I bow down to teach the truth about the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Today, this morning And I told my friend that there would probably be a lot of people at the lecture because it's a nice day. She said, well, if it's a nice day, shouldn't they all be out hiking instead? Maybe. What I'd like to talk about today is thought and attention. I think I picked thought because it's something I'm really familiar with.

[01:01]

I'm a big thinker, and always thinking, always having thoughts going through my mind. As long as I can remember, I've been like that. And so, it's something that I have a lot of experience with. And you may too. Actually, it's not unusual. Sometimes some people are attracted to meditation because it seems to be some way to cut through the chaos of some of that sort of obsessive thinking. A possible way of settling down. And Buddhism is, rather than a belief system, I would say that Buddhism is more of an attention system.

[02:11]

Buddhism is practiced in different ways in different places. It's not identical all over the world. the way that people go about it. Maybe in parts of Asia they may practice it more like a belief system. But here, I'd say in America, and particularly Zen practices, practice more as an attention system. And there's certainly plenty to learn within Buddhism and plenty of principles within Buddhism. It's not suggested that we just believe it because it's written down someplace. Actually, I think we're encouraged to test it. So if you read some principle in Buddhism, or you hear some principle, or somebody says, some teacher tells you something, you should be able to verify it in your own life. And so while we don't put so much emphasis on belief, we do put emphasis on attention.

[03:29]

And attention is something that you can develop and something that you can encourage in yourself and that we can encourage in ourselves. And zazen, our core practice, is just really the essence of attention. When you're sitting, like we're sitting now, or if you're sitting in a chair, that practice, that single-minded practice of zazen, is just nothing but attention. And it allows you to practice attention in a very concentrated way, in a very stable way. And you clear out some time, some space in your life to be able to do it. So once you set aside some time, it could be twenty minutes, it could be an hour and a half, whatever, it could be a week, you clear out some time and you have a space and a place

[04:45]

that's your opportunity to make a special effort to practice and to look into attention. And attention is just noticing, just noticing what's going on. It's very simple, really. Attention in itself is not particularly complex. But our lives are so complex and our minds are so complex and we insist on making everything so complicated and we have so many layers of fear and confusion and longing and desire and the rest of it that it's hard for our attention to cut through that or to even notice that.

[05:48]

So attention is just a process of noticing all that we are and taking the time to do that. And so it's kind of an observation. more than an observation, it's also kind of emerging, especially within zazen, not just a matter of watching your thinking or watching your body or watching your emotions, watching your anger or watching your sadness or watching your elation, but also being, you know, consciously being all those things at the same time too, kind of a combination of observing and also being at the same time.

[06:52]

So, you know, one aspect of attention is to just be like an observer, to observe what's happening. But the problem with that is, is if we're too detached, if we're too much of an observer, it gets to be kind of a split, and it's not so real anymore. We're kind of, it's a little too sterile. a little bit too much like a laboratory. So it's a kind of a dilemma to one hand to be able to observe what's going on in ourselves and around us at the same time to be part of what's going on with ourselves and around us. And, you know, thinking, thought, is necessary. We need to think. We couldn't exist without thinking. We have to figure things out.

[08:00]

We have to remember experiences in order to know what to do in certain situations. So obviously, thought is essential for human life. But obviously, we think, We think a lot more than we need to. Maybe about 90% more than we need to. And you particularly notice this during meditation, during zazen, when you don't really need to think. You're just sitting there looking at the wall. There's no need to think. All you need to do is just to feel your body, feel your breathing, whatever method you're using, if you have a mantra or a koan or breathing, just to feel that and to be attentive to that, what you're paying attention to. And thinking is not really necessary.

[09:03]

And yet, you know that when we sit, that there's a tremendous amount of thinking going on. So, you know, our minds just like to do it. Our minds like to think. And we're in the habit of doing that. And that tremendous energy and power in that thinking. And the problem with thinking in terms of as filling up our consciousness, when thinking begins to fill up our consciousness is that the thinking is so limited. And it's hard to get beyond the limitations of the thought, because it fills our whole awareness. And yet the thinking itself is so limited. It's always based on the past, for one thing. Anything that you can conceive of, any image that you can get in your mind is something, a composite at least, of something that you've already experienced through your senses.

[10:09]

And it's interesting to me, like when I see science fiction, science fiction movies on television say, and they have incredible alien monsters. I really enjoy it because I know that those alien monsters were created by some human's mind from something that they had seen in the past. Some composite of things in the past creates this apparently completely weird monster, but all it is is just a combination of elements from the past. This alien creature, probably elements within our, not probably, are elements within ourself that are, you know, imagined as an alien creature. So our thought's very limited and with some attention we can start to really see that, perceive that.

