I am arrow to chase the truth of love to come and go. Good morning. So, the 9th to the 12th, 9, 10, 11 and 12 methods are... The 9th is breathing in and out, I am aware of my mind.

[01:48]

And the 10th is breathing in and out, I am making my mind happy and at peace. Don't laugh. Breathing in and out, I am concentrating my mind. And the twelfth is breathing in and out. and liberating my mind." So I'll read you some of this. Nathan's commentary. He says, the ninth method is the breathing which recognizes the functions of the mind, not including the feelings.

[02:51]

mental functions. I am breathing in and aware of my mind and I am breathing out and aware of my mind. Mind, citta, is a psychological phenomena including perception, thinking, reasoning, discriminating, imagining and all the activities of the subconscious as well. So this is maybe the sixth consciousness that discriminates between all these factors. As soon as any psychological phenomena arises we should identify it while breathing with awareness. We continue to observe it to shed light on it and see its connection with the whole of our mind. So he says the first four breathing methods help us become one with our breathing and drop all thinking discriminating ideas and imaginings. And the ninth method helps us identify psychological phenomena, such as thoughts or imaginings, as they arise.

[04:01]

So the term citta includes all psychological phenomena, such as feelings, perceptions, thoughts, reasoning, and so forth, along with their objects. It does not refer to a single psychological subject, always unchangeable and identical in nature. A single psychological subject always unchanging and identical in nature would be something permanent. And I think a lot of us, a lot of people try to find that unchanging, constant thought or psychological subject. But the nature of the mind is always change. There is no state of mind which is the enlightened state of mind.

[05:12]

There is no single state of mind. The mind that you're looking for is not something that you can catch or observe. You can only observe change. There's no special state of mind which is called the Zen state of mind. there's only each state of mind on each moment, which is different than the last. But people sometimes look for some special state of mind, which is It. So, Zen mind

[06:19]

is the mind which allows all states of mind because essence of mind has no special shape or form so if you try to catch the special state or form of essence of mind, no such thing exists. It only exists as this state of mind on this moment and this state of mind on this moment. This moment's awareness is called nen in Japanese. and the Citra in Mejuku Kana Ngeo, Nen Nen is the Citra of Nen.

[07:25]

And the last lines are continually talking about Nen. This mind is, morning mind is, I can't remember exactly the translation, but morning mind is Kannon, evening mind is Kannon and so forth. This very state, this very mind at this moment. Mind is a river of psychological phenomena which are always changing, being born and passing away in this river. In the Yogacara school, the alaya-vijnana, which is the repository of memory and the releasing of the fruition of the seeds of memory, is described as like a rushing torrent.

[08:44]

continuously rushing torrent, like a river. And I think that's what he's saying here. Mind is a river of psychological phenomena which are always changing, being born and passing away. In this river, the arising, duration and cessation of any phenomenon is always linked with the arising, duration and cessation of all other phenomena. To know how to identify psychological phenomena as they arise and develop is an important part of meditation practice. The activities of our mind, often unstable and agitated, are like a torrent of water washing over the rocks. In traditional Buddhist literature, mind is often compared to a monkey, which is always swinging from branch to branch, or a horse galloping Once our mind is able to identify what is happening, we will be able to see it clearly and make it calm.

[09:50]

And we can feel peace and joy in its stillness. So this is the ninth breathing method. When we sit, this rushing torrent of thought is continually engulfing our mind. And when we read the literature, it often says, cut off the source of discriminating mind, or the source of consciousness, or stop thinking. But to stop thinking does not mean to stop the function of the mind or the flow of thoughts.

[10:59]

If it's like... saying you can have nirvana is when you're dead. You can have a clear mind when there's nothing in it. But how do you have a clear mind in the midst of a torrent of thoughts? How do you live your life in the midst of all the hubbub of the world. You know, we're always trying to make everything around us calm in order to be peaceful, which is a kind of impossible task. It's like digging a hole in the sand. As you dig the hole in the sand, the sand keeps falling into the hole.

