Good morning, everyone. I hope you won't be too disappointed, but I decided after my last talk on the Satipatthana Sutta that I had merely scratched the surface. And I also recognized in myself that I had dismissed it often as some kind of simplistic instructions. And what I have been discussing actually turns out to be much deeper and wide and meaningful than in my introduction. So I'll review a few things from my introduction, and then I'll take you through kind of my living experience of actually penetrating the Four Foundations of Mindfulness with some angst and it taking a lot of perseverance for me to do that.

[01:08]

So during the session, I talked about the Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, also called the Four Foundations or Establishments of Mindfulness. And I noted that this was the cornerstone of the Vipassana Insight Meditation tradition. And I also noted that we think of Insight Meditation very differently and in contrast to our Zazen Meditation, the Zazen Meditation of our ancestors, which is called Samatha or Tranquility Practice. And I pointed out that the teaching of Buddha in the Pali Suttas only used the word jhana in describing meditation. And when he talked about Samatha or Vipassana, these were simply qualities of mind that we may gain or be endowed with or develop in our practice,

[02:10]

both of which were integral to our practice. And so the Buddha taught that with the development of calm-abiding Samatha practice, when we can overcome our unwholesome mental states and with the suppression of the hindrances of these unwholesome mental states, we foster the development of insight into what's below and permeating these destructive states and that frees us from those. And I also pointed out that that the word shikantaza, which we use to describe our practice, is much more complicated. Although in Japanese the word shi means samatha or single-pointed concentration or tranquility, the kan in shikantaza means

[03:15]

vipassana or insight. So and in studying these more and more, the four foundations, it becomes clear that both types of meditation are encouraged. In fact, what it seems to me is that this is a curriculum for liberation through various mental practices. And if we can bear with them, it's quite vigorous and it takes a really long time to actually master these. So getting to the Satipatthana Sutta, the translation of sati is to stop, maintain awareness of the object, and sometimes it's just defined as mindfulness or remembering. Upathana means a place of abiding.

[04:18]

Last time I also mentioned that there are four practices that permeate all of the four foundations that are established of mindfulness. And I really talked about that and I only hinted at the fact that there was a lot more to that practice as we moved through the four foundations. So the four permeating factors that were encouraged to in each of the engaging in each of the practices are contemplating our experience internally and externally and both internally and externally and focusing on our breath and then expanding that focus to the rest of our body and our mind. That's that we know. The second thing is contemplating the nature of impermanence, the arising and passing away and both the arising and passing away regarding all of our experiences, whatever they are.

[05:23]

The third is establishing enough mindfulness to recognize simply what's unfolding in the moment without any mental commentary and then to remain mindful of what's happening. I talked about mental noting. That's a very big practice in Vipassana practice. In fact, sometimes you'll hear a teacher describing things and just with one word after another word rather than any other commentary. So mental noting, just recognizing what is at every moment. We do that. That's part of our Zazen practice. And the fourth is abiding without clinging to anything that enters our realm of existence. So it's basically saying that it's a moment to moment practice using bare awareness, just observing and possibly noting and a continuity of mindfulness.

[06:27]

We may notice other things, but we're instructed to concentrate on these. So the first two foundations of mindfulness, I'm not going to talk about them very much because I talked about them last time, but they're largely descriptive and they really direct us to notice the texture of what's arising in our experience and to be able to see moment to moment in tranquility and see more and more of what's going on in each moment as our awareness expands. And so the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body and the body is basically what some Vipassana teachers say, most of us go around in our mind three quarters of the time and ignore our body. So this is really the first step in mindfulness, which is getting

[07:39]

back into your body. Our practice is a body-mind practice, getting back in your body. So all you're trying to do is get through that first sense door, the first thing we experience in the physical sensations of the body. And it's pretty much limited to the body. We're not asked to think about anything about it, but just to note, [...] hundreds of aspects of the body and that practice of that's part of the practice of why this is such an elaborate curriculum is that we, if you were to practice this and actually practice meditating on all the things that the Buddha mentions in the first foundation of mindfulness and really do that, it takes energy and time over time, which is why Thich Nhat Hanh tells his monks to put a copy of the Satipatthana Sutra

[08:42]

under their pillow and read from it at least once a day. So the second foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of feeling, as I said before, involves noticing the affect tone. In other words, noticing if something's pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. And that goes for every sense object. We actually have either a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral response, whether we're noting that response. And part of this instruction in the second foundation of mindfulness is to notice your response, even if it's neutral, that that's a good place to notice. Whereas I'm having this experience, I don't, I'm just doing it mindfully without any affective addition to the

