So, good morning everyone. Hopefully I'm having a few technical difficulties here. So, I was, today we're talking about, Hozon asked me to talk about the four foundations or establishments of mindfulness. And while I was waiting to give the talk, I thought, well, why don't I start practicing the moment-to-moment mindfulness techniques. A very interesting kind of feeling, first, a sort of uneasiness in the solar plexus.

[01:11]

Then saying judgmentally, anxiety, fear, then saying, where are my feet? Oh, I feel my feet. Oh, I can feel the cloth of my robes all over my body. I can hear some crows, crows. So, my mind goes to crows, crows. Starts to go to a story, no, feet, feet. Then pictures, oh, family, no, feet. So, I've been having an interesting time of it, doing what the Foundation of Mindfulness Sutras advise us to do. So, that I've been kind of recognizing how essential and how core they are to what we do every day and what we do in our sitting.

[02:24]

But before talking about the sutra directly, I just wanted to, I had to, for me, go back and kind of look at the evolution of somehow our practice and how our practice came to be out of those early texts. And how they evolved a little bit and some of the definitions so that I could feel more comfortable thinking about it myself. So, in the oldest Buddhist texts, jhana, d-h-y-a-n-a in Sanskrit or jhana, j-h-a-n-a in Pali is the training of the mind, commonly translated as meditation. In Mahayana Buddhism, meditation was brought to China, at least in our school, by the Bodhidharma, who was considered the founder of the Chan school and taught the wall sitting practice that we do today.

[03:35]

Interesting, the word Chan is actually an abbreviation of another Chinese word, chana, which is, in fact, transliteration of the Sanskrit word jhana. So, Chan Buddhism is meditation. And in Japan, of course, Chan became Zen, meaning meditation, with the Japanese pronunciation. So what was this meditation? What was the meditation? How is the meditation described by the Buddha in the Buddhist time? Because this is about this is where this sutra comes from. So, there are a lot of ways that meditation is described in Indian texts. Some of it is calming the mind. Some of it is withdrawing the mind from automatic responses to sense impressions, leading to a state of perfect equanimity and awareness.

[04:43]

Another translation of meditation that's preferred by some of our Vipassana teachers is mental cultivation, which implies making an effort to bring in being certain wholesome qualities of mind through some kind of systemic training. And that's where there's kind of this tension a little bit with how does our practice and the Buddha's practice and the practice the Buddha is recommending, how does that fit with the differences in meditation currently? So, over time, different schools of meditation developed in both India and in other countries where all of these same texts were shared. But in the process, there was a split between some of the Mahayana schools in the northern Asiatic countries and the Theravada school in Southeast Asia.

[05:46]

So, I don't want to oversimplify, but basically the northern countries, particularly Korea, Japan and China, focused on the Mahayana sutras more. And the Theravadan schools focused on the earlier Pali sutras. And over time, the Chan and Zen schools emphasized shamatha practice or tranquility practice and the Theravadans focused on Vipassana or insight practice. So, I wondered, you know, what did the Buddha say? So, in the Pali Canon, the Buddha mentions shamatha and Vipassana meditation practice, but not as separate. The Buddha considered them to be two qualities of mind that both would be developed during meditation with shamatha being more calm, abiding, which steadies, composes, settles the mind, concentrates the mind.

[06:56]

And Vipassana is insight, which enables us to see or explore or discern more the workings of the skandhas, to look beyond the awareness and the naming to the mechanisms underneath. So, a monk, Tanisario Bhikkhu writes, when the Pali sutras depict the Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, they never quote him as saying, go do Vipassana, but always go do jhana. And they never equate the word Vipassana with any mindfulness techniques. In the few instances where they do mention Vipassana, they almost always pair it with shamatha, not as two alternative methods, but as two qualities of mind that a person may gain or be endowed with that should be developed together.