[12:07]

There's no end to it, no end to trying to make ourselves comfortable by calming our surroundings. And there's no end to trying to stamp out the thoughts that are rushing through our mind in order to make our mind peaceful. When we stop letting our mind bother us, the mind becomes peaceful. When we're no longer bothered by the content of our thoughts, the mind becomes peaceful. So, in zazen, we don't try to eliminate all the thoughts that run through our mind. Rather, we focus on each thought as it arises. And the thought becomes the subject of our concentration.

[13:14]

And each thought becomes an enlightened thought. After we establish our posture and establish our attention on breath, then we allow each thought to arise in consciousness. These are inadvertent thoughts. And when the thought arises, we focus or illuminate the thought with our attention and just let it be as this thought and then when we note this thought become

[14:30]

attentive to this thought, then we bring our attention back to posture and breathing. And when we bring our attention back to posture and breathing, the thought disappears. And then another thought appears. And then we focus the attention onto that thought. And when we see what that thought is, we let go of it and bring our attention back to our posture and breathing again. So over and over we're continually noting the thought, and when we note the thought, that becomes an integral aspect of zazen. But we don't take up the thought or develop the thought volitionally, but unconsciously we start developing a thought, start building on a thought, and fantasizing on the foundation of this thought, dreaming on the foundation of this thought, and when we catch ourself dreaming on the foundation of this thought, then we let go of the thought and bring ourself back.

[15:51]

As soon as you start to judge, this is bad, or this is wrong, or I'm not doing it right, or I wish that I could sit Zazen correctly, or something like that. As soon as you start judging like that, you've divided the mind. You've started discriminating mind, rolling. So, there's nothing wrong with the thought that enters the mind, that enters consciousness. The thing that's wrong is the judgment. I say wrong because the mind begins to make judgments and discriminations based on right and wrong, to just simply let go of the thought, not chase it, not try to push it away, but just return to the subject, which is posture and breathing.

[16:55]

posture, breath, and attention on the thought as it arises is what we're concerned with in Zazen. Dreaming is extra. Dreaming is a distraction. But this dreaming is not our enemy. The only enemy that we have is our discriminating mind. And even discriminating mind is not our enemy. So we should not let anger or irritation or frustration to arise. If they arise, just focus on them in the same way that you focus on a thought. If irritation arises over a thought, just focus on irritation and bring your attention back.

[18:05]

If anger arises, focus on anger as the subject and then bring your attention back to posture and breathing. So the mind, consciousness, notes everything that happens. And there's nothing that happens that is good or bad. It's just something's happening. And this is what it is. And then we return to posture, return to breathing, over and over, 10,000 times return to posture and breathing. That's zazen. The mind gets, the consciousness gets carried away with something and we bring it back. Consciousness gets carried away with something and we bring it back, gets carried away with something and we bring it back. There's this wonderful poem by a student of Master Yishan in China, studied with Yishan for 30 years.

[19:14]

You know this poem? I'll try to remember it. He says, for 30 years, I studied on Mount Isan. I ate Isan's food and I shit Isan's shit. And the only thing I did was attend to an ox, a surly old ox. And he used to run. into everybody's pasture and dig up their gardens and it was really hard to manage. And I used to whip him when he did that and bring him back into line over and over and over again. And the poor old thing was always fooled by everybody. Whatever anybody said, he just ate it up.

[20:15]

But now he's turned into a kind of pet, kind of gentle white ox who just stays in front of my face all the time. And even if I try to chase him away, he won't go. But this is a kind of calming down, controlling mind. There seems to be a difference between letting go and cutting off. Yes. Do you think it's a problem to cut off something?

[21:28]

Yeah, don't cut off. Just leave. In other words, don't cut anything off. Just turn around and leave. You don't have to kill anything. You just turn your attention, you know. If you're talking to Joe and Susan says, And you know what? Oh, excuse me, I'm talking to Joe. You don't say, go away, get out of here. You just, excuse me. You turn around and start talking to Joe again because this is where your conversation is. Understand? Well, Susan is really a big problem. I know. But the more you ignore her, the more she'll get the idea. If you don't listen to her, she'll stop talking after a while, after 30 years.

