This morning I want to talk about the background of meditation practice and the background of where our zazen practice comes from and what is different and what is similar to this background. The background of Indian meditation practices are the eight jhanas. Sometimes we say eight or nine jhana. Jhana is a, I think it's a Pali word, meaning meditation, and the Sanskrit word is dhyana, and as it comes to China, it's called, the meditation school was called chana, chana, or chan, and then in Japan, zena, or zen.

[01:30]

So we trace Zen back through China to India to Dhyana and Jhana. And the Jhanas are very specific, is a specific layout of step-by-step meditation practices. And each one is, the first four are called rupa jhanas, or meditations in the form realm, the realm of form. And the second four are called the arupa meditation, arupa jhanas. And those are called the formless meditations. Sometimes there are nine.

[02:34]

Sometimes the first jhana is divided into two. Subtle difference. And those jhanas are, the jhanas are then used to gain some kind of power. Siddhas. But Buddhism discourages meditating for some kind of power or special effect. But the jhanas do have a whole range. The jhanas cover the whole range of the basis of any kind of meditation you want to enter into. And since these were the prevailing meditation practices in Buddha's time, the Buddhists and Buddha also, according to the sutras, also based his meditation practice on these jhanas.

[03:35]

In other words, he used them to his own purpose, adapted them to his own style of meditation, which we call Buddhist meditation. And sometimes in the arhat schools of Buddhism, they practice all nine, eight or nine of the jhanas. But the Zen school developed Zazen practice based more on the form, the rupa jhanas. But instead of using a step-by-step meditation practice, Zazen includes various aspects of the jhanas.

[04:36]

but it's not a step-by-step meditation. And I'll explain that a bit. The first jhāna is... There are five factors that we count in the first jhāna, and it includes discursive thinking and various kinds of thought, thinking on some subject. And then there's joy and happiness and concentration. And these are factors which are included in the first jhana. And in the second jhana, discursive thinking and various kinds of thinking are eliminated.

[05:45]

And there's joy, happiness, and concentration. And the third jhana, joy is left behind. And there's happiness and concentration. And the fourth jhana, happiness is left behind and you have, but it's a little different. There's concentration and equanimity. Equanimity, even-mindedness, which means not non-discriminating mind, and non-attachment to pleasure or pain, and complete freedom in the realm of form.

[06:53]

And this is the jhana of enlightenment in the form realm. And it's the most closely aligned, the closest basis to Zen Zazen. But, as you know, to be so strict with the contents is a little too narrow. So Zazen actually includes more than that. But it's a kind of basis, kind of foundation. from the past, from the Indian model. Then, when the four rupa jhanas are mastered, you can do the arupa

[08:01]

meditations, the arupajanas. And the first one is meditation on infinite space. And the second one is meditation on infinite consciousness. And the third one is meditation on no thinking. or no object. And the fourth is neither thought nor no thought. And these four meditations in the formless realm are divorced from any kind of relationship, any kind of relation to anything in the world. They're like real gone meditations. which a lot of Indian yogis practice.

[09:04]

The fourth one, they're more like trance states. And in the fourth one you can get into a trance for maybe three weeks or some long period of time. Nothing comes in, nothing goes out. It's like a kind of vegetative state, almost like suspended animation. It is suspended animation. You don't eat or see or hear. All sensory input is gone or closed. I'm not sure how you wake up or how you return, but you do return. And the other meditations, the other arupajanas, in varying degrees, have similar kinds of trance-like states. In the Zen school, these trance-like states are not recommended.

[10:16]

And when people come to practice, they have various ideas of what meditation is. And sometimes they're very discouraged by Zen meditation, by Zazen. Because in Zazen, you don't close out anything. All the senses are in the fourth jhana, the fourth rupa jhana, in the realm of form. All the senses are open and present. And although discursive thinking is not present, concentration is present on form. So when they did them, you know, there have been many tests done on yogis and Zen people and scientific tests.

[11:27]

And one of the tests that they did was to see what kind of input or what kind of response there is to stimulus. And when they tested the yogis in India who had been doing the arupa jhanas, when they tapped a pencil or made some kind of rhythmic input and there was no registration at all. But with the Zen meditators, when there was some input, there was always a registration. And the registration was not necessarily held to. Something happens and there's a response, but then there's a letting go of the response.