[09:43]

experience. That when we notice the absence, we notice how that feels, you know, without any attachment or feeling about whatever it is. So, but what Thich Nhat Hanh does in the second discussion of the second foundation of mindfulness was he adds something else that he doesn't add in the first. He says, when we mindfully observe our feelings, we discover their roots. When we mindfully observe our feelings, for example, if you have an unpleasant feeling because you stayed up late the night before, your unpleasant feeling has a physiologic root. Nevertheless, to be able to identify the roots of your feelings is not enough. We have to look deeply in order to see how these feelings manifest and to understand their true

[10:44]

substance. To know a feeling is not just to see its roots, but also to know it's flowering and its fruits. This is something different, right? It's something different than necessarily than mindfulness of the body. He uses an example of whiskey, which I thought was interesting. I mean, of all the things that he could pick, I thought whiskey was unusual, but still good. He says, when some people take a sip of whiskey or inhale from a cigarette, for example, they have a pleasant feeling. If they observe this feeling mindfully, they can see its physiologic and psychological roots. We know that not everyone shares the same pleasant feeling when they drink whiskey or smoke cigarettes. If some other people were to do either of these things, they might choke or cough. The feeling would be unpleasant. Thus, the roots of that feeling are not as simple as they appear

[11:46]

at first. The elements of habit, time, and our own psychology and the psychology are all present. Physiology and psychology are all present in the roots of any feelings. So looking into our feeling, we can see the physiologic, physical and psychological habits, not only in our own habits, but in those of others. He also talks about it in a different way. He says, when we observe our feelings, we can see their relative nature. It is our way of seeing the world that determines the nature of our feelings. One person might feel that work is nothing but an agony. He will only feel happy when he's not working. There are other people who feel uneasy when they have nothing to do and would be happy with anything but work. So he's talking about the same experience of going to work every day. The difference in

[12:50]

how you would experience that thing called work is different depending upon your background, your conditioning, whatever, and to understand for yourself that not everybody has the same feeling as you when they are exposed to the same object. So the second foundation of mindfulness wants us to shift away from the sense doors of the body, from the sense objects or the eyes, and looking on the tone of the experience. What is the characteristic of the feeling? Where is it in our body? What states of mind are associated with that? So it's much more of an evaluative process. We're actually looking at things and looking

[13:56]

at all the associations we have with things. It's not just noting and being with. It's actually an expanded way of checking, of actually seeing the effects over time, for example, of eating too much or of grasping at something too much, the pain that's associated with that. And then if we can let go of that, we have the experience of the relief that happens when we let go of it, when we make a decision. So sometimes this experience of the pain or the suffering that we have when we're meditating, we know that's not good, right? I mean, because we feel bad. We have all these unpleasant feelings. And then after seeing the roots, we're able to, for example, drinking too much whiskey.

[15:06]

We're able to see that. We're able to see the effects of that. And given that, we have the opportunity to behave differently and recognize what it's like not to have the ill effects. And that's transformative. So that's what these things are pointing us to, not just a kind of rote meditation or a rote set of instructions. So then we move on to the third foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of mind and mental formations or psychological phenomenon. And that is even more evaluative. We still notice impermanence. And when there's attachment present, we see it in the mind. We know the mind's attached. When that attachment is not there, we notice the mind isn't attached.

[16:11]

The same thing happens with aversion, also called hatred or resistance. If it's arising in the mind, we can notice the mind is beset by aversion. And if it's not there, then we notice the mind is without aversion. Thich Nhat Hanh says that in contrast to the way we label our feelings or body parts, here we don't simply name a thought. We recognize it and look deeply into it in order to see its fruits in the past and its possible fruits in the future. Using conscious breathing while we observe. So Thich Nhat Hanh says we mindfully observe a rising presence and disappearance of mental phenomena, which are called mental formations. We recognize them and look deeply into them in

[17:14]

order to see their substance, their roots in the past and their possible fruits in the future. Using conscious breathing while we observe it, we should remember that when the lamp of mindfulness is lit up, the mental formation under observation will naturally transform in a wholesome direction. So he's really telling us we need to look at the roots. We need to have, I hate to say, insight into the roots. I'll use the word that we don't like to. So when we actually begin to experience these, these at a much more deep level. And we move, and we're moving through these instructions and we look and we're really