[11:12]

So at least if we're obsessed with thinking and at least if thinking is constantly moving through us, at least we have some idea of its limitation and we can not be trapped by it. And also the way that we're raised in our past, obviously you notice that the way our families were, the way our parents raised us, our siblings and the rest of it, conditions the way that we think. We all have different ways of thinking. And Dogen says, I think he says, there are as many minds as there are people. but they all practice the way solely through zazen. So we all have a sort of a different version of thinking. We all have sort of different patterns depending on our background, depending on our personality.

[12:19]

But it's always been very conditioned, very dependent upon our influences. And it's also interesting the way that thought creates our image of ourself, you know, our self-image. And we talk about, especially in Berkeley, California, we talk about our positive self-image or our negative self-image. And we all have that. We all have some sense of ourself, some image of who we are. And it may feel good or it may feel bad, depending on our situation. But that self-image is dependent upon thought. And without thought, you know, what kind of self-image do we have? You know, there's this koan in Zen that says, what's your original face before you were born? Well, you could make another call on this.

[13:26]

What's your self-image before thought? What kind of image do you have of yourself before you think? Within Buddhism, in terms of analyzing thought, particularly in Theravada school, they have a very elaborate analysis of how thought works for people. But just a very basic, very simple analysis that they make is within the jhana systems. The jhanas, there are four jhanas, sometimes there are seven or eight, but basically there's four. And these are like states of development of meditation, states of meditational development.

[14:29]

And in Zen we don't look at it like that, we don't emphasize that aspect. We don't say that it doesn't happen, but we just don't, we're not so interested in progressive steps of mental development. But within this system, within the jhana system, it's interesting. Because the first step, you have to at least temporarily detach yourself from the five hindrances, which are fear, or anxiety, anger, skeptical doubt, sensual desire. There's one other. or laziness. And then once you're beyond those problems, at least temporarily, in a state of meditation, then you can let go of thinking as the next step. And they divide up thinking into two parts.

[15:31]

One is applied, what they call applied thinking, and the other is sustained thinking. And applied thinking is when you pick a subject to think about, And sustained thinking is when you start discursively thinking about that subject. And if you want to move on to the third stage, you have to let go of both of those processes of thinking. So there's a simile in the Vasudhi Manga, which is like a bird, a big bird, like maybe a vulture on a rock, looking out over a valley. And this bird just happily sitting there and decides it would be good to take off and go flying. So the bird sort of lifts its wings up, getting ready to fly. And that's like applied thought, the beginning. It's the beginning of a movement. And then the bird rises up into the air and wings start flapping.

[16:34]

And that's like sustained thought. It starts to move. And you can see this in Zazen too. You're sitting there and hopefully maybe your attention is on your abdomen and you're breathing. You're noticing your breath coming and going, and then you're thinking about whether you should take your money out of your CVs or not and put them into something else, mutual funds. And then you start thinking, let's see, what fund would be the best fund for that? applied thought and the sustained thought keeps on moving. And then, oh yeah, I'm doing this, I was going to come back to it. And also, you know, concentration has a place in attention.

[17:43]

Well anyway, let me make this transition. So here we're sort of, you know, dwelling on all this thought. At the same time, it kind of screens us out, screens us out from being able to perceive what's going on around us. So we come back to attention. And it doesn't mean that we get rid of thought, but as well as thought, there's also a broader sense, a more panoramic sense of being aware of a bigger picture. And so in this attention process, you know, there's some aspect of concentration, being able to focus and sort of stabilize your attention. And it involves some concentration, but the problem, there is a problem with concentration is that if you, it can become rather ego centered.

[18:48]

And I can sort of want to develop a really strong sense of concentration and feel very sort of centered and strong and stable. But then it's, you know, it's like one more one more thing to accumulate, one more way to kind of a self aggrandizement, to make myself strong, to make myself feel good, to get more of it, to be better, the whole attainment trip. So it's a problem with concentration to be able to develop concentration and yet an attention without this kind of sense of building up something, improving ourself, and separating ourself. Here's me, and there's this object of concentration. There's this me in the object, and I'm noticing this, and boy, I'm really doing well.

[19:55]

I'm so able to focus on this. And also, our habits play a big part in our thought process, for one thing. We just have habitual ways of looking at things, according to our personality. And we just get usually stuck in that, get usually stuck in our habit. And that's one thing that, working with, being in any relationship, you can see that pretty clearly. And working with a song in particular, in particular you can see that when you practice with other people, your own particular habits, your own ways of thinking start to become more evident.

