in a journal format and asked you a number of questions. But I hoped you would pick one or two maybe of those questions and perhaps write something on the question that interested you and caught your attention. Perhaps something that was somewhat relevant to you. So if you did write something, would you pick it out? A journal exercise. And let's start with the journal exercise. And so somebody please tell us about a pleasant event. We were going to track both pleasant and unpleasant events and I don't know how you organized that for yourself. The table sort of permitted you to have some flexibility there. But what did you come up with?

[01:01]

I don't know. It was tough. UCL was a very easy place. I did have a very pleasant event the last night. I was able to make use of all the information that was available. I was doing my work and I was dealing with more interesting things. I felt that I was able to do a decent job. What did you feel in your body? I'm not very comfortable with being extra special. I used to get very excited. I didn't feel that the last night. I don't remember feeling anything. Unusual or anything? Unusual. But some excitement.

[02:03]

Did you learn anything in that observation? I wasn't quite sure what you meant by learning anything. It's sort of what I consider minor revelations. Minor revelations are acceptable to me. No, it has to do with the question of my background. Okay. I do sensory work. It's always been that way. What we perceive in the world is not perfect. You don't hear anything. You don't see anything. It's incomplete. It's that incompleteness that by necessity leads us into life experiences and other sensory experiences. So we can never understand each other that way. So we would always be apart.

[03:07]

We would always be separate from each other. We would always experience those things. That was your learning. And again, as you experienced that learning, what did you feel? Um, I don't know. I felt like, oh, I think I understand something. Yes. There was a thought. There was a thought. On the other hand, you know, it's like, you know, we're all this way, and we're all depressed, and we all, you know, are alone. So something... Yeah, it was sad. A sad feeling was present. How did that feeling come about? I don't remember ever seeing it. I guess I'm just not very fond of it.

[04:08]

It should be more. Well, it should be more. That's another idea. I think it would help. Thanks very much. Anyone else? Eric. Once he and I got to connect with a woman, and we were on a one-on-one application, so it's a library, and one of the books, and we get to have some fun, and we get to have some music, and we get to make a song. And then she came back, and we corresponded. And, you know, it's kind of been a while for me, and so, you know, first there were... It seemed that she was going to respond after I came back from the weekend, and it was sort of hard, but she popped her stick, and we set some possibilities. Wow.

[05:12]

Positive feeling. You know, there, I noticed, you know, the arising of, you know, excitement, and I was watching, and attachment, and wanting to devote more time and attention to developing this, and to be distracted by it, and not take care of business, and do my work, et cetera. And then, with a certain amount of respect, it was tightening the excitement, and it was sort of a fearful feeling about, you know, maybe I'm not working out, you know, kind of a crushing hit mentally, and I need more attention, and a grip, and a sensation of love, without being accompanied by fantasies about how it's going to be, and all of those sort of emotions.

[06:16]

And so, you know, it's very interesting watching this big action, you know. I like to think some wisdom asserted in itself, that if I'm beginning to get more spectacular, you know, attachment, because you're getting excited about it, you're fantasizing about it, you're thinking of things that are going to happen, and you're like, you know, it's going to happen. And it's sort of letting go of anything that you're attending to at the moment, to business, and it gets, you know, all of these excitations, and watching, and attachment, and dissatisfaction, and it doesn't want to, it doesn't want to be used. And so it goes. Yeah. Could I ask you what attachment feels like? It feels like a closing down, apparently.

[07:19]

Where? In the process. Yeah. Reoccupation, and being attached to it, to let it just regenerate. That's what I want to have happen. To go on together. Thanks very much. Did you learn something? What did you say? I mean, you told us a lot, so this is really learning a great deal. You know, yeah, more of a perspective on this is how these things arise, and how I get caught up in the, you know, wanting, how the wanting creates these aggregates of attachment, which lead to a sense of dissatisfaction, and the good things are, and not to seek completion. The bad things are, wanting to make this complete.

[08:21]

Okay, thanks. Anyone else? Please, thank you. Yeah, I was thinking of how it's not true. You could read it anyway. So, yeah, I filled this thing out. I just forgot to bring it. So, I don't want to talk about it. Wednesday morning, when's Wednesday down there? Wednesday morning, I'm so jittery, I don't want to go. It was a pleasant experience. Actually, the whole thing was a pleasant doing, because I knew he was going to be happy with this. Because the day before, I figured out the place in the cell, the night before. Now we're moving, the first time, I turned the bell, and did it in different places. One place, and I had the bell set up the next morning.

