She's been here for a very long time. She was about two years old when she came. She's had most all the senior positions, including being Chuso, a senior student, and as lay entrustment from Sojinboshi. Thank you. Today I thought I'd talk about mind in practice. In Buddhism we learn that the mind is really the cause of suffering. In Buddhism we see that mind is a cause of suffering and what we really do is when we practice meditation and in all our practice we're really working with our minds.

[01:46]

We often come to practice because of some kind of suffering. And when we sit down on the cushion, usually the first thing that we notice is thinking. Buddhists have been studying mind and talking about mind for over 2,000 years. Westerners started talking about it a lot in psychology, but that was so much later. But actually, Buddhist teachings on Buddhist psychology go back a good 2,000 years, if not more. And one thing that I've been studying lately, lately being the past couple of years, is a book called Transformation at the Base.

[02:51]

And I'm going to read a verse or two from it. And the book that I've been using is a interpretation and commentary by Thich Nhat Hanh. Transformation at the Base can also be translated as 50 Verses on Buddhist Psychology, but actually it was written back almost 2,000 years ago, early in the Common Era, by an Indian ancestor, Vasubandhu. He wrote a lot and expounded upon some Buddhist teachings about consciousness. And actually, what I've been studying and what he talked about were that there were eight aspects or levels of consciousness.

[03:55]

I don't want to make levels seem like there's a higher level or a lower level. There's nothing hierarchical about this. They're all part of each other. It's all parts of our mind. And I'm going to get around to talking about how we work with all of this in practice, but I just want to give some background. He talks about eight. I'm only going to talk about three to make it simple. So the first, the basis is that the kind of underlying ground of our consciousness is what they call a storehouse, and it's full of seeds. That's what it is. It stores seeds We don't see these, but what happens is we see them when they manifest or they flower. So the thoughts that we have, the actions we take, the words we say, they come from seeds.

[05:10]

And we don't know they're there really until they manifest, till we perceive them. But it's very important to know because even though we can't know all those seeds in our mind, sometimes we're surprised when they pop up and we say, like, where did that come from? Also, when we're trying to work with unwholesome states of mind, in some cases, anger or hate, things like that, It's important to understand these seeds and how they arise and what we can do about them. And in understanding seeds, it's important to realize that they're not all individual. Some are collective, some are societal, cultural, some of it is ancestral. So we have seeds that could go back many, many generations.

[06:13]

We also have seeds that came from our childhood and some of these could be individual based on the kind of families we grew up in. So we have seeds that were planted by our environments. So we are different from one another in certain ways depending on how we grew up. Then there are seeds planted by our culture and society, ideas, the media, prejudices, things like that, historical events. So all of this is operating in our minds, but we don't know it. We know it when we hear it, see it, think it, say it, but often we don't know what is actually there until then. So then there's another part of our mind, which is more the ego-biased mind.

[07:22]

And the term they use is manas, and I'll just use that to refer to it, but really what it is, it's that ego bias that we all have. We all have this mistaken idea of a self, an inherent, solid, enduring self. That's one of the basic teachings in Buddhism. And that's what makes Buddhism unique, I think, in that Buddhists don't believe in this solid self. And that's something that we all have to work with all the time and it's, this part of our mind is always deluded and always biased and always bound to an ego. And this is something we don't really see either.

[08:24]

But what we do see is the third one, which is mind consciousness. So when we sit down on the cushion and all of a sudden the mind starts thinking or making comments, making judgments, complaining, hoping maybe, questioning, whatever it is, our ability to self-reflect is mind consciousness and that's where we start. Mind consciousness is our ideas, our notions, our thoughts. And I'm just going to read a quick verse from this book, from Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary, so you can get an idea of what it says. This is actually verse 25.

