I vow to teach the truth of the Tathagata's words. Morning. Last week I was talking about the four foundations of mindfulness, one of the original sutras on practice. mindfulness of the body in the body, mindfulness of feelings in the feelings, mindfulness of mental states in mental states, and mindfulness of the objects of mind in the objects of mind. Today I want to talk a bit about the mindfulness of objects of the mind, in the mind.

[01:02]

Mindfulness of feelings has to do with both physical and psychological or psychophysical feelings. And mental states are anger, lust, confusion, any mental state, of which there are quite a few. And mind objects are all the objects of mind, which include mental states, includes feelings. But feelings are, because there are so many, they are categorized in their own, they have their own category. But objects of mind are anything that the mind focuses on. And to make things simple, as far as practice goes, I want to talk about the five spiritual faculties.

[02:35]

Five spiritual faculties are faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. And these all provide a foundation for enlightenment. But I also want to talk a little bit about how we take care of ourselves, mindfulness of the body and the objects around us. Suzuki Roshi always used to say that in order to really be able to practice, we have to make sure that everything is in order in our life. So mindfulness of keeping everything in order in our life is a real basis for practice.

[03:50]

How we take care of our body, to keep our body clean, to keep our... In the Sutra, it enumerates, you know, for monks, keep your hair, don't wear long hair, don't have long nails, Make sure that your body is clean and that your clothes are repaired and sewn and clean and all of the few possessions you have are taken care of. And then you have a basis for practice because you don't have to worry about sickness and broken down articles and messiness and so forth. So everything that we use, everything that we say belongs to us or we take care of is an aid to our practice.

[04:55]

And if it's not an aid to our practice, it doesn't help us, then why not let go of it? So, in this particular age, you know, very hard to live in a simple way. Almost impossible. In Buddha's time, it wasn't so hard to live in a simple way. And actually, all through history, up until maybe the last 150 years, it was not so hard to live in a simple way, but now it's very difficult unless you're a homeless person on the street. So one way to think about simplifying our life so that all of our possessions and all of the objects that we use have some significance in the direction of our life.

[06:13]

It's so easy to accumulate And then, well I'll keep that for a while even though I don't use it, you know, and then 20 years later, you know, it's still there. You know that one. So, how to really focus on the things that are necessary and not covet those things. Mindfulness of not coveting. Mindfulness of not feeling that we need more than we actually need. Mindfulness of what is my security? What is it that makes me secure? Money, possessions, a kind of fortress of protection of one way or another.

[07:23]

There are many fortresses of protection. One is strong walls, locked doors, steel metal vehicles, fat. Oh yes. So mindfulness and awareness of our physical body and how to take care of it and our surroundings and how to take care of our surroundings and how our surroundings and our physical body interact are not two things. So, to take care of our surroundings so that our surroundings help us to practice and are not something which draws us away or overburdens us.

[08:33]

And in this way, we can simplify our life if we are very mindful of what it is that helps us to practice, and what it is that draws our energy off. So the five spiritual faculties are faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. And in the Sutra, it says that of these five, none of these five should stand out by itself independently. But what creates the factor of enlightenment is that they all balance each other.

[09:45]

And faith and wisdom balance each other. And energy and concentration balance each other. They are counter to each other. Counterweight. And mindfulness is in the middle. So it's maybe like a vehicle, like an airplane. The tips of the wings are faith and wisdom, the engines are energy and concentration, and the body is mindfulness. Mindfulness is present in all five, has to be present in all five. Mindfulness is like the glue that holds it all together and which brings us back and makes us aware of what we're doing moment by moment.

[10:54]

So in Buddhism, what is faith? We say that in order to practice zazen, one has to have faith in our nature, faith in Buddha nature. But what does that mean? Confidence is another word for faith. Confidence is, of course, necessary in order to do anything well. And when we do something well, and we see the results, then we gain some confidence. And when we have that strong confidence, then that strong confidence is called faith. If we have an overabundance of faith, and we don't have anything to hold it in check, then faith can overwhelm all the other faculties.

[12:05]

And it can it can weaken concentration, and it can weaken energy, and it can weaken concentration, wisdom. So wisdom is discernment. There are three kinds of wisdom, but they're more of a Wisdom which is acquired, wisdom which is innate, almost like intuition, and wisdom which is experience, comes from experience. During the Super Bowl, If you watch the Super Bowl, they have the roster of the players, and each player says, my name is blah, blah, and I'm from UCLA.