[09:27]

You put a little dot on the bell? No, I memorized it. I said, I don't know what his name was. I memorized the pattern, in the area, in order to destroy the residence. I didn't mean to, but I was attempting to get a magic marker, but I memorized some of the markings in the bell. So, that was all very pleasant, having that come out. There was satisfaction with the bell, going on and on and on. You don't love it, so there's thinking. And physically, there's great pleasure, there's physical happiness and satisfaction, very physical. Then I'm still warm, feeling in the comfort of my body, kind of like relaxation, not some sort of disease, but comfort and warmth. I thought a little later. Kind of during and later. During, probably more as a response to the thoughts,

[10:31]

oh, this is going to please, so you can thank me. A kind of anticipation of that. So, anyway. So, those are feelings and emotions. And I'm pretty sure the thought didn't come up. Oh, this is working. This is as good as I wanted it to be. So, this will impress everyone. It's wild, like a very long thinking. A great moment. So, what did I learn? What I learned is that I cannot control my mind. And everything I did, I marked out many pleasant experiences every time I pretend I cannot control my mind. I mean, I'm just going off on this tenet, on this idea about so-and-so life isn't suffering. He actually did, without me prompting him, say that I was, he learned that pretty well. He learned that

[11:33]

before he even asked me. And as I was writing it, writing it down by myself, I was feeling happy. Remembering those pleasant experiences. Thoughts, real thoughts. The same pleasure in the body is overwhelming. Would you sort of bring out for us a little more of the, I don't know, well, I have to characterize it a little bit. It sounded like there was sort of a, something unpleasant in there that prepped in some kind of, having to do with I shouldn't be anticipating or something like that. Is that correct? Well, it's only on reflection. I think, I realized, I wasn't aware at the time that I was being, oh, this must be impressive to the people around me. But now reflecting, oh, those thoughts were occurring. And I feel some shame

[12:35]

or whatever about having that kind of stuff go on. I can't control it. I can't control my mind. It's a greed for fame. Great. Thanks a lot. Well, these are, these are really interesting. You know, this is a, this is an exercise that one can do for weeks and talk about for a very long time because it's, you know, it's like computing and I need to get more and more precise, clearer about what's happening. And of course, it should keep happening. What's that? It should keep happening. It should keep happening. Yeah, that's the fifth overture. Any other comments that anyone wants to make? It'd be great to talk more about this. We have some.

[13:38]

So what do you notice about these observations? Do you see any sort of patterns or themes or anything here that stands out for you? I can't control my mind. You can't? Yeah. You can't control your mind. You certainly don't. Change. What? Change. Change. This whole, all this is rife with change. For some reason, I mean, I can't do this or feel bad about it. It's a good feeling for me right now. Interesting. Yeah. In some ways, well, there was, yeah, maybe there was feeling bad about the good feelings, or in any way, fair to say that pleasant and unpleasant were kind of right there to the future twilight, not way out there in separate opposite camps. That seems true. The reaction is pretty similar.

[14:39]

The reaction is pretty similar. The reaction? Like, pleasant and unpleasant can be similar in that you get to attach to something other than you, being what you are. Uh-huh. So you get, right, so you observe some, like a mechanism at work where some attachments, whatever that is, and then something is not so pleasant. Yeah. What about pleasant and unpleasant in your stories? What do you see? What ties pleasant together with pleasant stories? Doing a lot? Yeah. A lot of liveliness. Yes. Well, I'm operating here in this world

[15:40]

through the beginning of achieving something I wanted to achieve in order to be able to participate in the achievement of something. So achievement was involved in this, in some way. Well, wanting. Wanting, that's right. Interesting. Yeah. Sorry. You might think that, but... Yeah. Well, one of the things I noticed in each of these pleasant stories, OK, we call them stories, right? We're telling stories. It's very similar, I think, to the process of our tradition, is that each one of them involves a connection. So when you describe

[16:41]

some pleasure when the bell was... I thought I heard or felt or sensed a... There was a pleasure in the connection with the bell, with the wah, wah, wah. And, you know, we can look at that through the lens of competency. Oh, I'm really good at this. I've accomplished something. There's also just the connection with the bell and the sound and this connection. Part of the anticipation sounded like it was anticipation of a connection with a soul, another human being. Certainly in your story, there's connections. I want to get connected. I want to get connected. Right. And connection can be very pleasant. And how interestingly, connection can be sort of turned, or how it turns,

