It's both ways. That's true. That's true. Yeah. We have tendencies, I guess. You mean towards liberation? Well, it seems to me that the less deluded we become, the clearer it is something that's always been there. but we've been too deluded to see it.

[66:57]

And as the scales fall from our eyes, so to speak, then we see the path. It becomes quite straightforward. Well, that's an awfully good answer. My mother would have said, in God's ear. That's a very good answer. In fact, this wheel can be used both ways. It can turn into suffering and it can turn away from suffering to liberation. And you can start anywhere. Without ignorance... I'm not sure of this. Without... It's a kind of, well, I'm on tricky ground here. And I think that the embodied mind, one of these texts that I've given you, I think covers this.

[68:06]

But for instance, without monkey mind, there isn't any mental formation. And without mental concoctions, there's no ignorance. And without any ignorance, there's no death. And there's no, without any death, there's no birth, and so on. You just go around until there's this condition of nirvana. Condition of what? Nirvana. No hindrance. So that's a kind of technical answer to your good question, but I think where is the path is very much as you say.

[69:08]

There seems to be a tremendous tendency in things like this and then those long lists of goods and bads or whatever they were, I forget. There's a need to compartmentalize and is that really necessary to getting where finding a path or whatever, you know, this tremendous compartmentalization. Well, it's very analytical, yes. And about a month ago I had a wonderful two-day workshop for me. I was in pure bliss listening to a man named Andrew Olinsky, who's the director of the Barry Institute, the IMS, the Vipassana Institute in Barre, Massachusetts, giving a whole, gave just two days on this topic, which I found very interesting. And he said, in a kind of chin-out way, Buddhism is dualistic.

[70:14]

It's a complete study of our dualistic tendencies. You know? The lists. the diagrams, the instructions. And you can say that. The four of this and the eight of that. That's right. That's right. Dualistic. That's Hindu culture. Yeah. You know, the great mathematicians. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And engineers. Yeah. I noticed that this window of light is one of the few places where we see as many women as men. That's true. We see them doing all these terrible things. Clinging and tempting. Oh yeah, right. Shooting arrows into the moon. We're going to have a little topic.

[71:16]

This class as it moves along is going to return to that topic. The role of women, yes, it's a juicy one. Yeah, so there is this very dualistic side. And then... I mean, it seems quite contradictory, doesn't it? Well, you know, but then where does this dualism lead? Where does it leave when you have said it's not this, and it's not this, and it's not this, and it's not this? You know, what I said before, this Nagarjuna, nothing is found that does not dependently arise. For that reason, nothing is found that is not empty. Now there you are on the doorstep of non-dualism.

[72:19]

That's right. That's right. That's right. The interdependence means that you pick one thing up and everything is there. It's this present moment teaching. And it's, you know, some of us, it's so interesting how we're drawn to our different schools. Some people are Vajrayana, and some are Vipassana, and some are Mahayana. And we have, each of us seems to have a draw to a particular place. And this happens to be a school which really emphasizes the one moment the present moment just this and comes at it from the non-dual side but that doesn't mean that we can neglect the dual side

[73:48]

and vice versa. So you're saying that it's not dualism, nor is it non-dualism? Well, it's worth looking. It's worth taking a look from both sides. And the Heart Sutra is a wonderful example of this middle way. I mean, it's wonderful to think of all this And then listen to your recitation of the Heart Sutra. But you know, like you were saying, other religions have something to contribute to this picture too. It's like, from a Christian perspective, Jesus says, love your enemies. So that comes to a non-dual position. Yes. Of oneness. That's right. that's right any all the great religions have it yes yes yes that's right buddha buddha says this whole world is within this one fathom long body well i do want to uh... save a little time for the homework assignments it was nice i saw some

[75:16]

waving in the air. Well I was, this is one of those times where the words just literally fly off the page. And this is in the This is why the Buddha says that friendship with admirable people, which begins with the ability to recognize admirable people, is the whole It's fine.

[76:25]

This section on scale. Yeah. So... That hit you. There you are. Right. And then I had a question. From the, um... From the after-enlightenment reading of the... of the Bikku. Mount Amali. No. The after-enlightenment. We're not up there yet. Oh. But you can ask it, but you've skipped ahead, Charlie. Sorry, I just kept reading. Okay, we'll save you. Okay. Rebecca? She has something to show. Oh, good. I had to do it while I was babysitting. It works, you have to flip it both ways.

[77:31]

Is it dualistic or non-dualistic? Yes. Then you flip it all the way over and turn it inside out. Oh my goodness. But there's a question. Well, I'll pass it around. The question is, would Buddha be the same Buddha if he had not gone through the long period of fasting? Fold anyway. Oh, that's wonderful. Keep folding. Keep folding. Yeah, that's it. No, no, no. All the way out and around. Oh, but look, but you get all kinds of... More than you ever thought. And then fold it all the way out. And then fold it. Then put the pink guys together. Go around the other way. Like this? Yeah. Oh, man. That's wonderful. But Tom has given you a whole series of things of how to make traditional ways of building Buddha images.