[08:00]

In our Japanese tradition, we say that the heart of our practice is zazen. In Japanese, za means seat and zen means meditation. So, zazen is simply seated meditation. It doesn't say anything about the kind of meditation. In the fukan zazengi, Dogen calls our practice, and we've studied this, this practice period, shikantaza, which is defined variously as just sitting, single pointed concentration, resting in a state of brightly alert attention that is free of thoughts, directed to no object and attached to no particular content. Suzuki Roshi, and not always so, just simply says shikantaza is just being yourself, sitting without expectation, without moving in each instant, concentrating on each inhalation, each exhalation. Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation.

[09:13]

But in a recent commentary by Uchiyama Roshi, on Dogen's fascicle on the Makahanya Paramita Sutra, which is called the Manifestation of Great Pranayama, he writes that the actual translation of the Japanese word shikantaza is that shi means shamata, or single pointed concentration or tranquility, and kan means vipassana or insight, and again za means seat. He defines tranquility practice as letting go of thought or opening the hand of thought, stopping greed, hate, and an idea of self. And in shi, we see that our thoughts come and go, are impermanent, and are secretions of the brain that we cannot let go of, and we cannot let go of them.

[10:18]

He says, to see that these secretions are nothing but secretions, are empty of self, is kan or insight. So, what I'm seeing is that when the Buddha talked about meditation in his early talks, he talked about both of these, not as separate, but as complementary practices. This shamata practice of abiding and concentration, and vipassana practice of observing the way that things work. There's another old sutra that I came across, the Sutra of the Four Ways to Arhatship, where Ananda says,

[11:20]

Using calm, abiding insight in one of three ways people attain arhatship. They develop calm, abiding mind, and then insight. That's one way. The second way is they develop insight, and then they evolve calm, abiding mind. And the third way is they developed calm, abiding mind and insight in tandem. So, the best compromise I found in modern discourse was, basically, if we practice tranquility meditation, we can develop a strong foundation for the experience of insight. A stable mind can stop thinking, can stop going on. It can abide in stillness and clarity, and it enables us to stay with the breath, to stay with bare awareness and be fully awake.

[12:30]

And the more that we do that, the more that we see. We see phenomenon, and we see them as objects that can stay and pass away. And if we continue to practice, we begin to see what conditioned existence and the coming and how things arise and cease. And this forms the basis of Right View. So, even though there's a lot of, if you look through discussions of practicing Vipassana, practicing Samatha practice, it's more a matter of where you start, not a matter of what you include. And I'm saying this because in this Four Foundations for Establishing Mindfulness, it gives us a lot of instructions, some of which feel like they're the kind of instructions we're familiar with, that we use all the time in our Zazen practice.

[13:44]

And some of them feel different. They're asking us to maybe look a little differently or practice a little differently with some of the phenomena that we encounter. So I say this to say that you can approach it either way, and you can approach it from one end or the other. And where we practice our Samatha practice, we focus on the calm, abiding mind, single-pointed concentration. But as Uchiyama pointed out, our Shikantaza also includes the insight that comes from this practice. So, that brings me to the discussion of the Satipatthana Sutta. So the Satipatthana Sutta is one of the oldest suttas, and the Sanskrit name combines sati, which means mindfulness or remembering, and upathana, which means place of abiding.

[15:01]

So, mindfulness and remembering in a place of abiding. And in Chinese, the name is called nian qu, where nian means mindful and qu means dwelling place or act of establishing oneself or being. For our Vipassana colleagues, this sutra is considered, the practice of Vipassana is considered rooted in this particular discourse. This is a central text, and it's interesting, I was surprised in looking at the book, The Heart of Buddhist Teaching, and finding that it took up 11 pages of his book. And that's in real contrast to, say, a book on Vipassana training.

[16:08]

So, it shows that where you place this sutra depends on how you view these practices. And it's just very interesting to me, Thich Nhat Hanh has also written a separate book called Transforming and Healing on the sutra of the four establishments of mindfulness as well. But in our book, it was really not treated in any kind of way that you could really get the feel of it. So, what I want to do now is to kind of move to the sutra itself and give you a sense of what it feels like. So, I'm first going to read the first part of the sutra.