[17:44]

with some other ingredients. I noticed what, you know, the pleasure of, you know, realizing the connection before it was blossomed. I was very kind of opening, loosening, right? I wanted something. Yes. Yes. So, just to sort of round out that point, what seems to characterize unpleasant is, in your story, kind of squeezing down and also separation, disconnection. You know, disconnected from the moment, from being, you know, engaged and complete. Well, anyway, a lot of thoughts came up. Expectations, conceptualization, some sense in which that's pulling away from

[18:47]

what's actually going on now. Anyway. And then you have to be aware of the tension of the course of time, or the tension that has been brought to that, you know, in your, you know, in your own life. Well, people respond in various ways. People often respond by saying, gee, I didn't notice anything in my body. And then another thought arises, which is commonly, gosh, I don't pay very much attention to my body, I guess. And the next thought is, I should pay more attention to my body. You illustrated that for us beautifully. So, anyway, whatever that is, it leads,

[19:47]

may lead to a very wholesome thought. Gee, there's a body here. I could actually, at very low cost, pay attention to this body. And inevitably, other people observe something about their bodies. So, it opens the thought that there's a mind here, and we all, many of us, are sort of oriented around our bodies. But it's, there's a body here. So that this, this, for example, this contracting body is not just something up here. There's a, there's a thing that's going on in the body as well. So in a way, one can become more sensitive to contracting and opening. It's, and it, it becomes, you know, you can

[20:48]

live in that experience. So, paradoxically, there's an unpleasant experience, say, one of contraction. But one brings attention to that and, and experiences it fully. And that is pleasant. So, it's a bit, it's actually a very deep practice. I don't know about that. But, it is. It's, you know, starting with one eight-and-a-half, eleven sheet of paper, and some very simple, you know, third grade questions. We adults can become young again and begin to experience what, you know, we may have tended to compartmentalize our paper over or something, dismiss or something like that. And that has a lot to do with

[21:51]

what it means to be alive, to be essential. Essential means to be in response, response of the way. So, in that way, we become ourselves. of course, we are always ourselves. What else could you be? But, somehow you're not fully alive in what you are in the way of talking about it. When you are alive in what you are, even if it's quite unpleasant, what's happening at the moment, there is a satisfaction which comes with that. It happens. It's an exercise. Satisfaction. Well, perhaps that's enough for tonight. Thank you very much. You'll see how this relates

[23:01]

very intimately with one of the truths that was already shown. Thanks. How about the notion of an essay or a poem, a song, or something about one of these questions? You described it to us, and it was ending. Huh? Do you want to sing it to us? OK. Who else wants to sing the song? Perhaps someone who hasn't spoken? Dan? Sure. Well, I tried to learn a little bit already. But it turns out that almost nothing works. So I failed. Well, I didn't... You know, I could have used other words.

[24:04]

You gave it a try. Did you have a question around Duca, though? I mean, did you find that that kind of occupied some energy for you? Well, I thought that was the topic. It is a topic. What is... I mean, one doesn't know what is Duca. It's everything you've got, not... So I was going to write this poem. Is there a way you could or would express that inquiry or insight or whatever it was now, other than on the mic? Anyone else? Anyone? Ann? Well, when you gave us those questions last week, I had this immediate response when you said, what is Duca? I said, Duca is money, seems to me, however we are. And then I thought, well, does that come with all the others?

[25:08]

I don't know. Money seems to be over the counter. Anyway, it seems to count, doesn't it? I mean, Eric sort of fleshed that out for us, his story. Where wanting comes up, not just wanting, of course, but there's also this wanting plus contraction or fixating of some kind. That's what I heard in the story. And I'm a little obsessed. Well, anyway, there were something else. Right. You've got some other problem? Okay, thank you. Can I get a word? You said this about three times in the question. You said, what did it say that Thursday is Duca? And then when I have access to rain in the summer,

[26:10]

I don't know if you said that, but that was the thought that arose. I might have said it, but I don't think you're seeing it. No, I'm sure you're seeing it, but it doesn't seem to make sense to me. Yeah. And I said, what did that block requirement mention about Thursday? That's sort of a question about causation, the nature of causation. Is that what you mean? Or specifically Thursday? Well, I think it's the same causation that Thursday arises in the way that we have relative to Thursday. Right. Is it the same? Yeah. Okay. The other Thursday doesn't necessarily have to be Thursday. It doesn't have to be Thursday.

[27:13]

Yeah. Right. Right. And just as you discovered perhaps no cessation of suffering, perhaps no cessation of thirst. Yeah. Thirst happens. Good name, too. Okay. Okay. Okay.