[13:19]

And the other one says, I'm so-and-so, and I'm from Notre Dame, and so on and so forth. And this one football player said, my name is so-and-so, and I'm from the school of hard knocks. I really like that guy. That's wisdom accumulated through experience. So, wisdom is the counterbalance to faith and keeps faith from going off on its own and believing in too much in something. we can see examples of faith gone amok in this world today. Faith without discernment, without any kind of investigation. So in Buddhism, investigation and discernment and proof is very important.

[14:32]

especially to balance our faculty of faith. So we don't say you should have faith in such and such a thing. But if you find out on your own, if you prove to yourself on your own what works, then you will have faith. So faith comes up through investigation. We don't say believe in something. And faith is actually not in Buddhism, is not believing in something. As a matter of fact, it's believing in nothing. The pinnacle of faith in Buddhism is believing in nothing. And no special thing. So we say, well, how, you know, what happens? How can I have faith in life itself?

[15:39]

I'm born into this world, and then when I die, then what? Nothing. So in Buddhism we say, well, there is no In actuality, there is no actual birth and death of a person. Experientially, we have the feeling of birth and death. And then what? What happens after we die? Is there no life? Buddhism said, well, there's rebirth. But if you have faith in rebirth, then you should investigate. What does that mean? Is that true? Is there such a thing? Or do I just have to have faith that that's so, because somebody said so? You should investigate birth and death. That's actually Buddhist practice, to investigate what is birth and death, and what does it mean?

[16:50]

that there is no birth and no death. And what does it mean that there is rebirth? So it's all kind of a little complicated, right? So in Buddhadharma, what is born and dies is a self. And what a self is, is something that clings, something that grasps, something that attaches. That's a self. So there can be a human being, but without a self. But we feel experientially that there is a self. But that self that we feel experientially is not a substantial self.

[17:55]

It's simply phenomena rolling along, changing, transforming continuously. So what is this changing and transforming? Who changes and transforms? If we look around us, we can see that everything is changing and transforming. I asked Hoitsu, my teacher, when he was here, I said, well, you know, in Japan, in our school, what do they, how do you take care of dying people? And he said, I said, is there anything written about, you know, how you take your... He said, I just hold their hand. He says, and I realized that everything is dying with me.

[19:01]

The whole world is dying. I'm dying, the whole world is dying. No problem. I'm being born, the whole world is being born. No problem. Everything just goes along together. No problem. Who is it that's I? What is this I business? So we have to investigate. Is that true? Is there a soul? Investigate. Nagarjuna says there's no soul. He proved it. Buddha says there's no soul. Is that true? You should find out. Then, if there's no soul, what do we have faith in?

[20:03]

If there's no deity, what is there faith in? Yet, if we don't have faith, Then what? We have despair. So is life despair? There has to be some optimism. It can't be that there's nothing. But there's no special thing. We despair because we feel that we are very special. And that there's some special thing that is me. But if we identify with life itself, some form in the universe.

[21:16]

Jeez, I hate to lose this one. But it's also saved. It's all right here in each moment. Not to worry about the future or the past, but really to pay attention to this moment. It's forever. But mystification should balance That'd be your faith.

[22:22]

Here? No. Yes. It was going in and out. Anyway, Buddha always said, investigate for yourself. Don't just take the word of somebody else. But the word of somebody else is very helpful because it's called direction. We should listen to what has gone before. and then investigate for ourself. So it's very important to study and to sincerely take in what other people have discovered and then investigate for ourself, balance our faith with wisdom.

[23:40]

And faith is like the strong underlying condition for any kind of practice. And then energy is necessary to carry our practice along. So we should be very mindful of our energy states. I'm feeling high energy today, I'm feeling high energy right now, I'm feeling low energy right now. How is always to be aware of the level of energy in your body and then when you focus on the level of energy in your body then why is the energy low?

[24:47]

And then you kind of take it to its root and you can make some adjustments. Well, why is the energy high? And you can take that to its root and get some information that way. So you're always aware and mindful of your level of energy. and you can make some adjustment. Sometimes we feel, well, my energy is very low and I can't do so much. And then we kind of succumb to that. But if you say, my energy is low right now, but maybe it needs some concentration. So I'll apply concentration to what I'm doing. And when we apply the concentration, then the energy can, we can raise our energy. You know, sometimes the dog, the dog will, you know, not feel so good.

[25:53]

The nose is warm. Dog's nose should always be wet and cold. You can feel, you can tell the dog, how the dog is by feeling the nose. And then, say, let's take a walk. So, Dog gets out and starts walking and starts running around pretty soon. The energy level is very high because concentration is balancing the energy. And when you're, you know, feeling a little bit slothful, then you turn on some music and the music kind of energizes you in concentrating. and then pretty soon you're full of energy again. So our energy states depend a lot on our inspiration, on our mental state. Mental state and energy state are very much connected.

