I just wanted to give you a little report on Dolly, who is actually still in surgery, which is good. When is she going? What? I mean, when is she going? She actually went in, Andrea was there, she went in about 10.30. And they found that they wanted to do the whole surgery, which is what Dolly really, really wanted. Andrea was with her, you know, while she was getting ready to go, and she was just she was worrying about, well, what if they don't do the whole surgery? So... What surgery was it? I'm sorry, I wasn't here last week. She has pancreatic, probably pancreatic cancer. And so it was a very involved surgery called the Whipple procedure. And they disconnect a lot of stuff and take some stuff out and reconnect. So, Her brother and David Weinberg are over there now, and so they'll be there when she comes out.

[01:04]

We should have more news in the morning. But I think that this has been such an incredible lesson and experience of impermanence. and how we carry it. I just think something remarkable has been coming up in this whole rapid course of film that's coming up for all of us as a community. So it's a gift. So I just thought people would want to know Because she'll be in the hospital for a while, right? Probably at least five days, five to ten days. It's really, it's a large, a large resectioning.

[02:13]

But I think what she said is evidently, like tomorrow or the next day, they will have her walking. I mean, it's not like she's going to be walking around the block, but she's going to be walking. So, we'll just see. I want to read, let's read the Four Noble Truths to begin with, and then I just want to go back to something from last week. So, we're on the fourth. So, we have the Noble Truths of Dukkha. This, O Bhikkhus, is the Noble Truths of Dukkha. Birth is Dukkha, aging is Dukkha, sickness is Dukkha, death is Dukkha, sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief and despair are Dukkha.

[03:22]

Association with the unloved or unpleasant condition is dukkha. Separation from the beloved or pleasant condition is dukkha. Not to get what one wants is dukkha. In brief, the five aggregates of attachment or the five skandhas are dukkha. The noble truth of the origin of dukkha, samudaya. This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the origin of dukkha. It is craving which produces rebirth, bound up with pleasure and greed. It finds delight in this and that. In other words, craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence or becoming, and craving for nonexistence or self-annihilation. We have the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha, nirodha. This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha. It is the complete cessation of dukkha, giving up, renouncing, relinquishing, detaching from craving.

[04:29]

We have the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of dukkha, which is magga or marga. This, O Bhikkhus, is the noble truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha. It is simply the noble eightfold path. Namely, right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration. So that's for this week, and next week we're going to talk about this Eightfold Path, and I think that what we'll do today actually is just talk about the first the first two, right understanding or right view and right thought or aspiration. But I wanted to get back, you know, last week I went to, I happened to be at two Dharma talks from two different traditions, friends. Ajahn Amaro gave a talk from a Theravadan monk, from a Vyagiri, some of you know, who I respect a lot.

[05:40]

He gave a talk at the Buddhist Council of Northern California, Vesak Ceremony. and I want to recount something that he said about cessation. And then my friend Arnie Kotler, who was a student of Thich Nhat Hanh's, gave a talk at the Fragrant Earth Saga on Tuesday night, and the talk that he gave was on the Four Noble Truths, and he's actually the person who edited that Thich Nhat Hanh book that I've been using, so he knows that stuff pretty well, but he had his own particular perspective, and I will, as when he talked about the Eightfold Path, there's something, some things that he said that I think are quite useful in a very direct way. At Ajahn Amaro's talk, what he proposed as a kind of metaphor for cessation is, he was talking about the joy in that cessation, and we think, you know, what could be

[07:03]

If we think about it, what could be joyous about cessation of feelings, or even cessation of our pleasures? The metaphor that he gave, which really makes it quite vivid to me, is the joy of cessation, or the bliss, is like the experience of I'm elaborating a little, it's the experience of like lying in your bed at night next to the kitchen and the refrigerator goes off. Or sitting in your room and the lawnmower Just in that moment, when it stops, there is just this dropping away of something you may not have even been aware of.