[22:35]

How much time do you listen to her before you turn back? Not much, just enough to realize, pretty soon you get the idea. At first you go, oh, yes, should I be listening to her? And then after a while you realize, It's a waste of time to listen to her because she just, you know, yak, yak, yak. And this is where your attention is supposed to be. So after a while you just stop paying attention. And she fades away. This sutra is a favorite of mine. I've been studying it for the last year. Because the wording used is, breathing in, I am making my body come, breathing out, I am making my body come.

[23:42]

Because a lot of it is, I am making. When I think, I am making, this is a source of tension for me, because I feel I have to do something. So I change the words to breathing in, allowing the body to come. Yeah, I think that's fine. I think that it's good to not be attached to the way something's worded. Often it's, even though a person is trying to express something, non-dualistically, not so easy. If you can find a way that's more satisfying to express it, I think that's good. I think... I have a little trouble with that too.

[24:42]

I am making... it's... I think allowing is probably a good way to express it. My thoughts... tend to appear like in one act plays or sometimes three. Appear how? Like, play in one act or three acts. And I used to really force myself, it must have been like many years, unless it was a truncated thought, I would just by sheer force of concentration force myself to, you know, get back right on this track. And now, you know, when I do that, I still do it. I mean, I get caught up in these plays all the time. It seems to work better for me, but I'm much more gentle about it. I just go out, you know, and later I focus back on my breathing. It seems to work much better, but I can't hardly ... I still have to be quiet.

[25:48]

Well, it's fragmentary. Our thinking during zazen is fragmentary, for the most part, although there are parts where there seems to be a complete dream. But it is... Dissertations. Dissertations, yeah. But it is dreaming. And it's a form of dream, a kind of wakeful dream, and musings, and amusings, and preoccupations. but to allow the mind to be calm by not getting disturbed. I think this is really important, to not let anything disturb the mind. This is probably the most important thing, to not let anything disturb the mind, so that you always have the strength of mind and power of mind which is not upset by anything.

[27:01]

This is a kind of maturity that we should cultivate, which comes with calming the mind. we should be able to have the same calmness of mind in our daily life, so that we're not always getting upset by what somebody says. See, this way, it's good to allow yourself to get into a situation where people are insulting you, you think, or giving you a hard time, and just see how you can maintain calmness of mind. in that situation. I remember in the 60s, I think it was, in Japan there was a temple, Zen temple, where the students would sit in zazen and the teacher would come behind them and yell all kinds of

[28:22]

things at them, you know, like, your mother is a son of a bitch, you know, and just say, you know, yell all kinds of things to try to upset them, you know, to try and see what their boiling point was, and to see how calmly they could actually, not just kind of holding it in, but to actually have true calm mind. We don't practice like that, but our practice is like that. Actually, if you're really practicing, you should observe your life in that way. Sometimes people say to me, you know, being at Tassajara, you know, I look at people and You know, they're getting upset all the time, and they're angry all the time, and they're doing... What kind of monastery is this?

[29:32]

Well, you know, we're just people, right? But we're also Zen students, and we should be conscious and make a practice of not getting upset. I don't mean holding in our anger or something, but actually letting go of settling in the calmness of our mind so that nothing can upset us. This is the sign of a mature Zen student. Something will upset us and we will get angry. That's okay. there is a mode, you know, a mode which is not being upset, not letting things upset us, even though sometimes we'll get upset, sometimes we'll get angry, but it's not our mode or our mood.

[30:42]

So, to practice zazen for a week, settling on mind, calming the mind, and then to go out and let everything that happens upset our mind, doesn't make any sense at all. Tom? You were saying how we should care about getting off. and when you think of it you think of it as a whole city on one, and so we should cut off the root of all transgression? Yeah. So I'd like to know if that's about, furthermore, what a transgression is in that context. Well, transgression would be, well, it could be many things, you know. It means to cross over into some other territory,

[31:48]

into some kind of defilement, which could be breaking precepts, but basically would be to, the biggest defilement would be to get lost in duality. I think that's the defilement, that's basic merit. Yeah? What is the root of that that we're supposed to cut off? Well, cut off, you know, cut is a kind of dramatic term. What is the root that we're supposed to leave alone? The root that you're supposed to leave? Well, the root. Right. You know, there's one root. And so you cut off all the other roots. and so that you can focus on the root of oneness.