[21:04]

When you're just by yourself, you can't see it so clearly because there's nothing to contrast it with. You just start, all you know is your own style. But when you have to relate with other people, your own styles all of a sudden becomes more evident to you, and your limitations and the different buttons that get pushed in you become more evident, obviously. So in working within a sangha, within a group like this, with people who have kind of a, you know, a similar aspiration, it's even more clear. Particularly if you wind up going to meetings and you get more involved and we work together, you can begin to see, see how your mind works in relation to other people's and the limitations and the habits. So, you know, thought gives us a big problem, and it's difficult to practice attention, but we don't need to consider thought as like an evil, or something like just getting in our way.

[22:31]

If we do, you know, if you have some sense that there's this sort of pure state where there's no thinking, and if you could just get to that, then we'd really be happy. You set up the same old kind of struggle, the same old dualistic struggle again, and that doesn't work. And there's really no basis to discriminate against thought anyway. thought can be a part of our attention. But we say, what Nalo likes to say is that it's like if you're in a train and you're traveling in a train and you look out the window and you see various scenery, that's what thought is like that. Various thoughts come up and they're interesting, they're not interesting, or they're happy, or they're sad, or they're valleys, or they're mountains. And you notice them and acknowledge them, but just keep on moving and don't get stuck. You don't jump off the train and go running out to check out every tree.

[23:39]

It looks interesting. So Whatever problems thought gives us, we're stuck with it. We'll always be stuck with it. And being able to just absorb it, being able to have a wider sense of attention helps. It's not so much that we need to repress thought or get rid of it or put it down, but actually just to put attention into attention. Or to, if you pay attention to what you're doing and to the world around you, thought tends to subside somewhat. It's not so important.

[24:40]

You don't need to have this constant dialogue, this constant monologue, internal dialogue going on. There are other ways to be in touch with the world other than just thinking. And at the same time, thinking is okay. It's not going to bite you. It's ourself. It's part of ourself. The difference is being caught or trapped by it, or consumed by it, or just being a partner with it. So I think that's all I really wanted to say. I am in the Introduction to Zen class that's going on now.

[25:46]

There's one more class. Alan had a homework assignment this last week. I didn't go to the class, so I don't know what people came up with. But the assignment was to write a little gata or a little koan of your own. And I guess they shared them in the class. So many. People were intimidated. They didn't want to compete with the great ancestors. It's been carried over for the next piece. The opportunity is not vanished. Okay. So I'll inspire you with a little gatha that I wrote on something related to this subject, but it just came to me when I was making a talk, so I don't know if it's so related. We are explorers without rank, sometimes inspired, sometimes drift. Our discoveries don't amount to much in the eyes of the world, but the path itself is an eye-opener.

[26:57]

We are explorers without rank, sometimes inspired, sometimes adrift. Our discoveries don't amount to much in the eyes of the world, but the path itself is an eye-opener. So, we have some time if you'd like to say Well, we've also been talking in the class about the relationship between belief and understanding, but you could say the relationship between belief and attention. And so I wanted to ask you, suppose there's a person who has really developed their attention and they are really pretty alert.

[28:10]

What change would, what would you say about their belief system? Or the development of their belief? Well, I think belief is a funny word. Within Buddhism, I don't really like the word belief. I like the word maybe principles. That's the best word I can think of, principles. It's as though Buddha looked around and noted that there was, he saw that there was aspects of reality and just stated what he saw, basically. And those become the principles of Buddhism. So, is belief different than that? Well, how do we know those principles?

[29:15]

Right. So, we don't know them. We don't know if he was right or not. I mean, I wouldn't just assume it. I mean, I think he was right. I'm falling into belief. Is that a belief? Yeah, it is. a belief is something that you've been able to verify through your experience.

[30:31]

Another way, so like I had said, belief is sort of something that lasts over time, sort of something you hold on to. It might have been something you just decided to believe, or maybe it was verified in the past experience, but it is That if you have a belief in terms of carrying around with you, that it's a limitation. That anything that's really true, you don't have to carry around it.

[31:34]

You can be able to see everything. Free. But I think, and with that is what Meili was suggesting, is that okay, so that's true, but so there's a system of teaching that you are interested in Buddhism. And so how do you relate to this system of teaching? Yeah, but also, I agree, but also I think that there is a way of taking a suggestion, say like you take one of Buddha's principles, like the three marks of existence, say, one of them is, say there's no self, you know, that their idea of self is kind of an illusion.