[12:30]

And this difference is very important. So in zazen, or in the fourth jhana, there's always, there's a complete openness and response to stimulation and sensory input. Even though there's no There's a response in a sense of hearing, seeing, feeling, and so forth. But there's always a choice as to what to do with that, and in zazen the choice is to let it pass, or actually to be one with what appears. not to block or to eliminate. And one of the differences, the main difference between Buddhist meditation

[13:58]

And the meditation which is for some purpose. The various meditations usually have some purpose behind them. But zazen has no special purpose except pure existence. To exist just in pure existence. which means to understand, to see everything just as it is without partiality or judgment. So This is why, in the first three jhanas, we have thinking, first one, we have joy, and we have happiness, along with concentration.

[15:16]

But as we progress, we keep dropping what, first one we drop, the second jhana, we drop thinking mind. third jhana, we drop joy. Not that joy or happiness aren't important, but in order to exist in absolute reality, things like qualities like joy and happiness are rather very ephemeral. They come and go. They're not to be counted on. They're actually a product rather than a basis for anything. They are a basis for something, but strictly speaking, they're fleeting feelings and emotions in states, fleeting states.

[16:24]

So in order to get to the fundamental state, to reach our fundamental nature. If we attach to joy or happiness or anything, it's a hindrance. So in the fourth jhana, there's no attachment to pleasure and pain. or to happiness or unhappiness. All opposites are experienced with no attachment. Sometimes people meditate for various reasons. Most meditation practices, I think,

[17:27]

are geared toward joy and happiness. I think that's why most people want to meditate, to get some joy and happiness in their life. There's nothing wrong with joy and happiness, and actually it arises through zazen. So, we don't deny joy and happiness, but we don't attach to it. That's the main difference. So when you read about the jhanic states, you have to be careful, a little bit careful, because it's something written in a book to define something which is not so easily definable. And step-by-step meditation has a materialistic value to it.

[18:29]

To practice in a step-by-step way, you see some kind of value attached to it. If I do this, then the next one, and the next one. And it's a very fine line between actual zazen and materialistic meditation. If you want to have bliss or joy or happiness, if that's the goal of meditation, then that's just a materialistic viewpoint. So the point of dazen is spiritual progress rather than happiness or contentment.

[19:38]

Spiritual progress. When we do have spiritual progress, we also have joy and happiness. But if we attach to them, then it's no longer zazen. So without attaching to anything, to just let everything come and go. All kinds of feelings, ideas, whatever, partiality. Just let everything come and go. And in this way to know yourself. There are various reasons why you can say that we practice. And one of them is to know yourself in the realm of reality.

[20:47]

So we don't practice a step-by-step meditation, and we don't really practice the jhanas, but we should know about the background of zazen. We should be aware of that and understand the development of Buddhist meditation out of the jhanic, in relation to the jhanic meditations. Because you see all those qualities present in some form or another. And you'd be able to distinguish between what is zazen and what are our various meditation practices, and what the difference is.

[22:13]

Do you have any questions? The first one is that I stopped sitting for several weeks and realized after a while that I felt sort of more scattered and less centered. And so then I started sitting again and I feel a little bit less scattered. But is that sort of a mistaken idea according to what you said, we shouldn't be sitting with any gain? Well, concentration, you know, is present always.

[23:15]

And concentration is what keeps you from getting scattered. No problem. When I talk about gain, you know, I'm not talking about... Of course, you know, when we practice we feel right, you know. That's not gaining idea. You're not practicing to gain some special power or... You know, it takes a while to really understand zazen. And until you understand it, you practice for whatever reasons you have. Okay? And one reason why it's so difficult to understand buddhadharma, as Dogen says, is that it's simultaneously the understanding simultaneously arises all at once with enlightenment. Then you get it. But until that time, you know, you have various reasons for why you do things and what it's about and lots of perplexity, you know.