[17:21]

I heard these words of the Buddha one time, and he was living at Kamasadharma, a market town of the Kuru people. The Buddha addressed the bhikkhus, O bhikkhus, and the bhikkhus replied, Venerable Lord. The Buddha said, Bhikkhus, there is a most wonderful way to help living beings realize purification, overcome direct grief and sorrow, end pain and anxiety, travel the right path and realize nirvana. This way is the four establishments of mindfulness. What are the four establishments of mindfulness? Bhikkhus, a practitioner remains established in the observation of the body in the body, diligent, with clear understanding, mindful, having abandoned every craving, every distaste for this life. He remains established in the observation of feelings, in the feelings, diligent, with clear understanding, mindful,

[18:31]

having abandoned every craving and every distaste for this life. He remains established in the observation of mind, in the mind, diligent, with clear understanding, mindful, having abandoned every craving, every distaste for life. He remains established in the observation of the objects of mind, diligent, with clear understanding, mindful, having abandoned every craving and every distaste for this life. Well, this is one of the characteristics of this text. It's repetitious. There's a lot of repetition. It's almost like these are things that you can memorize. They're kind of like mantras. But the other thing about the repetition in this first section is that he's saying that we treat all of the aspects of ourselves

[19:33]

in the same way. We don't give any special treatment to any aspect of ourselves. Whether we're thinking about mindfulness of the body, of the feelings, of the mind, of the object of mind, all of these are treated in the same way. And this is really important because you'll also notice as the sutra goes on, he spends a tremendous amount of detail in the first discussion of observing the body within the body. There's a tremendous amount of detail. And he doesn't spend the same amount of detail when he starts talking about feelings or the mind because he's telling us these are the methods that we're going to use. This is the way we approach these things. So in each of the next chapters in this sutra, he asks the same question.

[20:37]

How does a practitioner remain established in each of these four areas? So in discussing mindfulness of body, he starts by the practice of focusing on breath to promote awareness and stability. And he gives two examples. He goes to the forest to the foot of the tree to an empty room, sits down cross-legged in the lotus position, holds his body straight and establishes mindfulness in front of him. He breathes in aware that he is breathing in. He breathes out aware that he's breathing out. When he breathes in long breath, he knows I'm breathing a long breath. When he breathes out a long breath, he knows I'm breathing out long breath. When he breathes in a short breath, he knows I am breathing a short breath.

[21:41]

When he breathes out a short breath, he knows I'm breathing out a short breath. Then he has a refrain. He uses the following practice. Breathing in I'm aware of my whole body, breathing out I'm aware of my whole body. and then breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I calm my body. So the first part of this he gives us the instruction of how we use breath with our body. And after that first part he he has a paragraph that he repeats 19 times in this sutra. So it must be important to pay attention to. So after he talks about breathing in I calm my body, breathing out I calm my body, he

[22:43]

says this is how a practitioner observes the body in the body. He observes the body from within or from without or from both within and without. He observes the process of coming to be in the body with the process of dissolution in the body or both. The process of coming to be and the process of dissolution. Or he is mindful of the fact there is a body here until understanding and full awareness come about. He maintains the observation free not caught up in worldly affairs. This is how to practice observation of the body in the body holy because. So that particular sentence that he that particular paragraph that he repeats 19 times has has four aspects in it that are worth looking at. The first

[23:49]

one is contemplating our experience in Turner internally and externally and both. So what does that mean? Part of it means not only watching the breath or what's inside the body but watching the body in space. For example he says when a practitioner walks he's aware I'm walking. When he's standing he's aware I'm standing. When he's sitting he's aware I'm sitting. If he's going backward or forward he knows which way. He has full awareness of each action. So there the body the body is looked at as an a form in the world acting in the world and needs to be paid attention to. And we need to be we need to watch the body in