[28:31]

I like this. It's sort of like a parent's story. What is a story like that? It sees its own conditioning, and sees how it gets grabbed, and pushed around, and pulled, and ripped, and out of the pot. Do you have a specific example? Well, actually, I mean, I've got a lot of lessons that I can give you, but it just seems that if I can observe the thirst, if I can observe the pain, then I can come back to life. Surrender it to me. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

[29:45]

Right. Yes, you see. Oh, I see. It's hard to have full conversations about craving in a class, you know, unless you know each other quite well, and even then, you're an acceptable craving. That's right. It's like a physical presence,

[31:08]

a physical emotion. It's like I feel, or I feel, or I'm spoken to, or I'm heard. Maybe it involves a difference in time. Time has to stop. And, and, and maybe, maybe it's very imaginative. It's very interesting, noticing that actually being able to have a conditioned response to something can be quite pleasant. It's very nice. Very nice. But at the same time, since nothing ever repeats itself,

[32:12]

you know, the only thing is to be the same, as a sort of attitude in life, you create quite a stream of disappointment. What was that? Well, what would that be like? I don't know. It's not dangerous. It's just like, whoosh! What else? What else could it be?

[33:16]

That would be another example of a conditioned response. Yeah. Thirst arises. One way, sort of a conditioned way, is if you have a habit of, say, swilling arcs through here. Let's say that was your, you know, sort of a well-worn pathway in your nervous system. Was that? That would take many years. Yeah, that's right. It developed over a long period of time. It's the caffeine, it's the sugar, but it's just, you know, a plan. And so, you know, bam! The hand goes up, and down goes the arcs from here. Or the chin. You know, whatever it is. The joy.

[34:19]

Right. All of the above at the same time. Yeah. I like it. So there's thirst, and there's a conditioned response. But there could be, there could be something totally new that wasn't reaching people the way that it was. There's also something else that I'm sort of trying to nudge you toward that you do exhausted all the time. You notice something. You with me now? You notice it. You notice it. It's so simple you can't answer it. You notice it. That's all.

[35:21]

You hold it. Right. Thirst. You don't need it, because you don't have to. It's just you and thirst, so to speak. But it's like that. You don't push it away. You don't identify with it. I am my thirst. You don't hate it. It's just there. That's all it is. So there's really a range, there's a wide range of possibilities here for a response. These are just touching the surface, right? There are millions of possibilities that would constitute a response. And we can, in principle, notice anything. I don't know about all of you, but Chris, I'm sure you should. So when you say,

[36:39]

when you say, when you say, when you say, is there such a thing as... Obviously there is. Right? I mean, we use that meaning in a relative way in conventional speech. We just do. We can communicate with each other through the concept of innocence. Is there such a thing as an absolute, absolute, absolute thing called unconditional response? That seems to be... So... We don't know. I mean, spontaneity... We don't know. Maybe we just don't know because we're acting in a conditioned way. You can always ask that kind of question. That's a question you can answer. You can answer that

[37:41]

through very careful approximation of what you're practicing. That's about the best you can do. That's not bad. I guess I'm a little fuzzy on how that works, what we're calling the conditioned-unconditioned response. I mean, if you're using an unconditioned sense of untrained or a lack of help, sometimes I wonder that there are almost no unconditioned responses. Psychiatry, for example, can straight-up tell us that there's no unconditional but everything else is conditioned. Is that essentially using a condition? No. And I think we would have to spend a long time pinning down all this language because I... For example, I would agree with you that those are unconditioned. So, obviously, this is pretty... It's not... Is there any such thing as an unconditioned thing? That's a good question.

[38:42]

But it's not one we're going to answer today. It's a kind of question to... When have I ever come across an unconditioned phenomenon? It doesn't have to show what you mean by unconditioned at all. You're talking about it in terms of response. So you're talking about it in a subject, in a human being. Of course, you could go wider than that. There are other phenomena that are not exactly subjective experiences. You could ask that question and then condition would have another meaning. Right? We're talking more about psychologically conditioned. There's something like that. Something that has to do with a myriad of pathways. So we could attack that kind of question intellectually and write books about it. Or we can... We can experience responses in ourselves. We can be aware of responses just as they are

[39:44]

without kind of analytical framework. And that's sort of what we're focusing on here. That's a different enterprise than kind of intellectual analysis of the kind. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just a different enterprise. Yeah. So, I think we're going to go on. Okay. Okay, this is a little... The idea about desire. So, first... Desire... Desire is... [...] Okay, so... We're suffering.