[26:53]

Sometimes, there are many reasons why we might have a low energy state, and I can't argue with that. It's also quite possible in many ways, in a lot of ways, to activate your energy. When, in the morning, the alarm goes off, and you say, oh, my energy state is very low. But you just roll out of bed, and as soon as you start moving, it's back. So, directed to... to... concentration. So, concentration turns toward sloth. Actually, because you do it... I don't drink marijuana, but... You get really good concentration, but very slothful.

[28:17]

So, energy is... Energy and concentration are really paired and balance each other. Also, they weren't together with the other four faculties, with the other two faculties. So, sometimes when concentration is really strong, there's neglect. Mindfulness is what brings us back to balancing all the faculties. So when one is concentrated, one should be mindful. This is concentration. This is a state of high concentration, or this is a state of low concentration. And when one is energized, this is a state of high energy, this is a state of low energy.

[29:27]

When one is, the faculty of faith is strong, this is a strong faculty of faith, or this is, right now is a weak faculty of faith, maybe doubt. Doubt is important. Wisdom is the, has the quality of being able to doubt. So, doubt the direction of wisdom. Because wisdom can just go kind of like... Wisdom is innocent. And it's like a child, you know, who runs off and Wisdom, as doubt, says, don't do that, don't go in that direction. No, no, no, don't go over there, go over here. So, in wisdom, doubt and faith are a pair, which is too strong.

[30:40]

Skepticism doesn't allow anything to arise. Or is doubt which is overpowering. But doubt by itself is investigation. So very important. Someone who says, I have great faith and no doubt is in a dangerous position because you can do all kinds of damage through faith that has no doubt. And as we see in the world today, many people have such strong faith and no doubt. And so their faith justifies any malicious act that they might perpetuate in the name of faith. So it's a kind of perversion of faith. So faith meaning counter-tendency.

[31:51]

But without it, you can't do anything. So balance of the fact... So that... Is standing... without a counter. Do you have any questions? Since you brought it up, it's a lovely subject, but you were talking about He's about, well, if you've ever smoked marijuana, so I'm just going to break, we don't have to spend a lot of time on this, but I'm just thinking, you know, I have friends who like to drink tea, or friends who like to drink coffee, or friends who like to drink wine, or friends who like to smoke grass, and I just think, you know, all these things are affecting us, and we have this precept of not,

[33:12]

Yeah. Well. Everything you eat or drink has some effect on your body and your mind and your mental state. So, I mean, if you eat raw vegetables, you know, just eat raw vegetables only, you'll feel energized and healthy and high. It's true. And so you get a kind of, that's a really good high. If you really want to get high, Lots of bad vegetables without a lot of other things.

[34:18]

So, you know, coffee is a kind of stimulant and tea is a kind of stimulant, but they're low-level stimulants in comparison to dope and drink. So, I mean, we all know the effects of smoking. you know, but marijuana is a low-level dope and it changes your mental state radically, changes your mental state radically, so that's different than tea which has a kind of stimulating effect on your mental state, but it doesn't change your mental state radically. So, the line is... you draw a line where a stimulant or a depressant changes your mental state radically. Drinking liquor can change your mental state radically.

[35:25]

If you have a glass of wine, it changes a little bit. If you have two glasses of wine, it changes a little bit more. And if you drink the whole bottle, it changes it more. And I have known people who can drink a whole bottle of wine throughout the day. And they're always on a certain kind of level. I've known those people. It wasn't tasteful to me. And then there are people who drink and are really nasty and out of control, you know. In the Navy, in the old Navy, every sailor had their ration of rum, or porter or whatever they called it, you know. And the Navy couldn't exist without it. But they got along.

[36:27]

high-level workers, you know, who work skyscraper workers, you know, up there on the boards and superstructures. Drunk as a skunk, you know, but they know what they're doing and they manage. I don't recommend it. For a Zen student, you should try to keep your mind as clear as possible. And that's what the precept is about. Actually the precept says don't sell liquor, but it means don't cloud the mind. Keep your mind as clear as possible without changing your mental state through some kind of So, clear mind. Clear mind precept.

[37:32]

Keep your mind clear, but even though you may be confused without it, it's better to be confused without it than to be clear with it. Paul? It seems to me that when we talk about ourselves or our egos, it's also something that's shaped by the culture, It's like a radical shaping of an ego that can exist within our culture that's different from an ego in another culture. And we tend to identify with that, or at least we hold it as a sign of our sanity to live that way, function within the culture, I think. I'm not sure what your point is.

