And we're going to come to the end of the first long xeroxed section in the Life of Buddha by Nana Molling. And we are going to cover, I hope, Chapter 3, After the Enlightenment. So, first of all, was there any homework or questions or anything about last week's? There was a lot of material presented. Yes, Charlie? Well, this is sort of serendipitous, but here's a poem from this week's New Yorker that seems to sum up our practice. civic worker in New York and socialite.

[01:02]

It's entitled Discipline. I am old and have had more than my share of good and bad. I have had love and sorrow, seen sudden death, been left alone, of love bereft. I thought I'd never love again. twixt life and death, the edge was thin, then I discovered discipline. I learned to take the good and bad and smile whenever I felt sad. I learned to care a great deal more for the world about me than before. Began to forget both me and I, joined in life as it rolled by. This may not seem sheer ecstasy, but it is better far than I and me.

[02:10]

That's great, Charlie. I didn't know. And this week's New Yorker. She better didn't say, then I discovered sauce in it. Well, I think it really should have been entitled Intention, but it wouldn't have brought... Right. Discipline. That's very good. Does anybody else have anything? I have some homework, but... Yeah? I don't know if the tenor is right, right. Maybe at the end of the evening. How's that? Would you rather? Yeah. Outside then, where it feels right. It's a little play, and you have to kind of be a little bit animated because it's not written very well. It needs all the acting it can get. Okay. Well, we'll warm up a little for it. Yeah, and if it doesn't, then maybe next time or something. I feel a little bit... Well, sounds good.

[03:17]

Alright, so last week was a big coverage of self and what self is and what self isn't. Are people reading the handout? Did you read the material? I was really finishing that book, so I did a little of the reading. Yeah, because maybe the aggregates and the sense bases and dependent origination, you know, it may speak to you and it may not. As far as I was concerned, it kind of crept up in me. So, if you are interested, you can go over it again. on the homework, I mean on the Xerox material. They're pretty good, focused Xeroxes about it. Oh, did you get tonight's?

[04:27]

Yeah, it's called The Embodied Mind. The one about the dog? No, that's by Buddha Dasa, who teaches in that thin little paperback, Paticcasamuppada. And there's another more western account. That's from the embodied mind. So, we finished up last week the struggle for enlightenment. and that it was a struggle and that it was a process and that the insights came powerfully and also gradually that went into the forest

[05:33]

and fear arose and he stayed with the fear and he stayed with his experience and studied the intention and whether whatever came up was pleasant or unpleasant he was bothered by neither one and then the extreme asceticism the emaciated Buddha and then realizing that an extreme measure is not skillful and recalling the episode in which he had had he just kind of slipped into a concentrated experience when he was a child recalling that he came back more to the middle ground And he ate a little bit. And then he began to have the very powerful concentrated experiences of his own past lives and of the past lives of everybody.

[06:43]

And from that knowledge, from really seeing that extraordinary amount of pattern and knowing it, came the great discoveries essentially of dependent origination and the Four Noble Truths, seeing the cause, the patterns of lives, and understanding the patterns of cause and effect, and how those large patterns govern life after life after life in a cosmic sense, and also how they govern moment after moment in our own lives. So it's a big story and it comes bit by bit. And then I just want to read in 29, the last little bit of that chapter. Seeking after all of this discovery.

[07:46]

Seeking but not finding the house builder. This is all about self. Where's the self? Seeking but not finding the house builder. I traveled through the round of countless births. Oh, painful is birth ever and again. House builder, you have now been seen. You shall not build the house again. Your rafters have been broken down. Your ridge pole is demolished too. My mind has now attained the unformed nirvana and reached the end of every kind of craving. So now he's a Buddha. Before he was a Bodhisattva and now he's a Buddha. So that's a beautiful image of house builder. Now you have been seen, you shall not build a house again. The identity is fundamentally changed.

[08:52]

So, now we come to after the enlightenment. And he essentially is just sitting under trees and sitting seven day sessions as he incorporates what's happened. Then the blessed one sat at the root of the Bodhi tree for seven days in one session, feeling the bliss of deliverance. And at the end of the seven days, he emerged from that concentration, and in the first watch of the night, his mind was occupied with dependent arising in forward order, thus. That comes to be when there is this. That arises with the arising of this. So, he goes around, you don't have it, but it's around the corner. He goes around the 12 links. that we talked about, beginning with ignorance, and then the karmic foundations, the potter, and the wheel, and consciousness, the monkey mind, and so on.

[10:04]

He goes through the 12 links, which is suffering. When you go from ignorance to suffering, the karmic formations, volition, or mental concoctions, or the fifth skanda, or however you're calling it. When you go in that direction, it's suffering, and you get then to feeling, the guy with the arrow in the eye, and then to craving. And there you are, and then you're launched to becoming, and to craving, and becoming, and birth, and death, And then you just round and round on that wheel, moment to moment, unless you stop it in those two places. Unless you stop it between the links of ignorance and karmic and the fifth skanda, volition. If you just cut it there, there attention.