[78:42]

And they're Japanese and Indian. And there are pages and pages of text in Japanese which I can't read. Of how to build the images. Yes. But they're all so far. You cannot believe how far they are. When you look at the schematic drawings, they all have double chins. And after that, it's sort of monogamy or something. The stages where people go from being very skinny not being able to stop eating. We've done that in our image tradition. Anyway, that is a question, a real question to me, you know. In different traditions, there are things that are important to the person's awakening. That's right. And how much the actual experience of that, before he discovered it, was necessary Yeah.

[79:45]

Yeah. And how much of that is still inside, sort of? Yeah. Yeah. It's very nice. Thank you. Well, I have a couple of questions from this book, but I don't think it's been copied for the rest of the group, and I guess I'll have to I'll talk to you about that at some other point. But let me know at the end what they were. You know, it's such a long book. I don't know what I'm going to take of it. I guess I realize I don't have a real good feeling for the distinction of contact. It comes down to that a lot. I'm still trying to grapple with that, but I think I'll wait until more classes and see how I... Contact. Well, but that's really important. And it's very simple that if the eye, you mean the technical? Yeah, the technical part of it.

[80:49]

That if the eye doesn't make contact with form, there's nothing going on. It has to do, it's kind of subtle, but it has to do with the idea of self. We believe, our self-habit believes that I am always here. This is always here, right? But in fact, unless there's some impingement upon our consciousness, there's nothing here. And that impingement demands contact. Or we call that contact, that moment. Yes, we call that contact. So without contact, there's nothing going on. That's like, I mean, at any given moment, you see all kinds of stuff. But you only attend to some of it. Yeah, you can only attend to a little bit and only a little bit registers.

[81:50]

You can think of it as registering in your mind. But there's some idea that I've heard of that you actually are registering far more than you know. But you're still not registering everything. A lot of traditions talk about this. The filter of the mind, or the valve of the mind, whatever you want to say. And that's what, you know, all these funny drugs are used to do. There's probably a huge amount, but we're not conscious of it. Our self, what we define as self, doesn't take that in, that it may be there. Yes. So what I... Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry, go ahead. There's a lady question right there. So I started writing up... I was reading this a lot in the last few weeks, this book. It's quite a mouthful. And I took this up to Mono Lake, and I was there a couple of days.

[82:58]

I said, Dear Buddha, what is this problem with women? And then I went on a lot. I got into it. It got a little juicy. Buddhist priests, Christian priests, Jewish prayers, thanking God for not being a woman. Let me tell you, women practice self-effacement, humbling, not wanting. Doing it to please men creates resentment. perhaps for men too. Yet marriage is an extravagantly powerful practice. What is your objection to women? Do men only come to monasteries after an enlightenment experience? Perhaps men enter priesthood to escape and for other mixed reasons that they don't realize until they've made vows similar to marriage. Sticking it out is where you learn something. That's the thought of Norm Fisher's Wind Bell piece on monastic practice, the stages of it.

[84:05]

I also noticed I had a problem with, or I didn't have a problem with it, it just was something I noticed that during Buddhist time it seemed like the monks were begging and that work and work in the monastery came later. I guess that was a different tradition. You, Buddha, also existed in your time and place and culture. I didn't get over this apparently at the time I wrote this. After your rejection of women and only letting women become nuns if they agreed to many more vows than men, I wonder how much of your teaching is for me. None of it is without my thinking it through and seeing it for myself. It's hard, and then I noticed, and then I said, it's hard for egalitarians to serve without feeling insulted and not appreciated.

[85:12]

How different are we, Buddha? I think my vocation to monologue is searching for satisfaction where I am. Even feeling sort of sick and not hiking up a storm and not running around all day, just being satisfied with that. I cry when I realize how much I've suffered trying to earn completeness and peace and rest. And sitting is always coming home to the present. Anyway, it goes on. The last part is, So I drove seven hours each way, spent two nights in a motel just to get here. How silly. Craving a trip. A trip of life. A job created by craving. Anyone else?

[86:27]

Just something following up on what Sucha said about going seven hours each way. I felt this past weekend I had to go somewhere, I had to do something, you know. And so I went up to Calistoga and it was a drive. and I walk into this bookstore and instantaneously I saw this book by Jon Kabat-Zinn called, no matter wherever you go, there you are. I bought it instantaneously and went home. I mean, it was... I appreciate that very much. I didn't even know I had to do that. And you just hit me. All I had to see was the book and the title. And I just, I had to have it. And then I went home and it just felt, you know, the book felt so good. It was just complete. It's much cheaper that way. Okay.

[87:35]

Well, um, I hope that you... did people... did you read the handout by Buddhadasa about the beginning of the girl who breaks the doll? Well, I encourage you to. It's another way of going over this material, as well as what I gave you at the beginning of the evening. Did everyone get the handout of this evening? It's The Birth of the Clove, Dependent Origination, the title of that. That's right. That's right. So I really encourage you to read those two handouts as a process of digestion for what we did tonight. And then we will return to the text next week.

[88:38]

Thank you. And where is this from that you handed out? It's from the Embodied Mind. I should have written that down. Yeah. The Embodied Mind. Varela. And that is from Pratijasamutpada, which is what we have been talking about. The conditioned co-arising. Pratijasamutpada by Buddhadasa. Practical dependent origination is what he calls it. Oh, so the birth of the flow of dependent origination. The child breaking her doll is from Hapicchusamitpada, or practical dependent origination. Practical, practical dependent origination.

[89:37]

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