[08:04]

And in that moment, when I think about it, that's a kind of bliss. It's a bliss of the cessation of this sense input. And you know usually what happens for us is then we fill that space up with something else So I Just thought that was useful When you when you're thinking about when you're thinking about something that is basically experiential if you you know if if you can go back to a useful metaphor, you see that you already have the experience of cessation in your body, even in this small way. Actually, you have it in lots of ways, but that's kind of a small and vivid way. It made me think, and this is

[09:15]

Maybe going a little far, but I was thinking of that quotation that I read from the Genjo Koan last week, which is, when Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. And maybe the something that's missing is that the whir of the refrigerator or the lawnmower, maybe whatever is missing you can actually do without. Anyway, that's something I'm playing with. That part may or may not be useful. But seeing that you have a model for what cessation is like, I think that can be helpful. So I just thought I'd go back to that. Are there any questions that are carried over from last week?

[10:20]

Okay, so everybody understands all this. Great. Okay, so let's go on to the Eightfold Path. What Arnie was saying in his class the other day was that what he sees in this path is that it's a path that enables you to live a life of integrity and that stretching out that word that in fact all of these elements of the path are not it's not like they're integrated like they're you know uh they're not a done deal but they're constantly integrating they're constantly in action but they work together uh to make a life of integrity so the uh

[11:41]

The eight pieces of this path, they're not really different steps, are right understanding or view, right thought or aspiration or intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, then right effort, right awareness or mindfulness, and right concentration or meditation. So they fall into three general areas. Those areas are Prajna or wisdom, verse two. right understanding, right thought.

[12:47]

And then the next three are sila, their precepts, their moral activity, and that's right speech, right action, and right livelihood. And then the third one is grouped under samadhi or meditation. And so that's the usual way of looking at these things. And it's interesting when you, a lot of the books that comment on these actually, they kind of organize them in a They reorganize them into a sort of hierarchical fashion, building upwards with the base of sila or precepts and morality, and then samadhi or meditation leading to wisdom.

[13:54]

And usually, even the formulation, usually when we talk about these three elements, core elements of Buddhism, sila, samadhi, and prajna, we put them in that order. But it's not the order that they were given in. They were given in, and I think that that, to me, other way to look at it is, it's set up in a way that's circular, so that one of them is, they keep leading around to each other, and they're not hierarchical. But certain things flow into certain other, certain steps, like the right thought, say, leads into right speech. and there's a link between right action, right livelihood and right effort, you know, that they kind of lead around to each other and they help each other.

[15:08]

They're not identical but they help each other keep moving. So these are not stages. That's the other thing. They're just elements of our practice, aspects of our practice that we practice and work with them where they're appropriate and when they are appropriate. So they're supporting and amplifying each other. but they work. This is why I think the path of integrity, it's useful thought to me. Another way of thinking that Ajahn Sumedho formulates, he suggests that, and I think this goes back to integrity, thinking of integrity as integrity of your body.

[16:17]

Your body has all these different parts that have different functions, and they work together. as one thing. So what Achan Samedo is suggesting is that prajna, or right understanding, right thought, are like the head. And sila, morality, right speech, right action, right livelihood, is your body. And samadhi, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration is your heart. And we need all of these things to make our life whole. But meanwhile, this is very intellectual. These are just schemas for something that is not intellectual.

[17:22]

It's just living our life. So, before I go on to right understanding, any questions or comments? Well, I really, actually I felt the exact opposite, but that was the most concrete for me, placing it in the body. I mean, I can conceptualize it much more easily. Okay. Well, in all these things, you know, the Buddha is presenting in a way, he's breaking it down into all these elements that we then just live. Well, it's just our life.

[18:34]

Let me move into right understanding, and we have some time to explore this, and also right thought. Let me read from the Maha Satipatthana Sutta. This is the large Sutta on mindfulness. Did I copy this for you? Is that the one that I gave, one of the ones that I gave you? I think so. Okay, so yeah. Page 340. Right, so this is on 348. This is just sort of the jumping off point here. And what monk's is right view?

[19:37]

Actually, it's a footnote. Let's see what the footnote says. Sometimes the best part is in the footnote. Ah, that's interesting. Okay. So right for you, the Pali word is samaditi. This, or right seeing, is the literal rendering. Diti here is singular. That's interesting. Diti here is singular and denotes seeing things as they really are, whereas views in the plural are always wrong. We'll come back to that. The views are always wrong. It should be noted that when not prefixed with the word sama, Diti means speculative opinions and the like, which are not based on seeing things as they really are.