[11:07]

Just do nothing extra with what is coming in. That's one place to cut it. And then the second place to cut it is between feeling and craving. So those are the two steps off the wheel of suffering. And then, and that's the first noble truth. The first, the four noble truths are very embedded in this experience. So the first noble truth is the truth of suffering. That we have to recognize and acknowledge our suffering and then look to what the causes are. And then, then in the next paragraph, the Blessed One, the second watch of the night, his mind was occupied with dependent arising in reverse order. Now the reverse order is the order of liberation. The mind that does not come to be when there is not this,

[12:12]

that ceases with the cessation of this. That is to say, with the cessation of ignorance, there is the cessation of formations. With the cessation of formations, there's no consciousness and so on. So we tend to be so business and content oriented and taken up with the importance of ourselves and our experience that actually when our mind is just resting and there's nothing in particular going on, It's a little uncomfortable, right? How long can we sit in Sazen with a mind at ease? But it's always, the possibility is always there. And so you can pick any link on this circle and not have it. And not inspire the others. and have a moment or several moments of liberation.

[13:16]

And then in the third watch of the night, on page 31, his mind was occupied with dependent arising in forward and reverse order. So, I suppose that's just that we can do either one all the time. I suppose, I'm not quite sure what Is that why we have seven days issues? It could well be. Could well be. So then, he sits another seven days, and I'm 32, and he sees the many beings burning with the many fires, and he sees suffering. very visibly. And then he sits for another seven days, on page 33, integrating the news further.

[14:27]

And then we have a little episode, our first episode after all of this. He sat at the root of the Ajapala Nigarada tree for seven days in one session, feeling the bliss of deliverance. Then one of the Brahmin cast of the haughty, ha-hawing kind went to the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him. Actually, now we're going to have a series of episodes where his identity as a teacher is explored. When this courteous formal talk was finished, he stood at one side and said, What is a Brahman, Master Gautama? And what are the things that make a Brahman? Knowing the meaning of this, the Blessed One then uttered this exclamation, The Brahman who is rid of evil things, not haughty, undefiled, and self-controlled, perfect in knowledge, and living the Brahma life, can rightly employ the word Brahman if he is proud of nothing in the world.

[15:30]

So it's a first little example of skillful means. He knows the root, he knows this person's problem and he speaks very directly to it. We don't know if it, we don't know its effect. And now, our next episode. I think next week Rebecca will bring some slides and this that we're about to read is very famous in the, there are many reproductions of this Buddha sitting with the serpent. So he sat for another seven days. There was an occasion when at the end of seven days the Blessed One arose And now on that occasion a great storm arose out of season with seven days of rain, cold winds, and gloom. Then Musa Linda, the royal Naga serpent, came out from his realm. He wrapped the Blessed One's body seven times in his coils and he stayed there with his great hood spread out above the Blessed One's head, thinking, let the Blessed One feel no heat, no cold or heat,

[16:44]

or touch of gadflies, gnats, wind, sun, and creeping things. At the end of the seven days, Musa Linda saw the sky bright and cloudless. He unwrapped his coils from the Blessed One's body. Then he made his own form vanish. And assuming the form of a Brahmin youth, he stood before the Blessed One with his hands raised palms together towards him in reverence. Knowing this, knowing the meaning of this, the Blessed One then uttered this exclamation. Seclusion is happiness for one contented by whom Dharma is learned and who has seen. And friendliness toward the world is happiness for him who is forbearing with living things. Disinterest in the world is happiness for him that has surmounted sense desires. but to be rid of the conceit I am that is the great happiness of all so that's the conceit of I am is the central finding in all of these experiences that he's been having and

[18:08]

So then he rose from that concentration and he went and he sat another seven days. And now we have the first followers coming. On that occasion, two merchants were traveling by the road from Okala, and a deity who had been a relative of theirs in a former life told them, good sirs, there is the blessed one sitting at the root of the rayatana tree, newly enlightened. Go and do honor to him with an offering of rice cake and honey. That will be long for your happiness and welfare. See, the deities have a way, these mysterious spirits, of just kind of guiding along, this little nudge. You turn to the right instead of the left. It's quite a difference. So they took cake and honey to the Blessed One, and after paying homage to Him, they stood at one side.

[19:14]

Then they said, Lord, let the Blessed One accept this rice cake and honey, so that it may be long for our welfare and happiness. And the Blessed One thought, Blessed Ones do not accept in their hands. In what should I accept rice cake and honey? Then the four divine kings, aware in their minds of the thought in the Blessed One's mind, brought four crystal bowls from the four quarters. Lord, let the Blessed One accept the rice cake and honey in these. The Blessed One accepted rice cake and honey in a new crystal bowl, and having done so, he ate them. Then the merchants said, we go for refuge to the Blessed One and to the Dharma. Beginning from today, let the Blessed One count us as followers. who have gone to him for refuge for as long as the breath lasts. Since they were the first followers in the world, they took only two refuges.

[20:14]

Because there was no Sangha to take refuge in. So, those are the first two followers. Kind of nice. And Buddha is getting all this help whenever he needs it. What shall I do now? Why does he... Why can't he accept things in his hands? Because he's a blessed one now. His identity has shifted, which makes me think of a ridiculous story. It was just about the time that I'd started to sit in 1971, and I was going to every lecture I could that Richard Baker gave in San Francisco at the Zen Center. And I think it must have been very shortly after Suzuki-Gosu's death. I just wasn't very aware of it. Richard Baker gave a talk, and somebody in the audience said, Dickie, that's the best talk I've ever heard you give. Don't call me Dickie.