[18:15]

encouraged to look at the quality of every mind state. They shift us back, these instructions shift us back to the doorway of experience, the time and mind door. For example, just experiencing desire. If we just name and let go and we note desire, the question is would anything change? Would our practice change? Would it help us? By just doing that. And Thich Nhat Hanh is saying, whenever the practitioner's mind and thoughts turn to desiring, she immediately gives rise

[19:18]

to the awareness of the presence of that mind. This is a mind longing for wealth. This is a mind of sexual desire. This is a mind of desiring reputation. This is the root of the arising of mind longing for wealth. This is the feeling of pain caused by sexual desire. And the Satipatthana Sutra also tells us that it's important to note when desiring is not present. At this time, the mind desiring wealth is not present. Sexual desire is not present. At this time, the mind desiring reputation is not present. This is the root of absence of desire for wealth. This is the root of absence of mind desiring reputation. This is the sense of ease that accomplishes the absence of mind desiring riches. This is the sense that accompanies

[20:20]

the absence of mind desiring all of these. So he's talking about actually purposely cultivating, purposely using meditation, intentionally using meditation in your reflections. And that's part of why I think it's a curriculum. You know, it's not, it's not a just sitting. It is actually a curriculum with very specific instructions. So Thich Nhat Hanh goes on to, to talk about a lot about anger. He does that a lot. And in terms of a feeling state, says the benefit of mindfully observing the presence of anger is that we see that when

[21:20]

anger is not present, we're much happier. Anger is like a flame blazing up and consuming our self-control, making us think, say, and do things that we'll probably regret later. The actions of body, speech, mind that we perform while we're angry, take us a long way toward the road to hell. I love this. We may never have seen the Avicii hells, but we can clearly see that whenever someone is angry, he is abiding in one of the hot hells. Anger and hatred are the materials of which the Avicii hells are made. A mind without anger, cool, fresh, sane, is one of the 11 wholesome mental factors. The absence of anger is the basis of real happiness and the basis of love and compassion. And then he says, when we do our mindfulness, when mindfulness is born in us,

[22:21]

and anger can no longer monopolize our consciousness, awareness is a cure. Awareness itself, awareness can help us manage the anger. He says, I know I'm angry. This awareness is a companion for anger. Our mindful observation is to suppress our drive and drive out anger. But this Thich Nhat Hanh is asking us not to suppress anger, but to investigate, to be with it, to actually feel the pain of it, feel our bodies, feel the stress in our minds, start to feel the granularity of the anger. When does this anger come up? What are my patterns of anger? It's asking us to actually look at our psychology, understand our own conditioning.

[23:25]

He says, mindful observation is like a lamp that gives light. It's not a judge. It throws light on our anger, sponsors it, looks after it in an affectionate and caring way, like an older sister after comforting her younger sibling. So he's saying whatever comes up in our feeling states is okay. And we should treat the same way. In other words, there are differences, of course, there's key differences. One is when something comes up and it has an unwholesome effect on us, of course. We don't want to, this is the thing about inviting something in for tea, we don't want to invite something in for tea, but we don't want to abandon, we don't want to abandon that feeling. We don't want to, because that's our self, at that moment, that's our being, that's our conditioned being. And we are instructed in this

[24:38]

teaching to penetrate that, to be with it enough so that we can begin to get in an intuitive way, and even a psychological way. How that works in us, by shining a light and by and by being with and companioning and being cared and taking care of all of these, all of these aspects of mind. On the other hand, if there's a beneficial, wholesome state of mind that arises generosity, compassion, it's really important to notice that too. Because we might want to notice where that came from. We might want to cultivate that then. You might want to give that a little bit of watering. So this is much more sophisticated than the simple instructions that we often have.

[25:49]

And so Thich Nhat Hanh says, thanks to the illuminating light of awareness, we can see the roots of our anger. The point of meditation is to look deeply into things in order to be able to see their nature. The nature of things is interdependent origination, the true source of everything that is. If we look into our anger, we can see its roots, such as misunderstanding or ignorance, clumsiness or lack of skill, fear, habit. These roots occur both in us and in any person that we encounter that played some role in our angry reaction. So we observe mindfully in order to be able to see and understand, seeing and understanding the elements of liberation allows us to free to be free of suffering, which accompanies anger. So again, he's repeating and repeating the same way that the Buddha repeats and repeats that.