[20:43]

Okay, and then he gets on into more obscure stuff, but it's interesting when he talks about Diti is singular, which is, it's like a verification of uh this it's a catchphrase that's been appearing in uh the suzuki roshi's branching streams flow in the dark that mel's been lecturing on where suzuki roshi's always coming back to sort of like the fundamental concept there is things as things as it is and uh i don't think suzuki roshi knew poly you know he was just he was speaking it feels like since nobody never heard anybody else use that he was speaking from from his own experience of things as it is and this from a kind of with a sort of textual uh uh philological orientation is is confirming that that that dt is singular so uh

[21:50]

You could say things as it is, or you could say the thing as they are. So that's the meaning. It's often translated as right understanding, but in a more literal way, it's right view. It's just a way of looking at things. So, this is really true foundation. And it's a gut knowledge. It isn't something that you can learn from a book. And without this view, everything is kind of cloudy, foggy, veiled. And with this view, you have an opportunity to see things clearly, and then to proceed down the path. But it's also true that if you're just proceeding down the path, it creates a greater opportunity to see things clearly.

[22:58]

One of the things that Arnie was talking about, which is also confirmed here, by what the translator had in that note, was that the Buddha said, that he said in a number of places that all views are wrong. That views personally, and the many views that we have, that in essence they're all incomplete. wrong. So that's why even sometimes with the best of intentions, thinking, we see things very clearly, we screw up and make messes. So this kind of view is not a view in the same sense.

[24:21]

as those views that are wrong. And what it is, I think, we have to discover for ourselves. I think one of the implications of the fact that all views are wrong, and this is something I think this is something that Thich Nhat Hanh talks about. It's that all views are wrong makes a case for sangha and community. So that in a room we have a multiplicity of views. And so there's more hope that collectively we have a collective wisdom. that collectively what is missed by one person or another person is a piece that because of background or particular kind of intelligence or insight or deep understanding will be seen by somebody else and offered.

[25:27]

We keep offering all of this to the group, to the community. And so our Our right view is a collective and collaborative one. I don't actually think of those views as wrong.

[26:31]

In this class, I'm sort of coming from, because of what I've been reading, I'm trying to present to you a fairly traditional, more Theravada perspective, but partial. is uh... that's more the way I think of it partial or that any view that your view is incomplete in fact that's that's what that's what Dogen is saying you know when when you don't when Dharma doesn't fill your whole body and mind you think it is already enough you know you think I've got it you know or I I know what's going on and when it fills your body and mind you see that Because you live in a body, because we live in our bodies, we live in those five skandhas, so our views are going to be incomplete.

[27:38]

They're going to be tied up to, no matter how much we try, we're likely to find ourselves acting out of self-interest. And that's what he means by wrong. It's a view that has a self or a notion of self-protection or self-serving at its core. Mahayana view, I think, is more that you can't escape that. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it wonderful to be incomplete? Are you talking as though the skandhas... It's hard to act in a way that's not acting from our conditioned being.

[28:39]

But are you saying that's the same thing as acting in self-interest? Yeah. I mean, what you say is that you're... Well, yes, because you're acting out of a... You're acting out of causes and conditions. Well, what's being posited is that the Buddha did not act out of causes and conditions. Yeah, I think that's what we're getting at.

[29:43]

Sometimes I think about the skandhas and the self as actually being kind of different, because perhaps even when we're free of self, skandhas are still Right, and the Buddha's skandhas were there, but they were no longer clinging skandhas. The nature, as we talked about earlier, the nature of the skandhas, they're kind of sticky, you know, it's like they've got this gum on them, and so they draw something that, you know, they draw a kind of habit energy of self. But as long as we have a body, there's all this stuff working together. But I think that the thing is we don't actually have to cling to it. And that's seeing that existence is non-clinging is part of right view.

[30:47]

Do you have a question? Are we defining the term right here? Is that what's happening? I think so. So in one sense then you're saying right means incomplete? I think right means recognizing incompleteness. Okay. Actually, here is what it means. That points to that. One other kind of very traditional. Actually, I found this little book called The Eightfold Path by Lady Sayadaw, who was, I think he was like Mahasi Sayadaw. He's a Burmese teacher from the early part of the century, who was the teacher of many of the teachers that our friends who practice in Burma have come to work with.