[40:47]

We're... We're constantly trapped. And... I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm very confused. Desire... In one sense, a satisfying desire consisting basically of a thirst for a glass of water. Or other desires that have come up satisfying desires. To me, It's not myself that I'm scared of. It's not that I don't want to do it. I just want to have a lot of fun. It doesn't really attach to me. It's satisfying for me. It's part of who I am. It's part of who I am. It's part of who I am. It's always something I'm looking forward to. It's the opposite of what people think I am. It's the opposite of what people think I am. Sometimes I think about my potential. It's the opposite.

[41:50]

What? I'm just... It gets a little bit clearer to me as to exactly what is suffering. What is desire. Are you finished? Yes. Do you have something you want to say, either on your own or about what you said? Well, I don't think we're... We're not talking about not taking risks. We're not taking risks. Basically. What are we talking about? I don't know. Okay. Would you take out the copy of Four Noble Truths, which... This is what we're talking about. I didn't mean not to answer your question. Did you find it? I don't know if you heard it. I'm scared of heights. This is the... I don't know how it's labeled, but... What does it say?

[43:21]

It says the name. Raise your arm. So, this was a very interesting discussion. Diving into the Four Noble Truths, right? And these kinds of questions come up. Well, what is desire? And what desire are we talking about in the Second Noble Truth? And what is its relationship to suffering? That's all. So, this is wonderful. Very successful. Exercise. What? Raise your... Do you have it? Yes. Do you have it? Does anyone need it? Okay. I just have root relations to Four Noble Truths. Well, let's... If you don't have one, just listen.

[44:28]

Okay? Because we don't want to spend a lot of time looking through our papers. At least I don't. Okay, here we go. Setting in motion the wheel of the Dharma. Thus have I heard. Once the one who enjoys the spoils of victory was staying at Isipitana, near Benares. He spoke to the group of five ascetics as follows. Monks, there are two extremes which one who has left the household life should not resort to. And? What are they? One is devotion to the sense of desire and pleasure of the human being. It is the way of ordinary folks. It is unworthy and uncomfortable. The other is devotion to self-mortification. It is painful and immobile. It is not the use of the real purpose of life. Giving up these extremes, the one who has been there, has walked out of the middle way, which is the right insight of wisdom.

[45:30]

It is the cause of peace, development of consciousness, and enlightenment. The middle way is the way of right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right sound. The noble truth of Dukkha is this. Birth, old age, sickness, death, grief, lamentation, pain, depression, and agitation are Dukkha. Dukkha is being associated with what you do not like, being separated from what you do like, and not being able to get what you want. In short, five aggregates of grasping are Dukkha. The noble truth of Samatha, response to affliction, is this. It is thirst for self-recreation, which is associated with being. It lights upon whatever pleasures are to be found here and there.

[46:32]

It is there for sense pleasure, for being in knowledge. The noble truth of Marga, the right track, is this. It is in the right way of thinking, right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right sound. The noble truth of Samatha, response to affliction, is this. It is there for sense pleasure, for being in knowledge. Affliction should be understood to be a noble truth. It is something in the right way of understanding. It is in the right way of knowledge. It is in the right way of thinking. It is in the right way of life. Full understanding of affliction as a noble truth has gone.

[47:36]

This was the end of Samatha. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. I wish you well. Namaskaram. This is the noble truth of Samatha. It is in the right way of understanding. It is something in the right way of knowledge. It is in the right way of thinking. It is in the right way of life. The response should be understood to be a noble truth. It is in the right way of understanding. It is in the right way of knowledge. It is in the right way of thinking. The response should be understood to be a noble truth. It is in the right way of understanding. It is in the right way of thinking. It is in the right way of life. Paragraph 5.

[48:42]

When the victorious one had said this, the five monks were filled with joy. In one of them, Pandanya, the pure Dharma-I, was completely open. He saw that whatever can arise can be contained. When the victorious one had turned the wheel of the Dharma in this way, the spirits of the earth cried out. Dear Benares in the dear park at Isipitana, the wheel of the highest Dharma has been turned and it cannot now be turned back by anyone, human or divine, anywhere in the world. This cry resounded throughout the heavenly realms. The earth shook, and an immeasurable light was released into the world. Then the blessed one said, Venerable Pandanya has understood, and from that day on, he was given a name. He understood. So, this is, of course, similar to and different from

[49:43]

the one that we read last week by Rahula, his version and his interpretation. What, if anything, jumps out at you as a way of contrasting? The second noble truth, in the classic formulation, is that suffering has a cause. In this formulation, the second noble truth is that suffering has a response. Yeah, that's a huge difference. What about the first noble truth? It uses the term affliction. That's not the same as suffering, which is a way of learning. Affliction and suffering. Could be.