[33:06]

So it becomes clear that all things come from the same root. Mary, did you have something you wanted to say? We do that by confessing our impure practice. My experience is that often while I'm sitting I'll notice some tension or that my mind is just all over the place and if I can get closer to it there's some physical holding. Closer to what? To the tension that I have. I mean, I notice that my mind is all over the place and I'm fantasizing a lot. And then if I notice, look at my body and I notice that there's a lot of tension, my breath is in my chest or something.

[34:14]

And I think it would be kind of quiet. Then what happens sometimes, often, is that a thought will arise that there is something that I'm turning away from, that I'm avoiding. Maybe some anger, or maybe some pain, or some irritation. And then, if that thought arises, and with some physical experience, if I can just allow that and be that physical experience to arise and feel the physical experience of anger or pain, and just be that for a moment, with or without words that explain it, then it fades. Like everything else. I guess what I'm asking is, but I do seem to need to be with it for a moment. I need to be anger for a moment. Everything that arises becomes the subject of... Is that illuminating it?

[35:21]

Yeah, that's illuminating it. Everything that arises becomes illuminated. There's nothing that's either significant or insignificant. Everything that arises becomes illuminated. If it's anger arises, that's a feeling. If irritation arises, that's a feeling. And to observe the feelings and the feelings is what you're doing at that time. So whatever feeling it is, you let it come up. Suzuki Roshi used to say, Invited in, but you don't serve tea. Is there such a thing as intuitive knowing, and where does it fit in the scheme?

[36:25]

Well, intuitive knowing is... Intuition means direct, directly knowing. So, the first level of consciousness is intuition, directly knowing. That's knowing without thinking. As in the Platform Sutra, when the sutra was describing the third wisdom, it said to know things without having to think, without thinking, to know intuitively without thinking. So, the first nin, or the first level of consciousness, the first moment of consciousness is intuitive. It just sees clearly. When consciousness sees clearly without any thinking to interfere or to distort, then that's intuitive thinking, and that's immediate and without bias, without color, coloring.

[37:37]

That's seeing as it is. The more developed level of consciousness describes to ourself what it is that we're thinking and what we're seeing and what it evaluates. And then the third level of consciousness is more removed and is discursive and complex talks about it and makes more of an idea out of it. So we have these three levels of consciousness. First one being bare attention. So when we're sitting in Zazen, it's bare attention. Just bare attention. Paying bare attention to everything that arises.

[38:39]

without discriminating. And the first discrimination is discriminating mind talks about it, or describes it, or says, oh, this is a this, and this is a that. This is anger. But the first level of attention just experiences as it is. So all three are invaluable and necessary. But if the third level is working by itself, then it's called fantasy. There's no root for it. It's pure imagination. So we try to turn the mind from its imaginative aspect to its intuitive aspect.

[39:40]

So, I know this is stupid, but intuition is included within chitta? Yeah. Yeah, the function of the mind is to intuit, and another function is to imagine. What is fantasy and imagination? What is what? Fantasy and imagination? Yeah, where sometimes thoughts come up, I don't even know where they're connected, and it's information that seems to be out there that connects. The mind is like a torrent, a rushing torrent, rushing over the rocks, continuously without stopping. and it needs to have some control and some direction.

[40:49]

So during Zazen we direct the mind, we give it a direction which sorts out all the information that's flowing through. So the object of zazen is to concentrate on the posture and the breath, and whatever is coming up in the mind, whatever is appearing in the mind, but not to follow the direction of the mind. If you follow the direction of the mind, then it's called fantasy. The mind is always fantasizing. So there's a time when you might want to fantasize, but it's not during zazen. It's some other time. You sit down and enjoy your fantasies, you know.