[21:20]

So, does that answer your question, John? I don't know. What happened? Where is the person who sees the enlightened Buddha? He's one of the first persons. And knows that this is a very special person, but isn't sure whether this is a god. Well, that's coming. Well, that's coming. All right. That's right. That's right. I'm not sure that it's in your handout, but it's a story that Jack Kornfield... Right. Yeah, and Jack Kornfield paraphrases it nicely, that a man is walking down and he sees somebody else coming towards him, and the person is beautiful and glowing and just has incredible presence. And so he says, who are you? Are you a king?

[22:22]

No. Are you a god? No. Are you a human? No. Well, who are you? I am awake. So, that's what he's understanding. And the world is understanding, so that's what all this chapter is about. And then these thoughts, on page 35, these thoughts arise, these great teachings just come to his mind. There are five spiritual faculties that, when maintained in being and developed, merge in the deathless. So I think this is the first list, the first Buddhist list. And then at the bottom of the page, the four foundations of mindfulness, great teachings. While the Blessed One was alone in retreat, this thought arose in Him.

[23:25]

This path, namely the four foundations of mindfulness, is a path that goes in one way only." So, I mean, this course could be a year long in taking up, one by one, these wonderful teachings. And then, again, from the sky, then Brahma Sama Sahampati came and expressed his approval. So he has, Buddha has these insights and then he just senses that they're right. Now an interesting episode in the middle of 36. Now while the Blessed One was alone in retreat, the thought arose in him, I am free from that penance. I am quite freed from that useless penance. absolutely sure and mindful I have attained enlightenment." I think the penance refers to the extreme asceticism which was kind of the order of the day and he's let it go.

[24:31]

So he has this real feeling of I'm done with it and now at this moment who should turn up but Mara Mara, the evil one, became aware in his mind of a thought in the blessed one's mind. And he went to him and he spoke these stanzas. So Mara is always waiting for this moment of, for his opening. Mara says, you have forsaken the ascetic path by means of which men purify themselves. You are not pure. You fancy you are pure. The path of purity is far from you. And then the Blessed One recognized Mara, the evil one, and answered him in these stanzas, I know these penances to gain the deathless, whatever kind they are, to be as vain as a ship's oars and rudder on dry land.

[25:32]

But it is owing to development of virtue, concentration, understanding, that I have reached enlightenment, and you, exterminator, have been vanquished now. Then Mara, the evil one, knew. The blessed one knows me. The sublime one knows me. Sad and disappointed, he vanished at once." So, that's interesting, you know. We get done with something and feel that kind of confidence and then it's tested. It was a big thing to give up that asceticism. That had seemed so much the right way. It was a big thing to give up. So little doubts, the doubt just reverberates. And Mara is an interesting figure. how there's something kind of likable about him.

[26:35]

Very nice. Yeah. Charming. He's always acknowledging his failure with sublimely. And that's a repeated phrase. And later in the book he says, I have failed. I have failed again. Yes. And he tells the truth. Yeah. It's quite different from the devil, in that Myra has a very human quality. You know, he doesn't have cloven hoofs and a tail. He's very human. But to say he's failed can be thought of as an evil in itself, I think. When a person tells... I just have had the experience of beating myself with being a failure. I don't know that that's so good, particularly. I mean, I think it exemplifies his evil in some ways. It exemplifies his suffering. Yeah. But Mara does suffer.

[27:40]

There's a wonderful chapter in Akin Roshi, in his latest book of essays, his name I don't remember, on money. And maybe I'll bring it next week. He contrasts Avalokiteshvara, or Kuan Yin, the female Kuan Yin, and Mara. That Mara is always busy. Mara is always scheming. And the point of the scheme is himself. what he's going to get, what his place is going to be. And Quan Yin sits in this pose of royal ease, just relaxed and waiting and ready, this royal ease like this so she can jump up at any moment. But she just sits with nothing to do, just watching, just being ready. And Well, he makes a lot of different comparisons. So that's just like what we are, we're both the same?

[28:44]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. And the voice of Mara is so much our inner critic. Yeah, we have, yeah, if there's a little insight, well... And, you know, I think that when we have the insights, you know, I hear It's the latest enlightenment experience or something. But I think that it is important to claim them, that they did happen. Because we always talk about the failures and the critical side. I think we need to balance that. I had an insight that we just share that as much as we share the, at least I need to share the bitching. Right, right. There's a real tendency to discount them.

[29:44]

Because of the critic. Or be reticent about them. Yeah. Yeah. Well, as long as one isn't attached to them. Because it was that insight that Buddha had as a child that really steadied him at a moment that he needed to be steadied. Those are foundations. And it's maybe not attachment, but to acknowledge them. Yes. Yes. Mara can come embodied or Mara can just come as a mental attitude. My mental attitude. Yeah. Or it can come in the form of another. In the form of someone else. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. The shapes are endless. It seems like Mara is just as much of a teacher as Buddha is. How so? Well, it's almost like, I don't know exactly what the yin and the yang mean, but like the light and the dark or the yin and the yang, you know, there's a balance if there's just one.