[50:46]

Certainly, affliction can involve suffering. No question about it, but we'll see. How about the third? Cessation. Extinction. Containment. Quite a difference. The fourth noble truth, it's not clear that there's such a big difference. This writer, this interpreter of the four noble truths,

[52:00]

Razor, whose translation we've just read, interprets the first noble truth, translates the term as affliction, and the meaning of affliction, he associates with it, is very direct, simple kind of meaning, which we referred to last week. Namely, the sense of it happens. Affliction. Unpleasant things, difficult things, happen. Happen. You may think outside in the environment, to us, it may seem like it's in us, but things happen which are afflictions. We didn't bring them about in any obvious way. Razor argues that, from his point of view,

[53:05]

that's much more likely what Buddha would have been talking about in this context than something which is kind of elusive, like suffering, oh well, what kind of suffering do you mean, and so on. His argument is very straightforward. Buddha, in his first talk to his monks, was not using specialized technical language. He was talking about something that we've all encountered, and to a greater or lesser degree, understand. Namely, the notion of affliction. Things happen to us. And to understand and appreciate, fully, deeply, that this is so of the human condition, things happen, is a noble...

[54:08]

It's a noble truth that things happen. Painful things, many kinds of things, but in particular things that are, in general, negative experiences for human beings, they happen. And to deeply appreciate that, to accept that that is so for human beings, sentient beings, is a noble thing. That it is so is not the cause of shame. It should not be the cause of shame. It often evokes shame in us, but that's because we don't understand the universal truth. That's essentially the argument. I'd like to get too caught up in a discussion about it, but I wonder if he did because he poses affliction,

[55:11]

and then he says affliction is because of craving. Let's get to the next one, then. Let's go to the secularist noble truth. Though... Well, I'll say them quickly, then we'll come back. So the first noble truth is affliction. The second one is, he calls, response. There is a response. It's called dukkha samudaya. Response to dukkha. That's the actual language of the second noble truth. So the second noble truth is, in response to dukkha, or rather, there is a response in sentient beings to dukkha. To thoroughly, deeply understand, appreciate,

[56:16]

to accept in your bones that human beings respond to dukkha is a noble truth. The third noble truth is that this response can be contained. It can be held. Then that clarifies it. The fourth noble truth is that a life of acceptance of the first, second, and third noble truths and the practice of those truths... Notice the shift, by the way. The first noble truth is to accept the fact of affliction. The second noble truth is to accept the fact of response to affliction. The third noble truth is something you can do.

[57:20]

Namely, you can contain the response. The fourth noble truth, arga, is the life, the lifestyle, that naturally arises from the practice of the third noble truth and the acceptance of the first two. So the structure of the four noble truths under this analysis is quite different. It's A, B, C, D. It's linear. In fact, it's not just linear. What you can see if you examine the fourth noble truth carefully is that, of course, it isn't linear in the sense that it starts here and goes off somewhere like that. It's like a circle or perhaps a spiral. That is, the practice of meditation, say,

[58:25]

or the attainment of wisdom, or the practice of ethics, and so on, which are spelled out in the meaningful path, will lead to a deepening appreciation of the first noble truth, clearly. So, in that sense, you could say the causation is quite complex. It's more than linear. It has this kind of spiral effect. But the pattern of causation is distinctly not the medical model introduced and represented by the Lewis analysis that we wrote last week. So this is another reading of the four noble truths. I want to...

[59:31]

I don't have much time, but I want to cite a few things that you may find interesting in this connection. Fast forward seventeen or eighteen hundred years. Zen master Dogen. Fifty-five. Dogen says, Shoshoge says, the most important issue for Buddhists is how to get a completely clear appreciation of birth and death. Of course, we can stop there. I mean, there is a period in that sense, and we can stop there. It's a very deep statement. The most important issue for Buddhists is how to get a completely clear appreciation of birth and death.

[60:35]

Birth and death means the life of humans. Life of affliction. Life of response to affliction. It's human life. Birth and death is a technical code for samsara. It's a very deep note. Get a completely clear appreciation of birth and death. Buddha, that is, awakening, exists within birth and death. Enlightenment is not something somewhere else. It's over here, and our experience, our benighted experience, birth and death is over here. They exist, Buddha exists within birth and death. So birth and death vanish.