[27:00]

If we understand the nitty gritty of the evolution of our experience. Just by looking at it, just by being able to hold it in calm meditation, but then also by being aware, by letting us see the roots, by seeing the roots, then change can happen. So the other, the other, OK, I think I'll leave that. So then moving on to the fourth foundation of mindfulness or the mindfulness of objects of the mind and the objects of mind or mental objects or mental phenomenon. We get into an even deeper place.

[28:08]

Here in this, in this, it's really interesting because when we, when I looked at the translation of this part of the sutra in Thich Nhat Hanh's book, it, it, it seemed to not get enough space. It felt like I didn't understand it. It just had a list of objects. So, so this is really, but what I'm coming to understand that this is really kind of a curriculum for studying basically the Abhidharma. It's really, it's, it's really saying through meditative, meditative meditation practice, rather than an intellectual practice of reading about the, about the way, about the way the Buddha understands the mind, rather, rather than going to a psychology class. You know, we, we, we look at these, all these 108 mental, mental, have mental factors.

[29:17]

I mean, it's daunting and it's taken me many years to, you know, go through the four of this or the five of that or the seven of that. And always, and always for me, at least personally, that was an exercise. It was an exercise. Okay. I know desire is not good. Okay. I know laziness is not good. I know generosity is good. You know, that kind of thing without actually ever going into them through my meditative experience or my internal experience of them. So the way that Vipassana people talk about this fourth foundation of mindfulness is it's like, it's like a guided meditation through the 108 mental objects. And some of them list them all, you know, and they have a sashin about it. That would really be,

[30:20]

I, I, that would be beyond my capability. But I'm coming to understand that all of these things, if you take them apart in the same way, if you take them apart and use these guidance, use this guidance, you can actually, you can get a different feeling. You get a different feeling. It adds this depth and granularity because everything is included. The body, the physio, the physiologic workings of the, of the body, the psych, the psychology, the, the levels of consciousness that we studied during, during the practice period. It brings all of those into a meditation of something and into a study of something. So we're not, you know, we leave behind,

[31:22]

we leave behind, you know, our noting, although we start with it, right? But we actually are focusing on, for example, if we're talking about desire, we're actually focusing on ways to loosen our attachments to actually observe what it feels like if it loosens a little and observe what it feels like if it, if it feels tighter. And it, and we're also, we're also have to ask the look about, look at what happens. So we're looking in the, in the fourth foundation of mindfulness of objects of the mind. We're actually looking at the ways an object hits a sense organ, hits a sense consciousness, and then the alaya consciousness kicks in or manos, he provides ego where we're looking at that as part

[32:25]

of our look at one of the hindrances, desire or aversion, whatever. We're looking at those, we're seeing the way the mind works. We're wanting to see this dynamic, you know, Logan always talks of the dynamic working of the universe. Well, there's the dynamic working of the universe and there's the dynamic working of our, our complicated physiology and psychology. It's not, it's not simple. It happens instantaneously, but it's not simple. And so in this teaching, the Buddha is saying, you've got to get into that. You've got to get into that level of study, that level of really taking it apart. Okay. So what happens when my eye sees that? What, what happens after that? You know, what happens after that? What happens after that? Looking, I mean, actually looking at the roots, he's talking about looking at the roots and that

[33:29]

looking at the roots with a kind and accepting mind is results in transformation. So one of the, one of the things, Thich Nhat Hanh in his book, Transforming and Healing has a bunch of exercises and let me see if I can find them. So one of the, one of the, he talks about two practices that we can engage in to be able to practice the fourth foundation of mindfulness. One is discriminative, discriminative investigation. And he says, ignorance and delusion is an erroneous perception of things. In order to correct our erroneous perceptions, the Buddha teaches us a method

[34:30]

of discriminative, discriminative investigation, which relates to the establishment of the mind and the establishment of the objects of the mind. He reminds us of the way our consciousness works, using the six sense objects, the six sense organs, the six sense consciousnesses. He reminds us of the basic characteristics of all dharmas, their in and their dependent, interdependent co-arising. In essence, we're able to understand the emptiness of all the dharmas. He encourages us to look deeply into what we encounter and see and understand the dynamic working. This is really interesting because at some point in this discussion, he talks about the Heart Sutra and of course, Avalokiteshvara's Awakening. And he really is talking about this type of meditation. This focusing on the dynamic working of everything, including your mind,