[30:53]

I mean, what strikes me about this rendition of the history of Buddha is that it's so sure, so I'm right, I've achieved it, so without doubt, utterly without doubt, which is not really the way we live or the way we reach enlightenment, you know. It just seems too easy, according to this thing. And Mara, to me, is like reality popping up and saying, wait a minute, it's not that easy. You know there are challenges, even if Buddha's not challenged. You know, we're all challenged by these things that come up. And that's what makes the dynamic, the dynamic to keep growing. But compared to the way modern-day enlightened people write and talk, they're always acknowledging the struggles they had and continue to have, a lot of them, that I read anyway.

[31:59]

And this is like, and then I saw the truth, and then I was enlightened, and then I was Buddha. I don't know if there's any alternative, but it just seems so... almost too easy, just too easy. Well, is this an epic? I don't know literary form, but is this, it's like an epic poem. No, that's what I say, probably can't be said in any other way. That's right, and there's not much insight. Insight comes later, historically. Insight comes later. There's a very nice book about Odysseus, and I don't remember, it's a very famous book that makes this point that epic consciousness is different. But you know what I mean about Mara being an integral part of the whole play? Yes, it makes it much more human and yeah, we need that amount of psychological reality. It's almost like Mara keeps him on his toes.

[33:02]

Yeah, that's right. And it strengthens him, you know, if you've got through your tests, then you've got some place you can count on. Yeah, you know your experience more thoroughly. And we become teachers for each other too, in a sense. If it's another person manifesting ignorance or doubt back to you, then you become their teacher. So now the next episode, now while the blessed one was alone in retreat, just always going back and retreat, this thought arose in him, the dharma that I have attained is too attained to is profound and hard to see, hard to discover.

[34:04]

It is the most peaceful and superior goal of all, not attainable by mere ratiocination, subtle for the wise to experience. But this generation relies on attachment, relishes attachment, delights in attachment. It is hard for such a generation to see this truth, that is to say, specific conditionality, dependent arising. And it is hard to see this truth, that is to say, the stillings of, and then all the links. And if I taught the Dharma, others would not understand me, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me." So those are the little thoughts around, about how hard this is going to be, oh dear. Thereupon there came to him spontaneously these stanzas never heard before. enough of teaching of the Dharma that even I found hard to reach. For it will never be perceived by those that live in lust and hate.

[35:07]

Men died in lust and whom a cloud of darkness lapsed will never see what goes against the stream is subtle, deep, and hard to see, abstruse. Considering thus, his mind favored inaction and not teaching the Dharma. Then it occurred to the Brahma Samapati one of these celestial teachers, who became aware in his mind of the thought in the Blessed One's mind, the world would be lost, the world would be utterly lost to the mind of the Perfect One accomplished in fully enlightened favours in action and not teaching the Dharma. And now this has happened before. As soon as a strong man might extend his flexed arm or flex his extended arm, Brahma Samapati vanished into the Brahma world and appeared in the Brahma world and appeared before the Blessed One. He arranged his robe in one shoulder and putting his right knee in the ground. Raising his palms together towards the Blessed One, he said, Lord, let the Blessed One teach the Dharma.

[36:11]

Let the Sublime One teach the Dharma. There are beings with little dust in their eyes who are wasting through not hearing the Dharma. Some of them will gain final knowledge of the Dharma. And then he repeats it in verse. The Blessed One listened to Brahma Samapati's pleading. Out of compassion for beings, he surveyed the world with the eye of a Buddha. Once again, he's going to see everything. Just as in a pond of blue, red, or white lotuses, Some lotuses that are born and grow in the water thrive, immersed in water without coming up out of it. And some other lotuses that are born and grow in the water rest on the water's surface. And some other lotuses that are born and grow in the water come right up out of the water and stand clear, unwetted by it. So too he saw beings with little dust in their eyes and with much dust in their eyes, with keen faculties and dull faculties,

[37:14]

with good qualities and bad qualities, easy to teach, hard to teach, and some who dwelt seeing fear in the world and blame as well. And when he had seen this, he replied, wide open are the portals of the deathless. Let those who hear show faith. If I was minded to tell not the sublime dharma I knew, it was that I saw the vexation in the telling. And then Brahma Samapati thought, I have made it possible for the Dharma to be taught by the blessed one. And after he paid homage to him, keeping on his right, he vanished at once. And what is the meaning of the word deathless in this section? Well, deathless just always means not It means it's extinction. Not having to follow the wheel of suffering. It's done. It's over. The root is extinguished.

[38:14]

I love these cultural things, like keeping him on your left, they always leave keeping the Buddha on their right. What is... there's some sign of respect. I guess it is. Well, you know, the monks down the street, they all have their right shoulders exposed. Yeah. Yeah. They're right shoulders. And so are you, but you've got something underneath you. That's right. That's right. Our robes, we always wear with the right shoulders. So if you're dyslexic or something, you know which shoulders to see which ones they are. I guess. You're always ready. You're always ready to be in the presence. And so now, the Blessed One thought, to whom shall I first teach the Dharma? Now he's sort of ready to take on the teaching.