[09:27]

Mind consciousness is the root of all actions of body and speech. Its nature is to manifest mental formations, but its existence is not continuous. Mind consciousness gives rise to actions that lead to ripening. It plays the role of the gardener, sowing all the seeds. So this shows that we're actually involved with the seeds, even though we can't look at them exactly. Thich Nhat Hanh likes to talk about the garden and that in the earth, there are all these seeds in there. And when we practice, we are nourishing that garden. And those seeds, They're referred to as either wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate.

[10:32]

There's more to it, but I won't go into it. You know, Buddhist-like lists and words and all that. But basically, so these seeds can produce good, they can be destructive, or they just have potential to go either way. So with our mind consciousness, we can choose to sow and nourish positive seeds and leave some of the negative ones alone or in the ground. We can't get rid of them, but we can not nourish them. When I think about different levels of consciousness and how they operate, in my personal life, I often think about my relationship with my mother, who I've known for 62 years.

[11:46]

It's been a rather fraught relationship, but she's currently alive. almost 91 years old and she lives in Philadelphia where I grew up and she is still quite verbal and I talk to her anywhere from two to five times per day and she's a volatile woman and So I would describe my childhood as being one where there was a lot of unpredictability, a lot of a very high decibel level. And she actually has some kind of anxiety disorder. So, you know, She really does do a lot of screaming and yelling, which I understand better as an adult.

[12:51]

But, you know, as a child, it was not easy to be in that environment all the time. You know, she was kind of the I love you, I hate you kind of parent. And so, you know, seeds were planted. You know, I have those seeds in me. For example, she compared me to all kinds of unpleasant bodily fluids and nefarious political leaders, mass murderers, people like that. I was selfish completely, that kind of thing. And then, though, an hour later, it would turn around and I'd be told that I was just wonderful, that I was actually sensational and fantastic. That didn't feel good either. But it was this switching back and forth. And the reason I bring them up is that these are seeds.

[13:54]

You know, this is part of my storehouse mind. So she was so critical of me that when I went around in the world, if someone criticized me, I would have possibly a bigger reaction than someone who maybe didn't grow up in that environment. But what happened was that those seeds, you know, were watered. So they would manifest hugely in my mind. So, meanwhile, she did a lot of good things too. My mother has a fantastic sense of humor. She's absolutely hilarious. And she did some good things, like she encouraged me.

[14:56]

You know, she'd say things like, you can do whatever you want to do. You'll succeed, just keep trying. And that's another seed that was planted. So not only is that seed, so while we all have seeds, we're also planting seeds all the time too. So whatever we say to someone else, we have to think, you know, do we want to plant that seed today? I mean, this is going on constantly. So she planted some good seeds, positive, wholesome seeds. But, you know, the brain tends to be a bit reptilian, so often the more scary seeds are often stronger as part of our survival instinct. But, you know, I don't think they have to be. But I did carry around with me a certain negativity

[15:59]

because of this, that I found when I sat on the cushion, it was time to sit. And I thought, oh, I want to come, I want to be a Buddhist and I want to meditate because I want peace and tranquility. But what actually happened, you know, I'd sit on the cushion and there wasn't so much peace and tranquility. There was the image of my mother as the Wicked Witch of the West, you know, and so Zazen wasn't all that much fun. And speaking of the image of my mother, one thing that the mind tends to do is see representations. One thing that Thich Nhat Hanh talks about, and of course this goes way back to Vasubandhu, is that there are different ways of perceiving. So our mind consciousness can perceive in different ways. It can be completely deluded, but it's also capable of seeing directly, of practicing mindfulness, which is really what our practice here is.

[17:07]

Now, mind consciousness, is heavily influenced, obviously, by the seeds, the store consciousness, and manas, this ego bias. So our minds are often, the mind consciousness can be very distorted, but not always. So our practice really is about clear seeing, clear view, and planting seeds and nourishing seeds that are healthy and wholesome. So just to quote a couple of things that Thich Nhat Hanh said about this, he said, the objects we receive, excuse me, the objects we perceive are transformed into representations conditioned by the seeds of delusion in our store consciousness.