[31:49]

And what he puts as his first point is that right view means that one sees that one is the owner of one's karma and that it's like the only thing that follows you in life your body falls away, all these situations change, but the only thread that is consistent through your life, and he would say, from one life to another life, is this thread of karma, this thread of action, of seed and fruit, seed and fruit constantly. It's the only thing, I'm not sure whether it's the only thing that we own or the only thing that owns us.

[32:52]

So, that I think gets a little bit to what you were asking about, as is right the same as incomplete? So here what he's saying is, what Lady Sayadaw is saying is that right is recognizing, recognizing your karma means taking responsibility for your life, means owning both your accomplishments, failures, causes and effects. I found that very, at first like I kind of wanted to put it away. I had a reaction against it. And then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense to me.

[34:02]

It's just as Thich Nhat Hanh was saying in relation to Second Noble Truth, that until we begin to practice Second Noble Truth, we tend to blame others for our unhappiness. So, the first thing here, the fundamental thing in that particular commentarial tradition is just seeing that we're responsible for our karma and we have to live out our lives on that basis and try to live in a wholesome way. I keep thinking of my understanding of the right view when you're relating to the five skandhas is the fact that they're in the emptiness within the forms, the feelings, and that for us to be able to see emptiness, to understand that the inner being or the interrelationship between everything being empty and always understanding things through that view, that

[35:25]

we aren't we're empty and we in order to have to relate to anything in our lives in our environment is what allows us to be i mean so what what does empty meet you well um well i'm still working with them i've been trying to understand my view and the sense of emptiness being knowing that having the view of I exist as partial in the relationship to something else, or say, like anything, you know, without sunshine, without water, without all the things that I exist with, that make, that I can exist, but I can't exist without, I wouldn't be in this form. if I didn't have water, if I didn't have sunlight, if I didn't have... So it's a kind of interdependence that exists and like a partial view in a room.

[36:39]

It's like the whole with people, you know, somehow the wisdom, the full picture is with everybody has their own... I don't know, I can't quite explain it, but... That in the right view is to always go back to understanding the fact that we are here only because of everything else. And to continually look and study carefully everything, and that means being in the present moment deeply, with anything, to remember that, to always have that view. And within that view, you are aware of the complete interdependence. And that's what I would understand is right view. Well, that is another very... Is that just another way? Yeah, that's actually the most common way of seeing it.

[37:40]

I think that's the implication here. What about an impermanence? Right. Yeah, the impermanence as well. Right. It's the knowledge of suffering, the knowledge of the origin of suffering, the knowledge of cessation of suffering, and the knowledge of the way of practice. It's kind of, it's slightly tautological here, you know. But I think that, yeah, we come back. So it's like, in a way, we've come back to one of the discussion, discussion from the first class. Yeah, it's about, it's about this interdependence. And that interdependence, you can think of it in a kind of grand way, it's like Thich Nhat Hanh describes the piece of paper, that it contains the tree, and it contains the rain, and it contains the sun, and it's also not functional like Dogen's boat, it's not functional

[38:48]

it has no meaning as a piece of paper until we use it to write on it. So, all of these things, there's nothing outside. Yeah, and the thing is to have full responsibility of that view, because when you have full responsibility of that right view, you're taking on full responsibility being aware of the whole interconnectedness, you know, which is, you know, not the separate. So, to take responsibility So, right view is already leading into sila. It's already leading into right speech, right action, right livelihood. They come, they flow naturally from that. There's a Zen saying, which I have tried to track the source and I haven't been able to find, but there's a Zen saying that stuck in my mind is, there's no place in the world to spit.

[39:50]

You know, so there's no place that isn't holy. You know, there's no place to... But we think it is. Right. As long as you're thinking of it that way, then there's no place in the world to spit. There's no place in the world to disrespect. So that's the responsibility that comes out of that. But as I think Jyotindra was saying, the other thing that goes along with it very, you know, just as closely is that another aspect of right view of the Four Noble Truths is to see that everything is subject to arising. Everything that's subject to arising is subject to ceasing. And that's the view of impermanence.