[24:24]

But you continue to practice with your perplexity, with your doubts, you know, with your lack of understanding. But you understand something, and there is enlightenment. It's enlightenment that encompasses your doubts and delusions. Within your delusions is also enlightenment. Your delusion is permeated with enlightenment. And that's why you continue, even though you're not really completely understanding. So, it takes time. I feel better when I sit satsang. I feel more together. It's okay. That's not a gaining idea exactly. But as your understanding becomes more refined, you'll be able to sort that out

[25:29]

in a way that you'll understand better. My other question is, you talk about if we sit then to make spiritual progress, and I'm not sure what you mean by spiritual progress, and we get to know ourselves better, and it suddenly occurred to me, this may seem like a silly question, but All of a sudden, that includes the assumption that knowing yourself is a useful or valuable thing. And I never questioned that assumption before. So why do we want to know ourselves? What else is there to know? He can question the assumption, that's good.

[26:38]

But, what else is there? I don't know. Yes. Well, I was going to ask about, I was going to ask what you meant by spiritual progress also. And you say, to know yourself, in what sense do you mean to know yourself? In all ways. But I mean self, is that the... But it's yourself. Right, it brings up the question, what is myself? Which is the koan, who am I? Which is the most vital question. Number one koan. Who am I? That's a... Those are all aspects of the same question.

[27:41]

And when you say a big self or a little self, it's all included in the question. What is the extent of myself? Well, then in that case I understand what you're saying, there's nothing else. That's right. In that sense, there's nothing else. can know about, but not all the contours of the earth, but what is the essence. What I mean by spiritual progress is not in a gaining sense, but means beyond happiness and unhappiness to know yourself. to put yourself out there.

[28:47]

Well, I think it's interesting that the Zen is based on the Upajana and not the Arupajana. Because, as we were talking about with the koan of what is the true way, The Chinese had only one word they used philosophically, mainly it was the Tao or the Way, and it was a real earthy type thing, grounded with form, and the Chinese culturally are very much into doing things and working and stuff like that, whereas the Indians are more into higher spiritual planes in their life, things like that. Yes, but we have to remember that Bodhidharma was Indian. So it's easy to look at the Chinese character and the Japanese character.

[30:03]

And it's true that the Chinese character and the Japanese character are more earthy in a sense. And their spirituality is an earthly spirituality. Whereas Indian spirituality is a more heavenly kind of spirituality. And Zen developed on a more earthly, a more earthly kind of spirituality. But it could have gone either way, because people are people, you know. But the Indian, there is a quality of Indian character that is formless, that really travels in those astral realms.

[31:06]

I wondered, maybe you can tie up on definitions, meditation practice, and I interpreted that to be more along the line of the Aruba Jones, that it would happen, not that at a certain degree of concentration. And I interpreted the absorption, to me, absorption and a kind of removal from contact with the external physical world, and yet that is Buddhist practice also. Yes, they're very Buddhist practices. They are, and they don't all necessarily agree with each other.

[32:12]

It's true. We're close to 10. What do you mean by concept of practice?

[33:28]

Well, one can become attached to just doing Satsang and just practicing. I like it, thinking that I know myself very well and it's not very successful. I think that ordinary mind is an antidote to that. Whatever you do, it immediately happens. It means you run back to it. So you don't become attached to the whole intellectual framework that has to do with practice. Instead of that, you just practice. Yeah, I see. to let go of the idea of practice and just practice. Yeah, we have to be careful of that. It's easy to get attached to the idea of practice in a kind of intellectual way.

[34:35]

Yeah, that's true. Also, would you mention the hindrances of some kind of entrance? Yeah, that's a good question. I'm glad you brought that up. I wanted to talk about that, but I didn't know where to put it in. How much time do we have? Technically speaking, we're five minutes over. That's probably why. That's a hindrance. I'll just enumerate what they are. The first one is craving, five hindrances to having access to getting into any meditation practices. Craving, which is easily one of the attributes of which is sex, sexual craving, but any kind of craving.

[35:44]

sloth and torpor. Well, no, the second one actually is anger. Angry state of mind is a hindrance. And sloth and torpor, which means laid-backness. And the fourth is There's various names for this, but there's one really good one. Agitated... Worry and flurry is one way to express it. The other is agitated moroseness or something like that. Those are kind of different. Agitated... Stuff is always going around in your mind, churning, churning.

[36:52]

Worry and flurry. And the last one is doubt, skeptical doubt. Those are the five hindrances. I was trying to decide whether I should give a talk on the five hindrances or the genesis, but actually some other time we'll talk about the hindrances. It's a good subject, because we all have all of them.

[37:27]

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