[38:36]

Well, when we try to locate who the I is. Oh, okay. We've located it. I can tell you what it is. It's that which grasps. The I is that which grasps and clings to your attachments. That's what creates the I. It's the consciousness of me, mine and myself. That's the I. Actions which are self-centered. Actions which are not self-centered are actions of the no I, the not I. So when we think about, is this a self-centered action, selfish action, or not?

[39:54]

That's what mindfulness is always coming back to. Is this a self-centered action? Is this a selfish action? If it is, then there's an I which arises. An I arises through clinging to anger, clinging to lust, clinging to confusion, clinging to whatever, clinging to any mental state or any object of mind or any feeling. But as soon as there's clinging to an attachment to any feeling, any mental state, or any object of mind, then an I arises. That's the identification. And when that happens, that's called the arising of manas. or ego consciousness.

[40:58]

I didn't say it was bad, I just said that's what it is. You said Suzuki Roshi said that he'll always be somewhere in the universe, was that kind of the right quote? Yeah. What does that mean? Like some molecules that are in my body might be over somewhere sometime? I mean, what is that? I don't know. Is that supposed to be meaningful to me? Yes. It is. You know why? No. I know, you don't know why. Do you want to know why? I think so. No, you don't. Because you've finally let go of yourself. You know, in the Heart Sutra it says not to cling to any perverted views. But we are all clinging to perverted views, upside down, literally, upside down views.

[42:03]

Upside down views that clinging to what we have is beneficial. So this... You know, a pillar is not clinging to itself, it's to any perverted view. But, I mean, you're not really teaching the pillar, you're teaching us. It seems like just some molecules somewhere... I didn't say that. That's just your idea. I said, I don't know. You're just saying there's molecules. But what else is it but molecules? What else is it ever even now? Yeah. I have... I can't quite... I know. See, it is molecules and it's not just molecules, right?

[43:06]

It's my feelings, my mental states, and my objects of mind, and my body. What is it for? So we should be mindful of the body in the body because it's my body, right? And I should take care of it, right? And be mindful of it. It's my feelings and I should own my feelings and take care of them, right? And not try to get rid of them, just be aware of them, right? It's my mental states and I should just be aware of them without judging them. And it's my objects of mind without judging them or trying to get rid of them or trying to hang on to them. That's mindfulness practice. Without creating an ego around them. To just watch how they arise, how they are there and how they are not there.

[44:09]

Without creating a person, or an I. So if I say, or Suzuki Roshi says, you will always find yourself somewhere in the universe, what do you think that means? Maybe it's not talking about... It's not talking about myself. Something that's going to happen after... No, that's right. It's not... That's right. And also, nothing... We didn't come here and we're not leaving here. You've always been here. That's why you're here. You know, if we worry about what will happen, then you have a big problem called worry.

[45:17]

But if you just let things go along with life, then life and death are not two different things, even though life is life and death is death. Because within this life right now is death. We're dying right now. And we're coming back to life. It's continuous. It's just that this side looks like life. The other side looks like death. But if you don't fall into them, into one side or the other, one is contained within the other. It's gotta be. Otherwise, we couldn't call this life. And we couldn't call that death. Cognitive science, I've tried to explain the mind simply by mechanical stuff, but eventually there was something completely irreducible that was consciousness.

[46:29]

Whenever you do it somewhere and it's not in any thinking or model, science can come up with. So that seems to me the most unique and stranging, maybe completely separate from molecules. It's localized, so I can... What's not alive? It's localized consciousness. Localized consciousness, yeah, localized consciousness. Yes, it's localized consciousness. To big consciousness, and then there's localized consciousness. You know, I've done both cognitive science and Zen, and I don't know... They just don't work together, but... What doesn't work together? Science, cognitive science and Zen. Well, one is like, you know, you know something and then you think about it, right? Do you know what I'm saying? So the thing comes first and then the thought comes afterwards, right? Okay, so religion is like, the thing comes first.

[47:30]

Science is, you think about it afterward. Science doesn't have, does not take up things which are not already Revealed, or present. But our intuition of consciousness is very... We know we know or something like that. I don't think consciousness... It's not knowing? It's not knowing. What is this thing? It's molecules of consciousness. Is that something outside of the universe? No. Well, what is outside of the universe? What is consciousness? I don't know. Nobody knows. Well, nobody knows, that's right. But even though nobody knows, it doesn't mean you don't know something.