[24:53]

motion as well as the body in meditation. So he's really talking more he's talking about the body in this meditation on the body instruction of meditating on the body in the body internally or externally. He's really talking about taking this taking this practice making this really a practice this body awareness practice. The other thing he brings up in this same way of internal and external is the matter of detail. And this is this first this first section of the of the Sutra is really filled with detail that maybe you don't want to read. It's not necessarily pleasant detail but it's detailed. He's kind of giving us the whole picture. So he starts with a paragraph just introducing what we know

[25:56]

many of us know as a practice of body scan. Body scan is often used as a separate practice. It's used in mindfulness based stress reduction and it's a very popular practice in Vipassana tradition. We actually don't use this as a practice in Zen although some of us when we talk to people about meditating we talk about noticing parts of your body but not in this systematic way. So this is what the Buddha says. Further the practitioner meditates on his very very own body from the soles of the feet upwards and then from the hair to the top of the head downwards. A body contained inside the skin and full of all the impurities which belong to their body. Here's the hair of the head and hairs on the body. The nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, diaphragm, spleen, lungs, intestines, bowels, excrement, bile, phlegm,

[27:13]

pus, blood, sweat, fat, tears, grease, saliva, mucus, synovial fluid. He says without seeing the body in this way we can't know the body. And he repeats this. He repeats his phrase. This is how a practitioner remains established in the observation of the body with the body. And then he says again in whatever position the body happens to be. Notice the elements that constitute the body. In this body as earth element, water element, fire element, air element. Always there is a body here. So he's not he's not talking the niceties anymore.

[28:21]

He's letting us know that this is hard practice. This is not easy practice. This is not just looking at the surface or a feel-good oh I feel so good when I feel the breath go in and out. He's saying no that's not including everything. Include everything systematically. He's suggesting systematically include everything. And then I have to say I have to do this because because I was a doctor and doctors do this. I just can't resist reading about his comparisons that he wants us to see everything. He wants us to know every everything the good the bad and the ugly about everything. So further the practitioner compares his own body with a corpse which he imagines he sees thrown into a charnel ground pecked at by crows, eaten by hawks, vultures and

[29:24]

jackals, and infested with maggots and worms. This body of mine is of the same nature. It will end up the same way. There is no way I can avoid that state. And later on he says compare your body with a corpse. It's just a skeleton with a little flesh and blood sticking to it. The bones are held together by ligaments. He observes this body of mine is the same nature. And he says again further compare your body with a corpse. It is just a skeleton now. There's no flesh but it's smeared by a little blood and bones and held together by ligaments. So he takes that he takes us to this place of observation of this isn't just some feel-good thing this stuff. This is hard work. You sit down there and you do this

[30:27]

meditation. And to free yourself from attachment. To understand impermanence. To understand no self. You've got to get to the bottom of it. You can't be afraid. Even that. It was interesting. I really when I first read this years ago. I couldn't imagine people being sent to the charnel grounds to observe. And I had this idea that he wanted everybody to go to the charnel grounds. And interestingly as a medical student we all had a cadaver in those days. People don't do that anymore. Some people you can I understand you can request a cadaver. But when I went to medical school the cadaver was a rite of passage. And we had a number of us assigned to a body. And we dissected that body for a semester. And the

[31:32]

feeling was that if we were going to be doctors. And isn't the Buddha a doctor after all? Isn't a Buddha a doctor a medicine giver? You have to understand the nitty-gritty of how it works. And when I was in India a few years a number of years ago. I mean I thought charnel grounds were some foreign thing. You had to go get it. But in India there are a lot of charnel grounds. And because because they cremate everyone. And they have ceremonies. And they have these charnel grounds. And I remember seeing one on the banks of the Ganges. And there were piles of wood and bodies. And which shrouded. And then some of them had people around them. And some of them were having ceremonies. And I thought well this is this is not some foreign thing. So when the Buddha was talking about the charnel grounds. He was talking about something that was an experience that actually people people had. But the point to me of this is that he really is

[32:38]

saying this is hard work right. And in this if you wanted to learn about impermanence. Which is which is our core of our of our teaching. You have to really be able to look at impermanence. You have to look it in the eye. Even when it's not even when it's not not not pleasant. You have to you have to just be and use the same mindfulness. The same breathing out and breathing in. The same sentence that he repeats over over and over again. This is how a practitioner remains established in the observation of the body in the body. Observation of the body from within and from without. From both within and without. He remains established in the observation of the process of the coming to be in the body. Or the process of dissolution of the body. Or both the process of coming to be. The process of dissolution. Or he is mindful of the fact there is a body here.