[39:18]

Who will understand it? And he thinks of a couple of well-developed people that he could teach it to, but they're dead. It's true. Page 40. So the Blessed One thought, well, to whom shall I first teach the Dharma? Who will understand it? And then he thought, the bhikkhus of the group of five who attended me when I was engaged in my struggle were very helpful. Suppose I taught the Dharma first to them. Then he thought, where are the bhikkhus of the group of five living now? And with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, he saw that they were living at Benares, at the Deer Park, resort of the seers. So the Blessed One stayed on at Uruvala as long as he chose, and then he set out to go by stages to Benares. He's on his first teaching route.

[40:22]

Between the place of enlightenment and Gaia, the monk Upaka saw him on the road. He said, your faculty is a serene friend. The color of your skin is bright and clear. Under whom have you gone forth? Who is your teacher? Or whose dharma do you confess? When this was said, the blessed one addressed the monk Upaka. I am an all-transcender, an all-knower, unsullied by all things, renouncing all by craving ceasing freed. And this I owe to my own wisdom. To whom should I concede it? And another verse. By your claims, friend. And then the monk says, By your claims, friend, you are a universal victor." And then Buddha says, the victors like me, Upaka, are those whose taints are quite exhausted.

[41:29]

I have vanquished all states of evil. It is for that that I am victor. And then when this was said, the monk Upaka remarked, may it be so, friend. Shaking his head, he took a sidetrack and departed. So, this was not exactly skillful means. It was a little overwhelming. It was a good try, but it didn't work. It was not skillful. Then, wandering by stages, the Blessed One came at length to Benares, where the bhikkhus of the group of five were. They saw Him coming at a distance, and they agreed among themselves. Friends, here comes the monk Gautama, who became self-indulgent, gave up the struggle, and reverted to luxury. We ought not to pay homage to him, or rise up for him, or receive his bowl and outer robe.

[42:31]

Still, a seat can be prepared. Let him sit down if he likes. But as soon as the Blessed One approached, they found themselves unable to keep their pact. One went to meet him and took his bowl and outer robe. Another prepared a seat. Another set out water, footstool, and towel. The blessed one sat down in the seat, prepared, and washed his feet. They addressed him by name as Frant. When this was said, he told them, Bhikkhus, do not address the perfect one by name as friend. The perfect one is accomplished and fully enlightened. Listen, Bhikkhus, the deathless has been attained. I shall instruct you. I shall teach you in the Dharma. And so on. Then the bhikkhus of the group of five said, Friend Gautama, even with the hardship, privation, and mortification that you practiced, you achieved no distinction higher than that of the human state worthy of the noble one's knowledge and vision.

[43:35]

Since you are now self-indulgent and have given up the struggle and reverted to luxury, how will you have achieved any such distinction? So I'm not just going to take this grand language. The Blessed One told the Bhikkhus of the group of five, the Perfect One is not self-indulgent. He has not given up the struggle. He has not reverted to luxury. The Perfect One is accomplished and fully enlightened. Listen, Bhikkhus, the deathless has been attained. I shall instruct you. And so on. And then a second time they questioned it. And... And then he gave them the answer the second time. And then when this was said, he said to them, Bhikkhus, have you ever known me to speak like this before? No, Lord. And then he says it again. The perfect one is accomplished and fully enlightened. And fully enlightened.

[44:37]

And then he was able to convince them. And now he gives this first sermon setting the setting rolling the wheel of the Dharma and I hope to Rebecca will have slides of this because this is pretty famous and we won't read all of it but it's a kind of it's his first his first putting together of his first presentation of his discovery. And it begins with the middle way, bhikkhus. There are these two extremes that ought not to be cultivated by one who has gone forth. Which two? There is devotion to pursuit of pleasure in sensual desires, which is low, coarse, vulgar, ignoble, and harmful.

[45:48]

And there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and harmful. The middle way discovered by the perfect one avoids both these extremes. It gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace and direct knowledge to enlightenment, to nirvana. And what is that middle way? It is the Noble Eightfold Path, which of course is the Fourth Noble Truth. Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. That is the middle way discovered by the Perfect One. And now he goes on to the full statement of the Noble Truths. This is the Noble Truth of suffering. Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, sickness is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair.

[46:51]

And so, this first speech, the setting rolling the wheel of the Dharma is the exposition of the Four Noble Truths in the Middle Way. So I'd like to just say a little more about Four Noble Truths, which we tend to think of, you know, as just a list I tend to think of it as a kind of list which I put in the background. But actually it's very, it's just coming to me how important it is. I'd like to read a little passage

[47:53]

um that nana molly writes about This is a kind of rare piece in the book and it's not in your handouts. It's written by Nanamoli himself in the chapter about the doctrine. What is the Buddhist doctrine? Two eleven in this book. So it would appear to be a mistake to call the Buddhist teaching either an attempt to describe the world completely or a metaphysical system built up by logic.

[49:05]

Is it then an ethical commandment, a revealed religion of faith, or simply a stoical code of behavior? Before an attempt can be made to find answers to those questions, some sort of survey of the doctrines is needed. The material contained in the doctrines seems, in fact, to be rather in the nature of the material for a map. For each to make his own map, but all oriented alike, These oriented descriptions of facets of experience, in fact, enable a person to estimate his position and judge for himself what he had better do. The discourses offer not so much a description as a set of overlapping descriptions. That's quite true. Close examination of existence finds always something of the qualities of the mirage and of the paradox behind the appearance.