[48:32]

Yeah. Or, you know, a consciousness is a way of describing something, right? We're describing something that is hard to describe, but there's consciousness that comes through the eye, consciousness that comes through the nose, the ear, the feeling, the taste, and so forth, and then there's the consciousness which separates all that and makes order out of it, And then there's consciousness which holds all the seeds of our behavior. And then there's consciousness which says, I am a separate being. I am a separate being is the consciousness, that's the problem. It keeps us separated. Without that consciousness, that piece of wood, although it's a piece of wood and you are you,

[49:34]

are not separate. What separates you is your idea of separation, even though you can't eat it. Otherwise, we find ourselves as human beings in a world totally separate from us. Do you breathe? No, you don't. You are breathed. The blood runs through your veins. Your body takes care of itself, even though you think you do. And you cooperate. There's some consciousness that cooperates with all this activity. And so, because there's this consciousness which cooperates with all this activity, we say, that's me. But really, it doesn't belong to you.

[50:40]

And you and the tree are related. You're relatives, even though the tree is a tree and you are you. Tree is, we separate into animal, mineral, vegetable, and so forth. But you know, we're vegetable. We're vegetables. Children come from cabbages. We're vegetable. We're mineral. We're everything. We're all related. It's all related. But we feel separate. It's not consciousness. We created that out of consciousness. That was created out of human consciousness. As a matter of fact, I created this myself. This is not a tree.

[51:44]

If you said, you were once a tree, this piece of wood would say, are you kidding? This nut wants a tree. But yet, without a tree, this wouldn't exist. And without trees, you wouldn't exist. I'll tell you the truth. You would not exist without trees. There are people who want to cut down all the trees and they don't realize that they wouldn't exist without them. Because the trees are breathing us. I mean, if we allow ourselves to open up to this, then we can let go of our ego. That ego is not bad, it's just our sense of separation. Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking that of this substance of which there is no separation, that it emerges as a tree, or as a

[52:58]

weed, or as a human, or as a machine. It emerges in all these forms, each one having, in our awareness of it, different properties. A tree having leaves, a machine being of metal, a human being having consciousness. That the particularity of being a human being versus a tree is an awareness of not being tree. And the tree, perhaps, I mean, I don't know, I've never been a tree in my human remembrance, but may not have that awareness of I'm tree and you're human, but this particular form of everything, which exists in my human form, has an awareness of that. To me, the question of consciousness is, I don't know what consciousness is, but it allows me to know that there's separation, and that separation can either... that awareness is this... makes it possible for me to recognize this sort of... I don't know, what's the word, you know, miracle.

[54:22]

But it can also separate me. I can also use it to shut down. It can be both. In other words, it allows us to see the separation and also allows us to see the connection. If there's no inherent self or separate self and there's only one, then why do we take a vow to save all beings? Diamond Citrus says We take the vow to save all sentient beings even though there are no sentient beings to save.

[55:25]

But there isn't just oneness. There's oneness and multiplicity. If you say there's only oneness, that's dualistic. There's oneness and multiplicity. But the problem is that most of us only see the multiplicity and the hard part is to see the oneness. That's why we emphasize the oneness. But it's oneness and multiplicity. Not one, not two. You have to recognize the multiplicity. I mean, you can't avoid it, of course. But you have to realize that the multiplicity is like my hand, right? This is one, right? And this is five. But it's the same hand. One and five. Oneness and multiplicity.

[56:34]

And Paul, you're the last one. I'm remembering in Japanese... Who? In Japanese, when people are talking Japanese, When they say, myself and yourself, they'll point to their own noses and say, myself and yourself. And there's something in the language, there's a gesture that makes you think of one's self. There's a Japanese gesture, when you say, myself, they'll point to their nose. I don't know why, but maybe that's why. There are some cultures that don't have a word for me. But we should be mindful of the fact that everything that... the interconnectedness of everything

[57:41]

There's nothing that is not myself. There's just nothing that is not myself. And if we understand that, or even try to understand it, we'll be more careful than we are. But it's hard to forget that. And what makes us forget that is our sense of isolation, our sense of over-reliance on the ego. Ego is important, you know, because we need a sense of ourself. We need a sense of separateness. But the problem is that when you reinforce that, it creates a sense of self-centeredness and grasping. and clinging. This is why Buddha says the source of suffering is desire.

[58:55]

Desire doesn't mean desire for the necessary things of life. It means desire for more than... it means greed. It means insatiability. power, the need for power, the need for wealth, the need for entertaining games. We should be very careful, you know, not to hate the people we hate, who we love to hate, because we have to realize how insecure they are. that they must be driven by insecurity. Anyone that needs so much power and domination has to be driven by insecurity. So I feel very sorry for those people.

[59:58]

And anyone that needs so much wealth has to be driven by insecurity, whether they know it or not. Because if they really felt connected And it causes a lot of suffering in the world. So, not only does desire cause our own suffering, but it causes suffering to the world all around us. Dangerous. Out of control. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[60:48]

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