[33:42]

So this is this easy he's kind of repeating this is saying I really mean this folks. I'm not I'm not giving you a light lightweight version of it. So the other thing that he that comes from the way he keeps on repeating the same phrase is the idea of moment to moment. Moment to moment. So when he talks of anything when he talks of of things he he's talking moment to moment. So when he says for example whenever moreover when a practitioner walks he's aware of I am walking. When he's standing he's aware I'm standing. When he's sitting I'm sitting. When he's going forward I'm going forward. When he bent when I bend he knows he bends. He just says bends. Or

[34:45]

he says forward backward. Full awareness in each moment. So that's the third aspect of working with mindfulness of the body. And there's a kind of phenomena that that he does that is done a lot in Upasana which is kind of which just has a name for it which is called a technique of mental noting. It uses a word or a short phrase to acknowledge what is arising. And so a mental note can be a label like happy sad or in out thinking heaviness restlessness. It's just noting what's going on in that moment. And noting and noting it actually gives it some [...] way that it makes an impact. Just by noting it in

[35:46]

your mind that means you've got it. You've got it. You've got each moment by naming by noting each moment. This isn't something you can walk around doing obviously but you can do it. You know when I was sitting here wondering you know before before the lecture I was doing that. I was saying funny feeling stomach, feet on floor, feet, pictures, thought. Naming these things and it kept me in my body and it kept my body rooted. So the fourth aspect of that paragraph that he keeps on repeating over and over again is not clinging. It says there is a body here until understanding and full awareness come about. He maintains the observation free not caught up in worldly consideration.

[36:50]

So he's telling us that that we cannot cling when we these moment-to-moment notings this awareness of impermanence we don't get caught up in any of the things that come up with us. We just let them go which is what our instruction is for Zazen right? Thoughts come let them go. Feelings come let them go. So then he goes on to talk about feelings and the two sections on feelings are pretty much I you know are have the same form and the same way that he deals with both which is really interesting thoughts and feelings. So he says for example when talking about feelings. Whenever the practitioner has a pleasant feeling he's aware I'm experiencing a pleasant feeling. Whenever he has a painful feeling

[37:54]

he's aware I'm experiencing a painful feeling. Whenever he experiences a feeling that is neither pleasant nor painful he's aware I'm a feeling a neutral feeling I'm experiencing neutral feeling. When he experienced a pleasant feeling based in the body he's aware I'm experiencing a pleasant feeling based in the body. Same thing when I'm experiencing a pleasant feeling based in the mind is aware I'm experienced a pleasant feeling based in the mind. When he experiences painful feeling based in the body I'm experiencing he's in the body. I'm experienced a painful feeling based in the mind. When he experiences a neutral feeling based in the body he's aware I'm experiencing a neutral feeling based in the body. When he experiences a neutral feeling based in the mind he's aware I'm experienced a neutral feeling. And then he repeats the paragraph again. And with regarding observations of the mind in the mind he does the same thing.