[35:31]

allows you to see all of the Buddha's teaching and understand all of the Buddha's teaching, not just impermanence, but non-self. And so he says, through discriminative investigation, we realize the interdependence of all nature. This is to realize the empty nature of all things. With insight into emptiness, we'll go beyond concepts of it is and it is not, birth and death, one and many, coming and going. We'll transcend the fear of birth and death. Our concepts of it is, it is not, birth, death, one, many, coming, going, and so on, will dissolve when we are witness to the interdependent nature of what is. To be able to end the concept of birth and death is the essential

[36:38]

point of discriminative investigation. So he then says, when sitting meditation, we concentrate our mind on the object of our observation, sometimes a physical phenomenon, sometimes a psychological. And we look deeply into that object in order to discover its source and its nature. The role of our conscious breathing is to nourish and maintain our power of concentration on one object. If we look carefully and deeply, naturally, we'll see the arising, enduring, and ending. Eventually, we'll see the true nature of all dharmas, is birthlessness and deathlessness. And that, although dharmas are not everlasting, they're never totally destroyed. Thus, the mindfulness observation of interdependence is the road that leads to transcend the limits of birth and death. A student of Buddhism who

[37:38]

doesn't practice mindful observation of interdependence hasn't yet arrived at the quintessence of the Buddhist path. This reminds me of a story that somehow, that Thich Nhat Hanh tells somewhere early in earlier of a layman, layperson, who was getting close to death. And Buddha sent Shariputra and Ananda to be with this person and to help them in meditation. And the meditation he helped them with was the fourth foundation of mindfulness. That was not, actually, the last several, which were not taught to the lay population, his lay followers, because it was thought of as too hard for them. And all of a sudden, while this lay

[38:40]

person is meditating, he all of a sudden has this wonderful, beatific smile on his face. And Shariputra and Ananda said, what's going on? He said, I never realized, I never understood reality. And you've helped me to understand reality. And then he said, and please tell the Buddha that he should be teaching this to lay people. I thought this was perfect, the perfect thing for Sogen. It's like, don't save the good stuff. This is kind of a way of saying everybody is Buddha and everybody can awaken. And I thought it was interesting for him to come across that story in this study of the four foundations of mindfulness. And I think because it's so easy to

[39:42]

take the formula from the first foundations and just do those and think you're there. Unless you're really set out to be dedicated, then dedicate and really pursue, I mean, really take an interest. It takes work to do this. I mean, if you were to take time to really study the 108 mental, I mean, I did a Tassajara when I went there for one practice period. I had a lot of time. And there was some teaching that was related to that as part of the practice. But it didn't mean anything to me in the same way that actually studying the four foundations of mindfulness says, because it felt really intellectual. You know, the words were hard, the senses were translated however they were. But this is taking that complicated teaching and making it accessible for everyone.

[40:48]

So this discriminative thinking is hard, but not really that hard. I mean, how hard is it to look at your feelings and your anger and know how you got yourself into that knot of anger? It's just commitment and vow and intention to stay in practice. So the last thing I was just going to mention was another practice that Thich Nhat Hanh emphasized in case that's helpful to lay people. Another practice he recommends as observing internal formations. Simply put, he says, psychological states of mind called knots or fetters arise from the conditioning by objects of mind. And he gives examples of anger or hatred, death of a loved one causing sorrow, seeing someone and

[41:52]

desiring them sexually. These are internal formations. There's an activity. There's something that happens. And then we form the mental formation of sorrow or the mental formation of sexual desire. Those things come to be. And of course, we understand them. Okay. So there are lots of instructions, but let me just give you a sense. When we're aware of what we're feeling, thinking and doing, we can ask ourselves questions like, why do I feel uncomfortable when I hear someone say that? Why do I always think of my mother

[42:54]

when I see that woman? Boy, I know about that. Why did I say that? Oh, there's a good one. That's a very good practice item. Why didn't I like the character in the film? Whom did I hate in the past? And whom does that person resemble? So looking at our formations, he's saying, note the formation, but ask questions. Ask a question before you respond. Why did that happen? Where did that come from? I mean, that happens to me. My mother comes out of my mouth unrequested when I least expect it. And my kids will point that out to me. You've turned into mom, they say. And then I say, no, no, that can't be. The other point he makes, and I think it's true. So ask a question. And he also says,