[40:54]

And that we can't It's like once I took a, I only did this once and I really loved it, but I went on a rafting trip. So we got in this raft and I don't know, just like things went really fast. We got in and then we were out there in the river and we were starting to go down the river and in my mind I would say, wait, you know, I'm not ready to, I'm not quite ready, I'm not quite settled, but there was, that was not an option, you know, it's like, you're going down the river. And, you know, very shortly I just breathed and said, okay, let's go, you know, and really enjoyed it. But you can't, you can't, yeah, you can't negotiate with impermanence, you know. I think I said, it's not just a good idea, it's the law. It's like gravity.

[41:57]

It's how I felt around Dolly's illness. Yeah. Negotiating. It just is happening. There was nothing she could do, we could do. All of our lives are like that. always you know so there's nothing outside of that either. Yeah, I forget where that's from. Is it in there? Well, I think that puts those various elements together. So looking at, I think that The most challenging thing, though, for me and I think for most of us, the place where we can really work with this is in owning our karma.

[43:38]

That's, you know, if I think of impermanence, uh it's one can intellectualize that one can intellectualize you know create wonderful metaphors and uh uh schemas about uh interdependence but owning your actions not blaming others. Well, that gets really tricky, as all of us know. It's very hard. Some of us, more than others, are inclined to blame others or blame conditions or blame ourselves. And what this is saying is essentially no blame just things as it is just your karma as it is and that that karma is always uh subject to uh to change you know it can be it can be helped along you know you can one of the things that buddhism as a as a sort of

[45:12]

as a universal religion is that it offers liberation to everyone. Could you say something about the difference between not blaming yourself but nevertheless taking responsibility? I'm assuming there's probably a very important difference there, but quick, if you could say something about that. How do you see the difference? blame and responsibility are similar but not quite the same. Well I think it's a radical shift between the two. Taking responsibility just means this is happening or this action that I participated in has led to this result. Now what will I do. How can I harmonize it? How can I be a person of integrity even if I've made a mistake?

[46:18]

That's taking responsibility without taking blame. But I mean, that's just sort of basically looking forward and not looking back then. I mean, you're still admitting you've done something wrong. That's where I make the differentiation myself. I make the distinction between I made a mistake, it's not the end of the world, versus I did something wrong. I was meant to be, so there's a self happening in there. And being responsible, I feel very healthy and very There's something that I've been thinking about and deliberating over and writing about is responsibility. When I turned it around and realized it means the ability to respond.

[47:23]

Now, I don't want to say responsibility, it sounds a bit burdensome. It's heavy, it's like it's in a culture. And just one day, I just thought, this is ideal. This just means that anyway, in English and in French, the ability to respond. What I've noticed, I mean I think this is where I just would encourage everybody to really investigate yourself. What I've noticed, which I think is along the lines of what Judas was saying, is that I mean more and more I try to look to my body and when I'm

[48:37]

angry and blaming, there are these weird chemicals. And they do not feel good, and they make everything kind of confused. Bad facial expressions. Well, that too. But some of us have those, even when we're happy. Um, but it's just like these chemicals and I know where they, I know where they tend to, uh, pool in my body. But, uh, look at those chemicals, you know, just look at the actual state of your body mind. Uh, and you can see that. And it's different when you just feel If I just feel a mistake, there's maybe a little something in my belly, but when I feel blame or anger, then it rises to my chest and my throat, and it kind of burns.

[49:47]

Now, everybody doesn't have the same response, but we do respond. each in our own way, in a very physical way, to these states of mind. Well, I have lots of different thoughts about blame and having grown up in a family of lawyers and learning who I was on the witness stand. I feel like I've moved away from it. So, in a sense, this doesn't... What I'm thinking about right now is that there's something that I've taken into myself, having grown up around so much blaming and done to myself, that there is something important about the opposite of denial and saying, yeah, I did that.