[39:07]

When his mind is desiring the practitioner is aware my mind is desiring. When his mind is not desiring he's aware my mind is not desiring. When he's hating he's aware he's hating. And so forth. And then he repeats his paragraph. This is how our practitioner remains established in the observation of the mind observation of the mind from within and from without. He remains established in the observation of the process of coming to be in the mind or the process of dissolution in the mind or both the process of coming to be and dissolution. Or he's in mindful of the fact there there mind there until understanding the full awareness come about. He remains established in the observation free not caught up in any worldviews. So he's basically talking

[40:11]

about in one in one of these is that that feelings can be positive negative or neutral which we have all been listening about during this practice period. And he's saying treat them all the same. That's the work. Treat them all the same and don't abide in them. Recognize them. Recognize they're coming and going. Recognizing their impermanence. Noting the moment to moment. Letting them go moment to moment. So section section 5 is a little bit different and I don't have a lot of time so I will not talk about it a lot. Mainly because if this is the one that's different and a little bit foreign to us. Because when when he talks

[41:15]

about mindfulness of objects of the minds it really includes everything form feelings perceptions and how we process them. And the section is different because we're struck we're instructed to focus on specific factors like the five hindrances for the seven factors of enlightenment and the four noble truths. This is how the practitioner remains established in the observation of the objects of the mind in the mind with regard to the five aggregates of cleaning. Observation of the objects of mind from within or without or observation of the objects of the mind from both within and without. He says the same paragraph regarding all of these repeats that same paragraph over the over and over

[42:17]

again. But what's a little bit different is he then says he is aware of the eyes aware of the form and he is aware of the internal formations which are produced independence on these two things. He's aware of the birth of a new internal formation and is aware of abandoning an already produced internal formation. And he is aware when an already abandoned internal formation will not rise again. So this is where it's a little bit different for us. It's a little bit different. Generally we instruct people to just pay attention to whatever arises notice associations but not look for particular objects or circumstances. And I feel a certain tension here there's a tension here it's between simply simply being aware of how an object impacts the

[43:19]

mind or mind consciousness and why it is so. Because it takes us a little bit from awareness of association to possibly attributing cause and effect and then there's the danger that we might believe it. So and as then students how do we how do we practice this. And in a way he's suggesting that if I see if I begin to see that any thing that comes to my mind any formation that arises in my mind comes through my consciousness. It comes through my senses my feelings my perceptions it comes from my information from my sense conscious from my ego consciousness. It comes

[44:19]

from my storehouse consciousness and all of that helps to form then a mental formation of what's going on. So he's telling us that we need to be doing that that we need to be seeing that that that's also part of what we're seeing which means it's a challenge to hold that. It's a challenge to hold all of those moments that we're letting working so hard to have and let go of all of those observations of of non-self and impermanence that we see if we pay attention. And also to see what's underneath to see this whole world that we create is a world that we create and how we create it. How we create our moment or how we create our points of view moment to moment. And then when we do see the how underneath then we have some insight.

[45:24]

We have insight we we know how it happened and we can work with it in that way. So I think that's what this last chapter is asking but it's a little bit different from what we ordinarily talk about. So I'm interested what people think about that. So just to just to finish one of the things that Thich Nhat Hanh says and he says it very much in this new book that he wrote. He thinks these are so important and he thinks that his monks should keep this sutra under their pillows and read sometimes he tells them to read it every day sometimes he says they should read it three times a day. So he sees this really as a really the very heart of of the practice that he shares in his sangha. The other point I wanted to make the last one is just that when we use this kind of repetition

[46:26]

when we look at this even though I for example I thought not maybe I shouldn't read so much but getting the sense of the repetition getting the sense of the language it comes into us it becomes part of our bodies we embody it so it builds a kind of momentum in ourselves we remember we remember remember pay attention remember breathe remember where my feet remember remember and and notice notice it kind of does that practice does that with us and it interested to see what other people have to say about that. Okay so it's time for Q&A please raise your digital hand you'll find it in the reactions box or in the participants box or you can send me a message in the chat. John would you like to unmute yourself and ask your question?