[41:53]

Just like you sit down and smoke a cigarette. Sit down and enjoy it. I, that's aside from this mind you're talking about. I keep hearing, maybe it's our language then. It's our language. It's strictly, when we say I, it's a convenient way of talking about these five rivers. So is this mind talking to itself then? Yes, the mind. Is this mind setting itself up? The mind is having a conversation with itself. So the mind is saying, if I can follow this one, the mind is saying there's a way I want to be. That's a thought, isn't it? Yes. So is that like I put up this thought as a goal and then I make all the other thoughts conform to this one thought? Yeah. You call that me? Yes. Well, we call it intention. Okay.

[42:57]

But still it's the sense of self as language, as idea. Well, it's a focal point, and the purpose of the focal point is to find freedom from the idea of a self. That's the whole purpose. It seems, in my own case, that the more I try to calm the mind or even return to body and so on, the more self-conscious and upsetting it is, until finally I just give up and sit there. Yeah. And let it go by itself. Yeah. Which is to say, it gives itself up. It gives itself up. See, the thing is that, you know, giving up, if what you mean by giving up is the same as what I mean by giving up, it means you're no longer bothered by all this stuff, by the torrent, you know, and you're free to concentrate or to even go beyond concentration so that you allow the mind its freedom to

[44:15]

to rush like a torrent. Which is to say the mind is allowing itself finally to rush freely. Right. And sometimes one is caught, sometimes one is released. But it's like watching the scenery, called watching the scenery of our life as it goes by. But if you get caught up in it, then we're no longer, it's no longer zazen. We're just in the fantasy. So we return our attention to the posture and the breath. What is watching the scenery? Watching the scenery is observing. What I'm trying to say is, is thought observing thought? Thought is observing thought. And the thought that is the observer is the same as the observed. They're not two different things.

[45:18]

The mind is watching itself. Consciousness is observing the actions of itself, its own actions. But those are not its only actions. Consciousness is watching its own actions. What do you call non-volitional actions? Inadvertent actions? Or is it a word that I'm trying to think of? Right, because the thoughts are involuntary, right? So the mind is watching its involuntary action. And at the same time, our intention is to put our attention on our voluntary, voluntarily do something. So there are two sides.

[46:19]

One is passive, which is to let everything come. And the other is the active side, which is to do something. If you're only passive, it's not complete. That's why we sit up straight, we put an effort into our posture, and we try to maintain the posture, and we try to maintain the intention. And that's the positive activity of zazen. The active side. The passive side is to let everything come as it comes. And to accept everything and to focus the attention. So both sides are acting at the same time. It seems as though if you stick with the passive, what happens is you get overwhelmed, or you invite it in, you wrestle with it, hug it, kiss it, absorb it, eat it, and pretty soon you're gorged on it.

[47:22]

And then maybe you let it go, but maybe you're so gorged on it you have to keep going. So that in some way a doing has to take place, an action has to take place of focusing attention on the myriad other things that are available to come into it. It's sort of like we get caught, it seems to me we get, or I get caught in my imaginings and miss the fact that dogs are barking and death is happening and body is, you know, miss all this other total stuff that's... So it seems as though the action is something about attending to the other things that... that you completely lose track of if you dive, if you invite the guest in and give them tea and do all this other stuff. Well, it's okay to keep the ears open and the eyes, all the senses are open.

[48:29]

But there's no one who is sensing. There's just hearing, seeing, tasting, touching, feeling, and thinking. But there's no one who's doing the thinking, who's doing the seeing, who's doing the touching, tasting, and so forth. Right. This is to just be completely open and let the open, the wind, the cool breeze blows through the empty hall. But the hall isn't empty if you're caught. But there is a hall. So you have to do something. There is a hall. And so the hall, everything has an integrity of structure, which is called the positive side. So we maintain an integrity of structure and intention. And in order for there to be a hall for the breeze to blow through,

[49:33]

It's okay if you hear the dog, or if the dog is heard, but it's okay if the dog is not heard. It's okay if the dog is not heard. Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to indicate I thought that there was an okay or not okay, but that there seems to me that the imagining or fantasizing aspect of mind can become so powerful that the effort needs to be made perhaps to take on Well, the fact of the matter is that our life is a life of fantasizing and imagining, which creates a dualistic situation in our life and cuts off the illumination of our essence of mind. But we don't cut that off. We illuminate it with essence of mind.