[18:15]

So this is kind of the, for me, the Wicked Witch of the West thing. He then goes on to say, but through practice, it can release the habit energy of looking at things in these terms and learn to touch the world as things in themselves directly. So I spent a lot of years trying to I would call it overcome the experience I had with my mother. And there were different stages of this, but I was pretty clear that I really didn't like her until I was about 42. And somewhere in there, I got tired of those solid images that I was carrying around with this woman, about this woman, and I began to study her.

[19:19]

And study is something in meditation that I often think of Dogen and to study the self, to really look, to investigate, not to study as, you know, an object. not so much scrutinizing, but really looking intimately at her. And at one point, I began to see her as a terrified child. She had grown up in extreme poverty. I found out later her parents were pretty brutal, which is something she never told me. I think she tried to hide it. And that a lot of her screaming and yelling and insults really came from her own fear and sense of powerlessness.

[20:22]

I mean, here I was having these images of this powerful Wicked Witch of the West, but actually, She felt completely powerless and her only resort was to scream. And actually after that, this image I had began to break apart. I started to feel very sad for her. And she was almost, I almost felt like she was a little baby I wanted to take care of, but she no longer terrified me. And then I felt no longer stuck in that fear and hate and all that kind of thing. So I'm just going to read another little bit from Thich Nhat Hanh about mind consciousness.

[21:51]

Because this self-reflection, this ability to look like this is part of mind consciousness. The way to train our mind consciousness in correct perception is through mindfulness. This is the most important contribution of the mind consciousness. When we are mindful, when we are aware of all our actions of body, speech, and mind, we can choose to act, speak, and think in wholesome ways rather than in harmful ways. With the energy of mindfulness generated by our mind consciousness, we can avoid watering seeds of anger, craving, and delusion in our store consciousness. and we can water seeds of joy, peace, and wisdom. This is why it is so important to train our mind consciousness in the habit of mindfulness.

[22:54]

And I think I'll end by just reading two more verses, verses 44 and 45. Practice conscious breathing to water the seeds of awakening. Right view is a flower blooming in the field of mind consciousness. When sunlight shines, it helps all vegetation grow. When mindfulness shines, it transforms all mental formations. Well, why don't we just... I'm happy to take any questions or comments, ideas. Lori.

[23:59]

Thank you so much. Oh, my God. This is the clearest explanation of those three levels of consciousness I have ever heard. I've heard a lot. So, thank you so much. I want to echo Laurie, and I want to say how much I appreciate that you're really presenting Buddhism, not just as a set of ethics or beliefs, but as a science of the mind. Thank you. It's incredible. Well, I'm glad it came out clear. I wasn't sure. I've been studying this with Sojan for a year and a half, and I'm part of a study group that's been studying it, too.

[25:06]

If anyone wants to, you know, as a librarian, I can't help. share my books, but this is Transformation at the Base by Thich Nhat Hanh that goes into a commentary on every verse. And this is an old version, but there's a new one called Understanding Our Mind. This is a reprint. So it's the same book. And then one book that was really helpful to me is called Living Yogachara. and an introduction to consciousness only buddhism anyway hosan oh go ahead were you finished yeah can you speak a little bit more about this the actual transformation that happens and how that happens is through awareness mm-hmm but what actually changes

[26:15]

I think there are two things. One is practice. We practice nourishing the wholesome seeds and not giving food to those negative ones. We can see ourselves doing it in Zazen, grasping onto thoughts, fighting with thoughts. We can see it out in the world. Over time, practice becomes a habit. So nourishing the positive seeds is changing a habit, and habits are part of actions. So we may not notice it at the time, it might not feel like transformation, but slowly it works. But I have to say there's also a little bit of magic involved that is unpredictable.