[43:58]

don't respond until you finish asking the question. Look closely enough to your internal formation and how you respond to somebody else. And make sure you really look at it before you start going all over the place with some kind of response, some kind of triggered response. So he said, and then he says something else I think that's important. Without judgment, blame, or criticism for having these feelings or images, we just observe, identify, and accept them in order to see their source and their true nature. If there's pain, we feel pain. If there's sadness, we're sad. If we're angry, we're angry. We don't lose ourselves in the pain, the sadness, or the anger. But we calm down. Even if we haven't seen the internal formations, the fact that we can greet our pain, our sadness, and our anger

[44:59]

in mindfulness, it already changes the dynamic. So we're encouraged to use our mindfulness, but don't ignore or try to label and get rid of these objects of mind that come in. They're our teachers. Every single time we have a strong feeling, that's a teaching for us. Where did that come from? Why is this happening? So I think for me, actually, this little journey back to this teaching, which I first did because Ho-Zhan said, I want you to do that teaching for this machine. I thought, oh no, I don't like that. I'm really not interested in the four foundations of mindfulness. That's the positive stuff. And actually, what I've come to over the last couple of weeks is this

[46:04]

kind of a deepened appreciation and an awareness that it doesn't even make sense to label types of meditation. They all contain each other. It's like saying the sudden awakening school and the slow awakening school or the black is black and white. They're not different. They're part of this dynamic way our mind works and processes things. And it really makes sense for us to also, I think, to trudge through a little bit of these lists that we make fun of. I have one on my, I saved one a long time ago in my file on Zen. All of the different, a table with all of the numbers and all of the factors that went along with it. But periodically, periodically, I'll review them. But he's saying this is a hard practice.

[47:09]

And that when we throw ourselves into the dynamic working of ourselves, that's a benefit to all beings. Because what comes out of it is our understanding of interdependency and from that compassion. So if you want to study those you can, but anyway, I hope I hope this, this is clear. Thank you. Jerry, we have a few minutes for Q&A. Ross Blum asks, this talk was helpful and instructive for me. Thank you. My question is, your, is you, your mention, my question is your mention of insight being a word we don't like to

[48:13]

use. How do we turn towards an investigation of what we've gained insight into versus turning away and keeping in quote unquote insight out of our practice? Well, I think that's, I don't, yeah, I don't. I think that's what I was trying to say was, if we are going back to the four foundations of mindfulness, which is a foundational and early teaching of the Buddha, he encourages us to embrace mindfulness. But not before you struggle your way through the rest of it. So the reason I think why Zen doesn't highlight it, if you will, is because we, because for for a lot of people, just settling down, just being able to be with an uncomfortable feeling is a lot.

[49:17]

And having some observation, some ability to be with that, that trauma, that awfulness, whatever. So we can get overwhelmed just by that. And so we can really, we really focus on the letting go the moment to moment experience, not not clinging to the experience. But then when we are solid in our practice, when we can be with what comes up without being torn, torn apart and thrown around, that's the time when we can relax and let ourselves being being curious, basically being curious. I would say Zen to me is a big question mark, to be curious, to ask why. Another question from the chat. Judy asks, through a Mahayana lens,

[50:24]

seems this approach to quote unquote, mindfulness reveals mindful of our life as being a bodhisattva. In a world of different approaches and hidden biases, how does Sangha or Dharma friendship come into this mindfulness teaching as a bodhisattva? That's interesting, because there was something specifically that that was suggested by Thich Nhat Hanh in his discussion of strong feelings and strong aversions and so forth, that he said, find a companion. Find someone who you who can help you and support you. So he actually uses that, that's that's actually part of the instruction to find a supportive group or person to help you when you get into when you're when you're working on these. Jerry, how's my volume right now? Is it better? It's okay. Okay.

[51:35]

All right. Linda Hess, I invite you to unmute yourself and ask a question. Hi, good morning, Jerry, and everybody. Thank you for talking about the Satipatthana Sutta. It's one of my one of the greatest assemblages of words that I've had the pleasure of knowing in my life. And as far as curriculum goes, I think all skillful means are curriculum, you know, series of koans or almost any skillful means could be called a curriculum. So I'm with you on the non separateness of these approaches to meditation. I want to question something that occurred early in their talk, where you use the word evaluative couple times. As soon as I say that, you'll know that Oh, trap here. But But really, I, I would like to

[52:40]

highlight it because it can really be misleading. You use I think you said the first foundation of mindfulness of the body is bare awareness. And then you said, the second one about feelings, and the third one about mental formation to use the word evaluative. And I would just like to question that. And later, you said, you know, no, no judgment. Okay. But I just want us to Sure. So I just want to say, I think all the four foundations of mindfulness, every part of that, those practices is bare awareness. What do you think? Well, I think it starts with bare awareness. But, but, and certainly we want to look without judgment, just see what's there, right. But, but we are comparing where the value by the word evaluative, I actually got from a vipassana teacher.