[61:37]

Birth and death as a problem are gone. Vanish. Vanish. Problem means something over there that gives me trouble. Birth and death, if Buddha's enlightenment is contained in birth and death, then it's not over there. Hence, not a problem. Birth and death as reality, not as a problem, as reality, are nirvana. If you see this, you will not seek nirvana by trying to avoid birth and death. This is the way to be free from birth and death. This is the most important point. It is. So,

[62:50]

I'll read you a few more quotes here. I don't think I did this before. Suzuki Roshi. If you do not lose yourself, then even though you have difficulty, there is actually no problem whatsoever. You just sit in the midst of the problem. When you are a part of the problem, or when the problem is a part of you, there is no problem. Because you are the problem itself. The problem is you yourself. If this is so, there is no problem. That's the way it is. You can say it is. He and Dogen, in different ways, talking about what it's like to be inside the practice of the first moment of truth. Perhaps the first and the second,

[63:56]

perhaps the first, second, and third. These reflect the Zazen construction. You sit in the midst of life, as it is, afflicted with responses. You just sit there. Freud. A patient must find the courage to direct her attention to the phenomenon of her illness. Her illness itself must be that out of which things of value for her future life have to be derived. The way is thus paved for the reconciliation with the repressed material which has come into expression in her symptoms. Patient has not to learn how to get rid of her illnesses, but how to bear it.

[64:59]

How to bear it, you can say. Hold it. Contain it. His illness is not a routine. It is his own self. It is the other he was always seeking to exclude from his life. Yeah. These guys are also in some song. They have the same song. It's a horror song. It's a horror song. Second Noble Truth, Samudaya. You know, thirst is used often as the kind of key meaning, example of it.

[66:03]

But really what we can say of Samudaya is that, of course, in illness there's a huge range of response to emotion. A huge range. We were talking about that before. In the connection world. The example you raised. Thirst. Responding to one's own responses. A huge variety of possibilities. There's sort of automatic, routinized, automatic pilot, what we tend to call in common language, conditioned response. There's spontaneous response. There's considered response. There's styles, ways of responding. Included in response is the whole array of feeling and emotion that swirl around our lives. Longing.

[67:04]

Heartbreak. Intimacy. Fear. Anger. Confusion. The whole deal. Second Noble Truth. That these, this huge catalog of feelings, perceptions, impulses, images, emotions, emotional responses, exist. To appreciate that that is so. To sit in the middle of that truth is a Noble Truth. Second Noble Truth. Third Noble Truth. Characterizes as containment. And in a sense constitutes, okay, now what do I do? How do I practice this?

[68:05]

He compares it to tending a fire. He uses the fire metaphor which the Buddha used a lot. And in that sense, affliction, the first Noble Truth is a spark. The second Noble Truth, which includes emotion, powerful emotion, and so on, is fire. The third Noble Truth, containment, nirota. Nirota is the Sanskrit term. And that term is commonly, it is typically translated as extinction or cessation. Now we don't have to agree or disagree with him about his etymological analysis of the term. But he says no,

[69:12]

he says yes, he could mean that. But nirota means, it's like this, ni means down, and rota means earthen bank. What do you do if you're trying to manage a fire? You go out of your grass, the lightning has started a fire for you, and it's burned down a gopher house, and there's a gopher there cooked for you, and you smell it, and it smells good, and you eat it, and you have a great time, and you realize, this fire is interesting stuff. But it's got to be contained. Because if not, the wind will blow, it reaches your grass hut, and you burn it all down. So you contain it. You put an earthen bank around it, or a fire ring, or you build an oven, or a crucible, you contain the fire, and you use it. Fire, passion, feeling, emotion,

[70:17]

is energy. You want to use it, not kill it. This is in sharp contrast to extinction. The arhat is the extinct volcano. Anything but that. In this analysis, these are points to enlightened beings who are walking around the planet these days, who are anything but extinct volcanoes. These are passionate, fully alive people, who have their fire completely under control, who use their fire. Thank you.