[50:08]

The ends can never be quite made to meet. The innumerable different facets presented in the suttas, with countless repetitions of certain of these facets in varying combinations and contexts, reminds one of a collection of air photographs from which maps are to be made. The facets in the discourses are all oriented to the cessation of suffering and the four points of their compass being the Four Noble Truths. So over and over again the point is made that the whole teaching is about the end of suffering and it's not so and the end of suffering is in fact the Four Noble Truths that there is, and that there's a cause, and there's a way out, there's an end to it, and there's a way.

[51:10]

That's just a kind of package, it's not one, it's all of them. And the way they are, it's not a belief, but categories for viewing present experience. The Four Noble Truths are the way that we can look at our experience. So when we forget about them, when we forget about the Dharma, mind just wanders off, wherever it wanders. And it may not seem to be suffering at the moment, But when it wanders far enough, it's suffering. You know, it may start out in an innocent little amusing track, but before too long, it's its suffering.

[52:19]

There you are. And you can either ignore the suffering and do something else, you know, proliferate in the way we do, or you can pay attention to the suffering and the causes of it. and the end of it and what you're going to do about it. So it's the Four Noble Truths addresses the problem of what is right attention. And there's a whole passage in this book about what right attention is. And how when we wander away from right attention, what we wander into, for instance, was I in the past? Was I not in the past?

[53:19]

What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what, what was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? All kinds of... That's right. That's right. Yeah. All the what-ifs, the what-ifs, the what-ifs. This is called a thicket of views. A wilderness of views. A contortion of views. A writhing of views. A fetter of views. bound by a fetter of views. The uninstructed, run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging, death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, and distress. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering." And a lot of other examples. So, um... So we should be grateful.

[54:25]

So we should be grateful for this dragnet It's just goddess and the minute you lose sight of it and begin wandering around, the suffering begins. So these four noble truths, what is this, describe how we use attention appropriately and skillfully. and so last week talking about the I and the I object form and the consciousness, I consciousness and contact between the I and form how our experience is built in these very

[55:36]

fleeting but yet very concrete ways and that we rapidly lose track of because of these conditions and our thinking and our inevitable turning of the potter's wheel of our past habits and so we're always concocting and that's where our suffering is. So it keeps coming back and back to this point suffering and see what this was. But in a way isn't suffering just another way of calling us to attention? Yes, yes it is. It's almost like you know, the catch-22, you have to have suffering in order to come to attention.

[56:40]

Yes, exactly. And what I'm going to read now illustrates that in a slightly exotic way. Suppose that a man were to cut down all the grass, sticks, branches and leaves in India and to gather them up into a heap Having gathered them into a heap, he would make stakes from them, and having made stakes, he would impale all the large animals in the sea on large stakes, all the medium-sized animals in the sea on medium stakes, and all the minute animals in the sea on minute stakes. Before he had come to the end of all the sizable animals in the sea, he would have used up all the grass, sticks, branches, and leaves here and in India. It would not be feasible for him to impale on states the minute animals of the sea, which are even more numerous than the sizable ones. Why is that? Because of the minuteness of the body. So great is the plane of deprivation, that is, our realms.

[57:43]

Freed from the great realm of deprivation is the individual who is consummate in his views. He discerns as it is actually present. This is stress. This is the origination of stress. This is the cessation of stress. So, every single thing that comes up, an appropriate stake is put through it. That's our mindfulness practice. So, everything that comes up is an occasion for suffering or mindfulness. Yeah. Well, it keeps going through my head and it makes me completely... Irrelevant. It's just the thought of infants. They're hungry, they cry. They're wet, they cry. They're cold, they cry. That's how they survive. And long before you reach the time of being conscious, you've gone through these years of conditioning. I just can't help but see these visions of infants crying and suffering

[58:50]

It's just a way of survival. It's a way of... I can't say it any other way. Well, we do have to make the distinction between pain and suffering. You know, a child is wet and uncomfortable or hungry, and that's painful. But he, she is not necessarily... So, crime. But this... Is it suffering the extra? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that infants have that extra. It seems like we learn that. Yeah. Don't you think? Yeah, but how do we learn it? Preschool. I teach it. Right. I teach it. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very profound psychological question, how we learn it, but we seem to learn it.

[59:53]

How do they learn it? I mean, you had three children. Did you see how they learned it? I think they learned a lot of it from me. You know, like the story of the dolly being broken. So, when do they get to the stage and how and why did that become suffering for them? up to a certain age, they're consumed with survival, that's all they are. It's just bodily, physical need. I think it's only when their consciousness gets developed to a certain level that their karma begins to show itself. And so I don't think it's so much that infants come into the world pure, that they get learned or they get taught somewhere. with their karma.

[61:01]

That's nicely said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's an article, or the Code Dependent Arising from Selfless Minds, that I just started to read, and it gave me some insight to what you asked. And it's that, you know, there is suffering. I think that we're talking about, you know, what is unnecessary suffering? What is it that we're adding on to it? that we have patterns, we learn those patterns in our childhood, and how our parents and those around us respond, and how we respond to those particular experiences, and we develop these patterns, and we use them because we survive using them. Yes. And the baby crying because it's hungry is suffering. Of course it's suffering. If it's alive, it's suffering. That's almost what our message is. Yes. The only thing that goes on here is suffering. That's right. Every single bit of it is suffering. Are the souls doing the right stuff?