[47:31]

Thank you so much for your talk. I haven't participated in the practice period so it may be off base a little bit but I'm comparing what you're saying with um I think it's done more on the Tenjin Roshi side where they talk a lot about the abhidharma and the buddhist psychology and I'm thinking about that thing where it says there's sort of that box and then joining in the phenomenon of psychic stuff and I'm thinking all of this naming and noting is a little bit like doing manually what the mind must be doing automatically in the name and form coming together. I wonder what you might think about that. I think that's true I think I think the the naming is secondary because our our consciousness is picking up every all of our experience that's how we that's how we lay these seeds so it's happening this is about maybe

[48:35]

make paying attention to that it's happening that if you miss something your body isn't going to miss it your body's going to feel it your mind will be you know it'll get in that in the back of your mind and it'll come to haunt you if it's disturbing so if you don't if you don't pick it up in the real in real time it'll it'll it'll be something it might show up again that you'll have to deal with so better better take pick it up in real time Shalama would you like to ask your question please good morning good morning I um I want to thank you for for the fire uh this this information is um for me right on time because I I today has been like a horrible day kind of I've been

[49:40]

like I've been breathing and and um um you know I aspire to be present when I meditate and I I tend to um want to drop off to sleep and so to be present for me it's really not to close my eyes but to keep my eyes wide open but all the information about awareness and and you know naming parts of the body it seems like a lot to do when um when you know I I've been told that not to have a purpose um when we sit don't go to the mat with objectives and and outcomes and

[50:42]

and so I'm not hearing that this morning so I'm just wondering I guess my question is at what point do I get to meditate and then another question is what is meditation and I think I'm going to get the book because you know I really want to dive into your talk this morning and I want to thank you I I don't feel so bad now that I I know I I feel like it's like this morning has been right on time um based on the information that you've given so I totally appreciate that and and I hopefully the name of the book is in the chat so I can write that down I will give it up Mary Beth it's transformation and healing transformation and healing thank you so very much that's that was very that landed squarely uh I think I think that you can um you

[51:43]

know we are told we are told to you know in our meditation instruction as if it's going to be easy you know sit down just take a breath just pay attention to your breath that's great you know uh and oh if a feeling comes any anything comes just let it go that's that can be the way we're instructed um but that isn't really particularly that isn't so general that sojourn roshi's way sojourn roshi would say note noted or acknowledge the feeling it's not you don't throw the feeling away before you get it in other words what is this okay feeling you know what is this pleasant feeling then it goes then you say next feeling because there's always another feeling right so one of the things we we do uh or we were instructed by our teacher here sojourn

[52:44]

roshi would be you know if you feel unsettled in meditation he said which was kind of a body scan mini body scan right give yourself sasan instruction you know or where are your feet how are your knees is your back straight is your curvature of your spine the way it's supposed to be how is your mudra how are your hands do you feel your hands and you don't say it you don't necessarily have to say those words you can say hands feet back you know that puts you in your back so you can feel it when my experience was when i was feeling unsettled getting ready i was i i really wasn't in my body and so the minute i said where are my feet i started a process of getting myself um totally present and that's and it it works you know it's amazing i'm i remember doing

[53:44]

body scan uh body scan is used often in um in stress stress reduction programs or pain management programs because if for example when you're sitting you have a terrible problem in your knee then your whole sitting becomes your knee but if you're mindful of your whole body there's a lot more space for your knee and so when you do a body scan it's amazing how you can actually feel these parts of your body you didn't even know you you know i can feel i actually learned i can feel all my teach toe you know i can actually feel each toe on each foot you know you can you can actually get your awareness to the fact that you're paying attention and you're in body i can feel how are my fingers doing it doesn't really matter what part of the body you choose you know you don't have to go to the phlegm in the bile uh like uh he was really suggesting a pretty gritty practice which i think maybe if you're

[54:47]

uh you know if you're so inclined but i think we we usually use it we usually use it the way we can use it but the main thing is it keeps us right in our bodies right in this moment thank you osam would like to ask a question well i should ask a question but i actually want to want to comment on something um i think that there's another way that we can look at and use the fourth foundation of mindfulness which is sometimes framed as mindfulness of the of the dharmas or mindfulness of the of the uh mental objects that dharmas are mental objects it actually in the text it it's outlining these these dharma systems yes and those are this is in contradiction i think to our