[50:50]

you know, particularly when I feel I do things that I really don't like. So it's not... It has a little bit... I don't think I need to articulate this, but it has a little bit more of something of what the question that Malcolm is asking, that it's not just taking responsibility, there is a way of really saying, you know, I really did something wrong. that, at least for me, struggling with denial, particularly coming out of having been self-blaming, then it's easy to say, well, yeah, I'm not going to even enter into that space. And there's a certain way in which you don't really own, I don't really own, how awful I feel about what I just did. And so there is a way to own it that's not a beating kind of blaming, but does deeply It doesn't feel good, but it feels right to know how good it doesn't feel, and that is part of what motivates one to not do it again.

[52:02]

I think that's owning one's karma. One more question and then I want to move on because I think this is leading on and I really want to do right thought tonight and this leads into... Mine wasn't really a question, it was just a comment about blending. Well, you can say it. Well, I think it's interesting that when I really see into my own conditioning about how, whatever the situation is, that when I really see conditioning clearly in myself or another, the blame is lifted. The blame kind of dissipates. And it's really interesting, and you would think all this paradoxical, that the blame is lifted, but that conditioning, by really seeing conditioning in a situation,

[53:03]

But that doesn't take responsibility. Right. Well, I think we have slid into the area of right thought. Very naturally and unconsciously. And that's the way these things work. That you're working with one of them and it's not separate from the other. They're all interpenetrating each other. And what, monks, is right thought? Here's a footnote. Let's see. Footnotes have all the answers, maybe. Ah, it just said, variously rendered as right aspiration or right motive, right intention. OK, and what, monks, is right thought? The thought of renunciation, the thought of non-ill will, thought of harmlessness, this, monks, is called right thought.

[54:08]

So, renunciation, we've talked about that before, it's a sticking point for some people, but here it means renouncing self-views and it's paired The other side of renunciation is generosity. If you're giving something up, in the act of giving something up is the fundamental act of giving. So it's paired with generosity. then non-harming, which is another intention or aspiration, is the other side of non-harming.

[55:16]

These are the sides that get turned into a positive quality or practice. So the other side of that is loving-kindness. So it's like taking In this, you know, taking the quality of holding back, many of what traditionally gets, get, are depicted as qualities, are kind of the, they're like double negatives. You know, they're the negative of an unwholesome state, the negation of an unwholesome state. but here, and I think this is Acharn Sumedho was talking about this, you know, you can turn that into a wholesome direction as well, you know, not just, so it's not just flat, but it's generosity, or non-harming is loving-kindness, or non-violence

[56:28]

is paired with compassion. So, in other words, nonviolence is based on the pain that is generated by the view of self and other. Compassion means feeling or suffering with that there's no self and other, there's just disconnectedness. So that's the positive qualities. Are you following this? No? Do you want to ask something about it? Can you just say your last two sentences again? I'm just, there's so much. Yeah, I'm sorry. Uh, yeah.

[57:30]

Could you just say what the pairs are again? Yeah, okay. So... It's like the Realm of the Hearts, isn't it? Right, very much. Uh, these pairs, uh, which come at, okay, so... Renunciation. Renunciation, so you have renunciation, non-harming and non-violence. What's paired with renunciation, the coming forward quality, is generosity. The coming forward quality of non-harming is loving-kindness. And the coming forward quality of non-violence is compassion. These are not, you know, they're not fixed. You know, these are just, if they're useful, fine.

[58:35]

If they don't really compute to you, that's also okay. It implies kind of a three-dimensional going forward, so I'm actually in my head where I was getting lost is, well, then what's going back? If that's going forward... What's going back? What's going back? What's going back is, okay, so let me make another distinction. The word for right thought or aspiration, it's really more like aspiration or intention, is sankapa. What's going back is dana, or clinging. or grasping, desire. So, things can fall back. Instead of renouncing, you could be clinging, you could be greedy, you could be caught in a hell of wanting.

[59:46]

Instead of not harming, you could be angry or abusive. So those are the unwholesome states. So what we're talking about here is the second path which leads out of right view is the cultivation of what is wholesome. And the commentators are very much of a piece in saying we should be not mistake the kind of desire for wholesome life, or the desire for practice. It's also the desire to practice the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. That desire is not the same kind of, it's not the same word, or the same

[60:51]

kind of thing as a desire that you might have for some material object or some person or something that you're clinging to. This is a desire, this is a wholesome aspiration or wish that flows from Right View. Now, this is all very pure, right? And I think in our lives, sometimes it's not so clear to us. And it's where we have to go on faith. That we're practicing here, or wherever we're practicing, with what we call way-seeking mind. Way-seeking mind is not the same as gaining mind.