[53:44]

Okay. And, and I think he means comparative. In other words, in other words, he wants because he wants us to notice, it was in the context of noticing pleasant and unpleasant, noticing not. So we're noticing, we're noticing the absence of something by comparing it to the presence of something. Well, I'm noticing if something feels good, that something doesn't feel good. So he's used it that that that's the way he was using that. Okay, well, I probably would have objected to him using it to just because it's all bare awareness, that if you're first become aware of an that it's an unpleasant or a pleasant feeling, then your awareness transforms into awareness that of something else that may be associated with it. But, you know, I think we usually use that term bare awareness for the sense organs.

[54:49]

And, and, and, and not when we're looking at the workings of the alaya, for example. Well, you know, it's kind of like what, when I, when I, there's a, there's a way that we're look, that we're seeing different things. And we're, we're looking at our responses, that's evaluative, because it's comparing not doing it. In other words, I compare being peaceful and pleasant. And, and I say, that's better. That's a, that's a good mental mental factor. And I compare that. And I contrast that with a negative mental harmful factor. So we may be quibbling over how you did, how we use the term evaluative. And I, and thank you, I might not use it again. Between the North Oakland and the South Berkeley School of Buddhism,

[55:52]

I might use, I might, I might just, you know, whenever you use a summary term, you can get into trouble, right? It's better to just say the exact thing you mean. And then someone knows what you mean. Thank you, Jerry. So I'm sorry that your cognitive interpretation went to some place of knowing in your alaya. And knowing, knowing that evaluation means like student evaluations, getting a grade, being, being some, being some, some undesirable trait. And my idea of evaluation went to my alaya, which had to do with, I'm evaluating the situation. I'm kind of checking out this situation. So our, our perceptions and our, and our mental function and hearing the same word, totally different. That's what it's all about. All right. Thank you.

[56:57]

For the last question, Nathan Britton, please unmute yourself and ask a brief question. Hi, Jerry. Thank you. Thank you for your talk. I identify with a lot of this and it resonates with some of my experience, but in terms of my struggle to understand what our practice is in this tradition, I find myself totally confused. I particularly, I'm thinking, and I can't remember where, but, but I, I feel like recently I've come across examples of Dogen and Uchiyama being at pains to explain what our practice isn't and to differentiate it from other practices. And some of that, if I understand correctly, has to do with intention. And some of it has to do with, I think, technique and mechanics. And as I struggle to understand what the heck is Shikantaza,

[58:05]

you know, I listened to your talk and I feel like I have to start over. I'm totally lost because I'm trying to understand how I've, I think I've understood that what I was doing was too much based on concentration. And I've been trying not to do that. And then what you're describing is something different altogether and I feel confused. So could you maybe speak about relating to our tradition for someone who's just trying to take that on? Thank you. Actually, not to worry, number one, about what you're doing. Just, just follow the basic instruction. Follow the basic instruction. The things I mentioned, the four things that I mentioned, you know, moment to moment, letting go, not clinging, just follow that. Don't worry about it. As I said in the early in the introduction, no, Shi means tranquility practice and Kan means

[59:16]

insight practice. So Shikantaza includes both. The question is the emphasis and how, how one thing might follow the other over time. When you're calm and when you learn how to sit with what comes up, ultimately your awareness will expand and without any effort, you'll see more. Without, now, if you want to understand all the 108 mental factors, that's a different, that's a different thing. That isn't usually part of our curriculum. So don't worry about that. Just, just worry about the basics and the rest opens up over time. I'd let Janay, we have one more question, Janay, and she doesn't talk very much. So maybe we could just hear her question. Thank you, Jerry. It's very brief. I want to thank you for your scholarship, your study, and your, I have to say, playful earnestness with all of this.

[60:25]

And I just want to wish everyone a happy interdependence day. That's a very good way to end, isn't it? Thank you.

[60:38]

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