[62:31]

Doing the right stuff, right. Understanding the conditions, understanding our contribution to the suffering. What we're doing, how we're doing it. Yeah. And instead of taking that awareness and saying, gee, this is happening to someone else. What can I do for them? Or how can I be of service in the world as a vehicle? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's leaving the self habit. Yeah. Moving out of the self habit. That was a big one for me. I went every avenue, you know. It all leads to a dead end. Yeah.

[63:34]

Until you give it all up. Well, that's exactly Buddhist journey. Exactly Buddhist journey. Fine. You said it. I didn't think of it as anybody's journey. I just knew it was all a dead end. Yeah. At one point in my life. Yeah. Yeah. So then what do you do? Yeah. Yeah. And what we want is this self-habit. And what we don't want is the way things really are. Well, sometimes we like the way things are. We think it's just peachy. I mean, not for long. That's right. The sun's out, you know, the day off. That's right. That's right. And the attachment, until it goes, until it leaves, and then we're stuck. There's this wonderful passage here about what is the world. And this, I think, is relevant to the discussion.

[64:38]

What is the world? The world, loko, it is said, to what extent does the world apply, the Buddha says. It disintegrates, therefore it is called the world. Now what disintegrates? the eye disintegrates, forms disintegrate, eye consciousness disintegrates, eye contact and so on and so on. The intellect disintegrates, ideas disintegrate and so on and so on. It disintegrates, therefore it is called the world. So there we are. when people are crying because Buddha said he's going to die, and I'm going to go on to Nirvana, and some people are crying. And he said, now, wait a minute. He said, don't you know that if there's birth, there's death.

[65:48]

If there's everything that goes up comes down, there's falling. If there's living, there's falling. Right. And so, you know, and sometimes that's not too comforting for a lot of people, but a lot of people who are enlightened apparently find that just perfectly fine. But I love the part where Ananda cries. Uh-huh. Well, we get to that. Our last class will be on the Parinirvana. But I wonder how He uses that before, too. And I'm beginning to get it. If you're bored, then you die. That goes together. It's just hand in glove. That's right. And it may not even be so bad. It might not. The last thing I want to read is this beautiful little bit about consciousness.

[66:50]

that everything disintegrates, and this is about the disintegration of consciousness, which is, of course, nirvana. Consciousness, without feature, without end, luminous all around. Here, water, earth, fire and wind have no footing. Here, long and short, coarse and fine, fair and foul, name and form, are, without remnant, brought to an end. From the cessation of consciousness, each is here brought to an end." So, these truths, when we keep coming back and back, leading to disintegration, emptiness, you know, emptiness being a mode of perception, and thereby freed.

[68:10]

So it's a really, in the Zen tradition we talk a lot about emptiness, And in this Theravadan tradition, it's just moving with mindfulness naturally leads into this peace. So, do you think we're sufficiently warmed up now for your homework? I realized that it was my tenor and my warming up. Good. Well, I like to write little plays and sometimes they're just doodles. And this one was written a couple of years ago. And I just sort of warm up on my fingers. And I mentioned it to Maile last week.

[69:16]

Some things in it, though. Well, I'll just read. The room is dark. Ancient woman is sitting in a stuffed chair, muttering angrily to the TV. Collision course, yeah, yeah. Wipe the floor. Collision course. It's a bitter pill. Young, middle class woman enters. She exudes composure, confidence. Samsara? Samsara, your food is ready. Oh, ancient woman. does not acknowledge her, is not aware, cannot hear her. She leans forward laughing, nodding in agreement, her face is illuminated in pastel glowing moving colors. Aha, you lose, get your Chevrolet, that's right, so good, young woman. Tonight you're having your favorite mashed potato balls, chocolate covered mashed potato balls, ancient woman. Kill them all, kill the Chevrolets, I am? Chevy man. Young woman, yes, I saw to it that you got them because it's Saturday.

[70:23]

Ancient woman, give me them then. Young woman, here you are, Samsara. Ancient woman, Chevrolet has shaved its head. See, you lose. Young woman, yes, Samsara, I see that you're getting better. Ancient woman, no, hair, hair, I win. Young woman, that's right, you win. Ancient woman. Chevrolet says it's not chocolate. You will die. I am lady woman. Young woman. That's right. Samsara is lady woman. But I won't die. And by the way, that's the finest chocolate in the world. Ancient woman. It's peas. Young woman. I wish it were. Ancient woman. Flies on the wall say no. No to soap scum. No to mildew. Young woman. Lady woman, the sun's still out. Will you come out and play? Hurry up and eat and come outside and play with me in the meadow near the creek. Ancient woman, not hungry. I am walls, hungry. Young woman, come along. Come along, Samsara.

[71:24]

Let's go out and play, Samsara. Anyway, it's pretty goofy. That's terrific. Thank you. Oh, sure. That's enough. Thank you. But it was before I could... I may have heard the word samsara somewhere. And I must... Is it one or two words? It's one word. One word. And it's spelled the way it should be, too. But it just sort of... I don't know why I named this character that. And if I were to rewrite it, I would make her talk about a little bit more than Chevrolets. Other things. Other material things, maybe. Not just Chevrolets. It's interesting how my ego, coming to this class and bringing something like this, it's just a polarity away from meditating and having what goes on and zazen happen.