[61:53]

There's a different foundation for it. Does that make some sense? And the feeling of it. I think the feeling in your body Again, it's different. Generally, right aspiration is described as having a kind of light and rising feeling. Well, on the third day of Sashin, it may not feel so light and rising at that moment, but that's where other elements interpenetrate, that's where we have to cultivate right effort, say. To keep us, right effort holds us in the area of right intention or aspiration. So I have to do something called choice?

[63:00]

To have right choosing to well that's yeah that's where the effort yeah the effort is a choice but but so is the so is the right intention you know we're always faced with these choices you know we're facing these choices in zazen moment after moment you know do if my intention is to sit up and follow my breath uh do i do that or Do I drift for another moment, or do I just finish this thing that I'm thinking about? Which, if you really think about it, you don't need to be thinking about this now. What does it prepare you for? You can think about it when you have to think about it, unless it's something that's really got you and then, okay, you have to face it.

[64:09]

Most of these things, most of the places that we drift into are not important and they are our drifting away from our aspiration, our intention. we just remember that intention and come back. That's another element on the path. That's actually another way of describing right mindfulness is as I think Akin Roshi says, right recollection, right remembering. remembering, oh, this is what, this is what I'm here for. Right, this was my aspiration, and it's a good one. I know it's a good one. You know, I can feel it, and I can feel its effect in my life.

[65:10]

So you keep coming back, and gradually, as you practice, that aspiration becomes, it's really in you. you know, if you practice with that, it settles and you can feel it and sometimes actually other people can see it before you can feel it. But it's there. And it leads towards a life of a moral life, a life of right speech, right action, right livelihood, and a life of integrity. I think that another way for us

[66:25]

Mahayana or Zen types think about right aspiration or right thought is that our understanding leads us to the four bodhisattva vows. That's another way that right thought is configured for us. Beings are novelists. I vow to save them or awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. That's right thought. Carrying that with you. It actually, you can reduce it just down to the first one.

[67:35]

Beings are numberless. I vow, literally, I vow to save them. From out here we chant, Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them. It's a little less of the missionary. Just a little. What? Just a little. But that's the language. Yeah. Right? Yeah. So, yeah. Is Ensign Wright thought the awareness and the cultivation of wholesome states of mind Is that where that falls, that I'm aware of an unwholesome state of mind, and I'm not going to feed it, and to let it subside, and be the ground for it not arising anymore, and then being aware and knowing how to cultivate wholesome states of mind? Is that in that underwriting?

[68:41]

I think so. because I think you need, I think you need, you need, that to me I think is the working of right, the working together of right thought and right awareness or right mindfulness. You know, mindfulness is just, You know, it's just being aware of the feelings in the body, feelings in the mind, feelings in the feelings, et cetera. You can read that. If you read the Mahasati Bhattana Sutta, then you can discourse on that. You can give a lecture on that here next class. But I think that the thing about mindfulness is that mindfulness is here is affected or conditioned by that right thought. You could have this awareness, and it's not necessarily going to lead you in a wholesome direction, perhaps.

[69:59]

I'm not sure about that. I have to think about that. And you can tell what's a wholesome state and what that will lead me to do and to think and how I'll treat myself compared to an unwholesome state. Right. I mean, I think of right thought or aspiration as just like the foundation of our practice. Right view is what everything flows from, but right view is just, in a way, is something that arises. It's a methodology, but it's also an open view in which there is no outside or inside. That just arises from your practice, and then when it arises, it really gives you a lot of strength and confidence. Even if right understanding or right view is not realized, or you're not kind of with it, we put such an emphasis on right thought.

[71:10]

And interestingly, right thought is also physical. In this practice, right thought means sitting upright. It's like upright thought. Upright and open. And that's our intention. And when we slump over, right thought brings us back up. And so it's really a tool. I think that that's something that you can really use and work with. and that we use all the time. We should be using it all the time in our zazen. We should be remembering it coming back, sitting up, focusing on our breath, with confidence that that is the right way to be at that moment.