[33:31]

So you could, without necessarily believing that that's automatically true because it's said so, and yet you may not exactly perceive that yourself, so to speak. you could kind of entertain that notion based on that this was presented to you as a teaching and then you could verify it or not, see if it's true or not, check it out. So there's some place for taking an idea or an observation from somebody else or from a body of teaching and considering it. That's an easy one. But we have to go out, you know, okay, what is this nirvana thing?

[34:35]

Like, go out, you know. I believe it's a possibility, it's there, so then we go out and... Would you like to comment on the relation between words and thoughts? You said you do a lot of thinking. In my experience, a lot of words. You experience a lot of words? Yes. Do you see a distinction between words and thinking, or do you see them as synonyms? Well, my thinking contains a lot of words, but it also contains a lot of images as well. And also, I would include songs in that also. You know, I just bought a CD of Bach partitas that I like very much, and I like the pianist who's playing them very much, the way she does it.

[35:37]

But it's a double-edged sword, because this music is going through my head all the time, and I don't, you know, in a kind of unpleasant way, it's sort of like chatter. So, I would call that thought, but it's a melody. So, how do you experience it? Well, it seems that thinking's very much constrained by my vocabulary. And then you're saying there are other mental activities like hearing melodies. And I don't know why you'd want to call that thinking. What would you call it? What I would have thought it was some mental process. someone could have a recurring image or vision. And these are all things that go on inside the skull.

[36:42]

But I wondered more particularly if there's a sort of thinking that's less constrained by words. For example, if you ponder on some koan for many years, you may have a sense of it that's somewhat beyond the form of words which the koan came in. I haven't been able to organize my thinking to be that constructive yet, so I don't know. Somebody said to me, I don't know if this speaks to Barofit's question, that yesterday, that after all, words are only breath forms. Breath forms?

[37:45]

Yeah. They're breath forms. Yeah, that's true. They represent a lot. They're intricates. They represent a lot of intricacy. And I think that next week's Zen class that Meili's going to be covering is going to be talking about Dogen, where the admonition is to think non-thinking.

[39:02]

Which is, I think, that's what both of you are talking about. And he both does and doesn't tell you how to do it, and this is like a big how to just use our minds and experience our minds in a very direct way when the tools that we have, or that we think we have, are thinking. So we're always looking. We're always looking at this. You said that you thought Buddha was correct, but you were not prepared to defend it. faith and not belief.

[40:08]

I'm not sure what the difference is. I'm not so good with defining, unless I think about it. So I'm not so good at defining words. For me, the difference, I couldn't say the difference between belief and faith, because I haven't thought about it so much. To me, I would kind of... I know it, but I can't articulate it right now. Well, as I think about it. Like the fellow over here said, belief would have more to do with something that I've experienced, and faith would probably have more to do with something that I haven't actually experienced. So yeah, I would say that probably that's the kind of faith. But see, they're very directly, they're very intimately connected because I wouldn't have faith in something unless I had verified a part of it already through belief, or through, not through belief, but you could call it belief, because I'd already verified it in my own experience.

[41:24]

It's almost as if, well, if somebody's presenting this if I've already verified this but not this I kind of have some faith that this probably is so but I'm not sure. Could you talk a little more about Well, if you could articulate the dilemma, just briefly, it would help. If you could say how you see that. Well, I haven't been practicing and considering this practice. Well, for one thing, I suppose it's possible, but one thing is if you practice with a group of people, particularly in a zen center setting like this, or come to the zendo, even though people are quiet and not speaking,

[42:59]

you know, there's a relationship. You're related to everybody, you know, your bodies are moving around, you have to get out of people's way, you know, you have to time, you have to be on time. Something about, you know, you're definitely a part of the world at the same time as you're practicing meditation. So, that's a kind of superficial answer to your question. I have a deeper answer. I don't want to say something idealistic, it depends on your personality. It could be a problem, definitely, but by practicing with other people in your daily life, not something special where you go off to the mountains, but just in your daily life on a daily schedule which is appropriate for you that you can actually do with other people, it's not like separated. Particularly if you begin to know some of the people. who are doing the same thing. So it's a kind of way of guarding against becoming isolated, or so inward that you lose touch with the outside world.

[44:08]

Satya? This is not the done by myself. And what finally made me come to here and do re-listening is reading Xiao Zhou He's book called Every Day Zen, which really addresses what Zen is about in terms of the daily living. Man, like four years I've been locked with the fast like with my son, and I've gone to therapy and the therapist would always say, oh, just, if you can just step back a little bit. And, you know, intellectually, I can understand that. After I was sitting there, I finally sort of got close to getting what I needed.

[45:12]

You know, just a little bit sit back, and I can expect it. It's time. Thank you. or less.

[45:49]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