[72:42]

If my ego leaps up and what will people think and all that, Yeah, anyway, and that's what was happening at the beginning. At the beginning of the class? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do warm up. Well, this stuff touches off a lot of deep response in us, and I think an artistic response is a really good one. It says, this play takes place inside an eggshell that is slightly dented on one side.

[74:05]

The librarian is speaking. Mustn't throw paper airplanes in the library. And that's the end of the play. Well that would be a great homework assignment if everyone could write a play. Which could be I've got a book at home that's about that thick, and the title of the book is 1,001 Avant-Garde Plays, and there really are 1,001 plays in it. Most of them are about a paragraph long. Okay. Well, who of us dares to write a play for next week? I just wanted to go back to something that Susan said and that is because Mal said recently in a lecture, a Saturday morning lecture, Sometimes people come to him for Dakushin and they want to tell him about their insights.

[75:21]

This was not his exact words, but they want to tell him, remember, tell him about their insights or how they've reached mindfulness or what have you, and he's not interested in hearing that, that that's not what he wants to hear. He can see if someone's practice is mature or not. And it does seem to be in this practice that discouragement from talking about things like it's too puffed up or too egotistical but I think that it really helps to share those things and not necessarily in a puffed up way not necessarily for now will you pat me on the head because I'm one close step closer but the sharing can touch up other people's insights and so what Mel said and what Sue said seemed quite opposing, conflicting, you know, that you're not supposed to talk about them. You're just supposed to exude your maturity of practice.

[76:27]

Or you can talk about them without necessarily being egotistical about it. Yeah, yeah, I think you can. And everyone has, each teacher has a teaching style. Mel has his style. And, you know, you fairly quickly learn what's going to work and what's not going to work and communicate in that way, try to. There is something so wonderful in that book where people come to Buddha with requests and he doesn't hear them for three times. They ask him a third time and he grants it. Isn't it interesting because I know how easily I quit and revoked the first time. But people have been asking three times. Three times, yeah. But then everyone sort of knows that three usually works.

[77:31]

I never knew that. I'm not quite sure how fair it is. But there is the talk about Zen is so ambivalent about words and about talking about experiences, and your eyebrows growing too long, or hairs coming out of your ears, if you spoil something with too many words. And I think we all can feel that. There's a very delicate edge. Sometimes I feel like the longer I sit, the more I feel like everything I feel, those incessant words don't necessarily have to come out of my mouth. But then I think because we're a community or we're interested in that, I mean, I understand what you're saying, that there's this interest in sharing, but it seems like it really is important to examine closely if we think we're sharing some insight, whether we do feel puffed up.

[78:37]

You know what I mean? Well, I see both sides. I can see how each, both are useful. Both ways are useful. But also I think that the first practice of sharing is sort of popped up, and if you do it, you practice it to get beyond. Yeah, as Buddha, the first time he was asked, I am the unvanquished, and it just got nowhere. I think it always has to be done in context. You know, if a person begins talking about the experience, and the other person gets sort of tired and bored, then something's not going well. I remember Pina Chodron telling some story about her teacher, Thongpan, trying to, you know, tell an insight to him. Interesting.

[79:42]

Yeah, yeah. I mean it's fundamentally always a transmission. Something, what is it that's going on between two people? And does it carry life or is it just staggering under its content? And to talk about one's insights can be something that really excludes the other person, and sort of tends to do that, even, you know, it somehow doesn't work to share that way, oddly enough. Well, sometimes it does. Does it? Yeah, sometimes it does. I'll just give one little example. There's someone at work who takes Tai Chi two mornings a week before she comes to work, and she arrived at work the other day, and she was just beaming, and she announced to me, I had an insight this morning, and I said, oh, what was it?

[80:44]

Oh, I guess it was an insight that she got from her Tai Chi teacher, and that is that when we're walking from one place to another or going from one place to another, we're always rushing, you know, we don't notice the interim walking or driving or biking. And she said, she told us to realized that when we walk from our Tai Chi class to work, that we shouldn't be rushing and just thinking about getting to work. That we should be enjoying the transition. We should be relishing the transition between the class and work. And every day now when I walk to work, instead of worrying that I'm late, I'm saying to myself, enjoy the transition. So this is something she got from her Tai Chi teacher. She announced it very proudly. And for me, that's an example of how you can really benefit from people saying those kinds of things. Now I walk to work very differently. But the funny thing is, it isn't the transition.

[81:49]

It's now. Well, right. I suppose so, but I'm still thinking it's transition from home to work. At least you've reframed it. Yeah. And you had some, there was another thing at work where you taught somebody something. Oh, I just said because we're under, that thing about who cares, we've just been under so much stress, we're just all going nuts. And so I said one day to the people I work with, ladies, our mantra for today is who cares. That whenever we get really stressed out, we just say who cares, not because we don't care, I can't remember now how I explained it to you, but at the time it worked, and it's been kind of picked up on, and when the stress level gets particularly high, someone just says, who cares? And it just kind of explodes it for the time being. Skillful means.

[82:51]

Okay.

[82:52]

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