[71:22]

City. City? Innobiling. Innobilize? No. Innobilize. Inno-bolize, it's you. You are ennobled by that act. of sitting in its affliction and response to affliction and response to response to affliction. At least, Brazier is. Yeah. He talks about that contrast with what he says, I'll summarize this very quickly. He says that the traditional interpretation

[72:34]

suggests that enlightenment is something that happens over a huge, long period of time. It is the extinction, successful extinction of desire, thirst. The bad attainment is a huge, long period of time. Because it's the kind of thing that the closer you get to it, of course, it recedes. In fact, you never get there. And he argues that's not what the Buddha was talking about at all. That's just wrong. And the Buddha was saying, not that enlightenment is very, very, very far away. In fact, it's something that happens just like that. All this unawakened thing, one actually

[73:39]

is at rest with affliction, response to affliction. And that the life of practice, cultivation, which grows out of that moment is very, very, very long. It's endless. Of course, this is a dogma. It's a dogma. So that's powerful. Of course, it's been awakened. So practice starts with awakening. It starts with, you could say, the accomplishment of the third noble truth, or the culmination of the first, second, and third noble truths. And practice, the path, follows from that

[74:46]

and goes on endlessly. And they are different. So in that sense, they all, it's parsing out one, two, three, four of the truths and making four points, an eightfold path, and so on. It's a way for us to kind of break it down and understand it a little bit, and try to come to terms with it, but with all the four points. It's five minutes long. We'll hand it out at the end. There's a one-page thing there for you that shows you a chart of this fire-managing imagery, which will be interesting. So the first thing that we're going to do is, it's impolite to go through the four noble truths

[75:48]

this fast, but we have to, so that we now have almost five minutes to study the four sublime abodes. So not long. Not long. Here we go. This is a loving-kindness meditation, and it gives you the structure for practicing any of the four sublime abodes. This one's focused on the first one, mighty loving-kindness, or metta, or kali. So let's all sit up in your best sitting posture.

[76:56]

Take your breath. Go back in your memory and find an occasion when you felt deeply loved by someone, when you felt really moved by kindness, the openness, and the real generosity of this love. It's better to recall a relationship which does not evoke sexual feeling. Try to find a specific, concrete instance in which you actually felt love from another person. Not based on what you can do for the person.

[78:08]

It's just who you are. The person who loved you, your benefactor, could be a parent or a grandparent, a friend, a teacher, a mentor. It doesn't really matter who. You may wish to actually visualize this person. Recur again. Close to you now. Call the person's name. Now let this feeling of being loved

[79:13]

rise again in your mind and body. Visualize it. Call it. Visualize it. Visualize it. Feel it. Imagine it. Feel it. Feel it once again. You're the benefactor. You're the embodiment. Now, let your heart open

[80:18]

and extend that love back to the person that you've imagined. You're the benefactor. Just in the same way that you received this feeling of receiving love from someone, just sort of turn it over and send it back. Let your warmth fill, develop, satisfy this person. Feel the love returning to you again. So, let me kindness just close between you. Circumcise. You may want to express a wish or a prayer on behalf of yourself or your benefactor.

[81:22]

May I do it with safety. May I do well. May I do well. May I be peaceful, at ease. May I be happy. May my benefactor do it with safety. May she do well. May he be peaceful, at ease. May she be happy. Perhaps these feelings of gratitude

[82:40]

may appear very slight and non-existent. Still, you can probably recall an occasion when you were loved. Perhaps reciting the words that you just mentioned. Expressing wishes for your benefactor and safety and happiness. And plant seeds that you lost with. You naturally gain confidence in this kind of meditation. You can bring different people forward. You can bring

[83:40]

a neighbor, a stranger, yourself, an adversary, an outsider. You can extend the quality of love and kindness outward to people of the same group and the same neighborhood. The same kind. In all directions. And capacity for this is

[84:46]

unlimited. Now waiting for the image and recollection of your benefactor to soften and dissolve. Coming back to your own breath and body. And ending the meditation. So this kind of

[85:48]

meditation is practiced in some parts of the world. And as far as we know this four Brahma Viharas heavenly abodes or sublime abodes are unlimited. Actually those teachings were around before the Buddha. And so it's interesting that without any bias on this part he incorporated this great teaching into Buddhism. And there are folks who actually practice it this way. I just have to say that people who practice Tibetan Buddhism often say that it's the prayer

[86:50]

that's going around. Anyway the Four Parts of the Sutra is an introductory part of almost all of their practices. They say this they call it for immeasurable as a preface to their practice. So next time whenever that is we'll talk more about the Four Parts of the Sutra. Thank you very much for your participation and presence and attention. Ann has an evaluation sheet which she's going to hand out to you. And it would really be appreciated by the

[87:50]

organizers of these classes as well as Ann and me if you would complete these. Let's end for Bodhisattva Vows 1-10-3 He is honor numberless He is

[88:24]

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