[55:52]

to what has become our contemporary understanding of mindfulness as bare awareness or or just seeing and what what thich nhat hanh says is uh that mindfulness must be engaged once there is seeing there must be acting otherwise what's what is the use of seeing the the fourth foundation i i look at them as lenses through which we look at things that we're literally we are actively placing lenses in front of our eyes so we can see things differently so we can see things uh not necessarily in our habitual way but as according to our vow and all of those systems the dharma systems that that he that the buddha names are uh they're not just ways of looking at things they're also they point us towards uh changing

[56:59]

ourselves towards changing our minds and that's the part of mindfulness that seems to have gone missing i think in the contemporary in the contemporary world but does that fit at all with yeah no that was what i was talking about trying to say something like that with the with the last last one it it is asking us to go beyond the formula that he laid out for all the others he said this formula this is the formula but if you but he doesn't want us to apply the same formula to the fifth he wants us he wants us to actually get something out of it that we use yeah so you really need to go through the whole cycle it's far into what the way that most of you know most of us have been necessarily taught yeah i mean it's a whole cycle and you the the end that that fourth foundation is very important yeah the other three give you a grounding for being

[58:00]

able to do the yeah i mean that's really where the insight comes yeah and i think we we short change the insight uh sometimes yeah thank you thank you i say i'd like to ask a question yeah thanks for your talk jerry um well i find this kind of practice to be challenging and while i'm meditating on the cushion i'm wondering what you have to say about when you're not on the cushion and we're in our action the rest of our lives doing busy things working conversing making decisions and maybe that's good like follow-up to what alan was just talking about terms of action um well he is when he talks about this these these thing these these practices he

[59:05]

talks about them as if we're in motion too and he says internal and external so he's saying that basically um that we be mindful and this is a big thing for sojourn that we actually treat everything mindfully everything in our life mindfully if you ever watch sojourn kind of handle a teacup or pour tea or anything right he was just meticulous about taking like the way he took off his robe the way he folded it so he's he's he's encouraged us to kind of bring this this mind of paying attention and being present every moment to whatever and so that he and in this he says you know if you're walking note you're walking if you're bending note you're what you're bending uh i mean if you if you note you're having an experience or a feeling because of something that's been said to you you pay attention you know you say pleasant unpleasant neutral

[60:10]

not necessarily that but you do note it and you don't clutch it and do some you know you hold it the way you would hold anything else rather than get caught in the kind of things that we might have a tendency to get caught in but i was finding that it was easier for me to be mindful i found myself very comforted during the pandemic with doing simple chores repeatedly every morning in a certain way so i would take the dog walk down turn the alarm off go over turn a certain light switch on switch on the coffee go in another room and put the heat up you know i had this i had this like a ritual that i did and it was very comforting and and i um and i was very aware you know turn the light on alarm off coffee on and it actually it meant that i didn't spill as many

[61:21]

things you know i kind of forget as many things you know if i had to bring the sweetener to the coffee or the or the milk or whatever i was just saying okay milk for coffee and it was amazing i just can't live like that all the time but i it was a very interesting practice which i did during the pandemic um which i found very useful so i think it's they are useful in our daily life especially if you notice yourself being torn around and um getting caught unprepared or you know sideline you know being side swiped or whatever they call it you know all of a sudden you if you don't pay attention to things that are getting to you during the day they'll get to you another way that's what uh what somebody was talking about you know getting it's going if you don't if you don't pay attention to it you'll you will pay attention to it at some point okay thank you this will be the final question uh

[62:25]

um blake asks uh jerry wonderful talk could you explain the refrain the body within the body um it's going um it what what it is is it's it's not it's going into the body and knowing the body and naming the body and paying attention to the body every moment so there's a body floating about and inside it are all kinds of parts all kinds of feelings all kinds of thoughts but if we were just just paying attention to the body within the body we're paying attention to the body what the body does how the body moves how the body works inside that's what he's talking about we really have to pay attention to what's going on here we have to know this body inside out

[63:29]

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