[50:41]

We illuminate it with the enlightenment of essence of mind. That's why it's important not to cut things off, even though it says cut off. Cut off is just a term. Language, you know, language is... don't get caught by language and try to understand between the words. But you can't get rid of something and you can't take anything on. There's no gaining or losing. So when we say cut off, it means cut off the dualistic thinking that creates the problem. But it's not something you cut with, you know, it's just a metaphor. It just means, cut it out, you know.

[51:43]

If somebody's bothering us, we say, cut it out. But, you know, you don't cut anything. Let's see, when we have thoughts to Notice the thoughts and return to our posture and our breathing. But I think also what we can do is actually look at the thought and illuminate the thought with our awareness and see the essence of mind within the thought. Yeah, that's right. That's what we do. But if we turn away from the thought and bring our attention, our awareness to our breathing and our posture, then we don't... It's like we're turning away from something and not really seeing it. You can't turn away from something. The light illuminates the thought, and then the light illuminates the body and the breath.

[52:44]

So you're not really turning away the light, you're not eliminating the light, you're just changing the subject. But we miss something when we do that, when we're away from it. Yeah, you miss the subject. You change the subject and you're no longer... What you miss is the imaginative subject. My point is if we look at the imaginative subject we can see the essence of mind within that, and we don't have to always return to awareness of the brain and posture, we can just look right at that and see the essence of mind, illuminate the essence of mind in the thought, the thought within the thought, and see the non-dualistic nature of that. Yes, that's right, but then the thought will change. True. Thought is always changing. The states of mind are continually changing, moment by moment. It's really easy to indulge in the torrent of thought, the fragmentary torrent of thought and the imaginative torrent of thought.

[53:55]

to keep returning to posture and breathing is called cleaning the mind. Just letting go, you know, just noticing and letting go, noticing and letting go. At another time, you can be more involved with thinking mind. But there's one thought, and it's the thought of zazen. The thought that you have in zazen is, it's not that there's no thinking, there is a thought, the thought of zazen. That's what we think about in zazen. And everything else is extra. But you don't eliminate it. I mean, you don't chase it away. You treat it kindly. It's an intrusion. So sometimes I tell people my life, what my life is about is intrusion. Continual intrusion. Something is always intruding on my space. continuously, but it can either be an intrusion or an inclusion, depending on how I look at it.

[55:05]

So I'm doing this, and this comes, and what am I going to do about it? But I'm always doing, this is the thing I'm doing. So if you say, well, why not just watch the thoughts? That's not what I'm doing. What I'm doing is this. If I stick with the thought, then it's not an intrusion, but a distraction. Well, I guess my point is it's not so much as a distraction, but to realize that the thought isn't just a thought, but it's also interpenetrated by everything else. Yeah, that's good. Then you can let go of it. That's what we do. But how does that happen if we turn our awareness back to posture and breathing? Well, just because it's essence of mind, it doesn't mean we have to stick with it. As a matter of fact, if we stick with it, then it becomes a distraction, because what we're doing is sitting zazen.

[56:09]

Okay. Well, once the thought is no longer just a thought, but it can see the essence of it, which is one way to express it. He can't see the essence of it. Well, one way to express the essence is that it's non-substantial. It isn't inherent in itself. It's no longer a thought, it's no longer a problem. That's right. And letting it go is to free ourself. I'm getting lost. I think that it's too logical. Well, it's a kind of logic. you're creating a logical circular thing, which is hard to get out of, because if the thought expresses the essence of mind, well why bother to do anything else?

[57:14]

Logically that makes sense. You recognize what it is for what it is while it's there. Right. That's all. That's all. And then return to... And then return to what your purpose is, what your job is, what you're doing. But if you stay with the intruder, you treat the intruder as kindly, but you don't stay with it because it's not its home. I don't stay with it. I try to notice at the end of the term. By noticing, it's more than just noticing. I think there's a deeper level of noticing. Well... Steve? It's kind of very rough to say. Excuse me, I'm sitting now.

[58:20]

Excuse me, I'm sitting now. Come back later. Well, we can make a deeper level, but then we're just getting deeper into it. So be careful. We love getting deeper into it. We do.

[58:43]

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