[72:11]

In other aspects, upright means meeting each person as oneself, meeting each person with respect. So, there again, it keeps moving into that realm of morality, moral and ethical action. How do you relate Zazen to these three points you made about right thought, renunciation, non-harming and non-evil? Um, sometimes it's useful. Uh... Well, you said this is the basis, that right thought is the basis of all of this, and just isogamism. Renunciation, uh... has a couple of aspects to me. Uh... In the wonderful fluid side, Renunciation, as Suzuki Roshi said, is just allowing things to go away.

[73:24]

Which, in case you haven't noticed, they will. All things. It's just allowing them, in a way, renunciation is allowing things to give you up. So it's like allowing your habits to go away. the ones that don't serve you any longer. They go away by themselves, but sometimes we can also help them a little. And that's where in Zazen, if I'm running a story in my head, or I've got some drama going, or I think, oh, this is the time to think about my schedule for the day. Renunciation is actually setting that aside. And the generosity side is giving myself this, offering myself this wholesome activity of focusing on my breath and posture.

[74:28]

So, that's the way that works. Non-harming and non-violence. Well, non-violence, there's not a lot of violence in the zendo. especially since we stopped using the stick. But let's not go into that. But non-harming, the harming is something that we do in our minds. And it leaks. It leaks into our actions. It leaks into our words. It happens in our minds when somebody just does something that bothers us. And it happens all the time, even in this wonderful, safe atmosphere. So, non-harming, it's like the first principle here is renunciation.

[75:37]

It's just like giving up that view. So back to view also. It's giving up the view of self and other that I have. The story that then very quickly gets made up about somebody. Why are they doing that? And usually the part, the unspoken part, in parentheses, is to me. you know, because it's not, why are they doing that? It's, you know, why are they doing that and bothering me? And every one of us here has seen that thought turn into harming. And so if we practice right thought,

[76:39]

We just set it aside right there. Well, this might be a good place to end. Are there any more questions of the moment? I just had a comment that any thought of harming sort of automatically is harming yourself I mean, any time you get a thought of anger or violence, it's like you were saying earlier, you can feel it rising up. It's just sort of general damage, you know, to yourself and others. Right. Well, it's your karma. That thought, if it turns into an actual harming thought, once it turns into you know, a kind of volition, wishing somebody would do something else, or wishing the situation would be in another way, then it's planted a seed.

[77:51]

And then, as we said in one of the earlier classes, then when that seed is planted, then you're born again as a being with that seed. And you have to live with it, you have to own that karma, but that karma can always be transformed. It can always, you know, every moment also, you can be reborn. You know, the refrigerator, whatever, you can hear the hum now. Any moment, that hum could stop. I don't think it's likely to. But, you know, it can stop. The hum of the karma that we create can fall away. And we can see that and say, oh, that wasn't necessary.

[78:53]

And then it's transformed. Could one say that perhaps through wisdom it's transformed? I think what this... I think quite a bit about wisdom. I think it does, but wisdom is not a state. Wisdom is something that has to be constantly cultivated by these other states. by these other practices i've been reading this book came out as a book of uh a tribute to 30 years of publication of out of 30th year anniversary of three pillars of zen by philip caplo and very interesting book short book very personal essays uh and most of the essays uh were by his students people who had

[80:16]

had experiences of, you know, big experiences of emptiness, and had gone, you know, had finished their course of koans, you know, if wisdom were enough, well, it would have been enough. They would have, they would be Buddhists and they would be done. But what they found was, oh, I still have to live, you know, and I still have questions, problems, I don't do everything right, I make mistakes. So the wisdom that they experience gives them, it's more like it gives a grounding or foundation for one's action. You know, but you have to keep… To find wisdom. Right. So that's why The wisdom aspects of this path are right understanding and right thought. But the whole path is, in order to be a person of integrity, the whole path needs to be lived.

[81:23]

Not just abiding in wisdom, because we don't. But we can draw on it. just in the way we can draw on a right view if we develop right view, we see it. And we can allow it to flow into the other things in our life so that we have a life that's wholesome and integral. Thank you, good night. Next week Right speech, right action, right life, right effort, right awareness, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Yeah, that's a good idea.

[82:08]

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