[27:22]

Magic is not the right word, but when we practice, we are consciously making an effort to do this. But then sometimes something happens. For example, when my image of my mother broke apart, it was not something I consciously said I was gonna do. I really started to pay attention without judgment. I was asking myself, who is this woman really? It's almost like a koan when we ask ourselves, what is it? We have to look with a completely open mind, letting our own egos kind of move out of the way to see a person.

[28:29]

And I think it was really not something that I planned and said, oh, now I'm going to do this. But I just love Dogen's verse, to study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. Really, it's a way of looking at reality. I also want to say thank you for the talk and sharing about your mother. I have a similar relationship with my mother and I've been practicing now for about four years. That's a great question.

[30:15]

I've heard that question before. All I can say is you can work with it because that person still lives in your mind. I think you can work with the image that you have of her. Send her kindness and compassion. Maybe talk to her, even if she's not here. What is your name? Andrea, right. Thank you. Hozon? Well, first, just have a small book recommendation. Oh, please. It's by Ben Connolly. It's Understanding Vasubandhu's Yogacara. It's a new book. It's really good. And talking about the same stuff.

[31:21]

The question that I have, I tend to be a both-and kind of guy, rather than either-or. Well, I think that what I learned was that there was wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate. Yes, that's the orthodoxy. Okay. Well, I think that a person can do whatever they want with the seed so that

[32:30]

Some things that I would think of as negative or unwholesome seeds may not take root or may not ever flourish in someone else's, you know, in someone else's experience. But, you know, if you go scream at somebody who's driving by because of their driving, you know, you're not likely to get a really good response. But you'll always, so you will plant a seed though, right? Yeah. That seed will be, I wouldn't say eternal, because that's a whole other problem, but it'll have a root for a long time. Yes. Sojin told me that there are seeds from ancient Egypt, 3,000 years old, that are still living. I mean, he's talking about literally, you know, plant seeds, literally, but... Well, so... You can say there are seeds from ancient Egypt, for example, that are planted in the consciousness of every Jew.

[33:52]

Yes, I could. But, you know, I just think about parts of the world, speaking of Egypt, you know, where there's constant conflict, particularly now in the Mideast where people have been fighting for years and it just gets worse and worse and the blame and the revenge seems endless. I mean, there's a lot of unwholesomeness, unwholesome seeds being planted. Do you mind if I take another question? Are you thinking? Dean? Thank you. I'm reading Transformation at the Base, and I just think we've rehearsed 40 pages over and over. And there does seem to be a little bit of magic in the, quote, wholesome seeds.

[34:55]

And after a year or so of sitting, I just noticed that I had responded to something in a way very different than I'd ever responded. And it was startling to me. It's kind of like, where did that come from? But what I'm noticing is, or really struggling with, is how to not water. the seeds that don't work well for me when they sprout. And that's the thing, the habits that I have of, you know, there's the reaction and inevitably there's an apology that I need to make and how to not water those because Well, I think with our practice, our minds become more spacious.

[35:56]

We can see reactions as they arise in slower motion. When at one point, probably it was knee-jerk, without any kind of self-reflection, slowly one begins to see the feeling in yourself that arises that you're describing as perhaps unwholesome, and what you do, you know, you do something that you wish you hadn't, and then you apologize, which is actually wholesome in most cases. So I don't think it's something where you just can fix it all immediately, it's a practice. But it sounds like you are doing it. Peter? Whatever that turned out to be.

[37:16]

Yes. I'm sure you didn't know at the time. But... Where does that come from? Intention? You know, I really think it comes from suffering. You mean that in some way suffering just stops you? Well... Where you say, I've got to choose now. I think we come to practice usually because we suffer in some way or another. And intention, I think, comes out of wanting to find a different way. It's like beating your head against the wall over and over. It really starts to hurt. And then you think, do I want to really keep beating my head against the wall? Yeah, a new idea, a new way. And as I said, you know, I didn't know where it was going when I started to investigate my mother.

[38:19]

I just knew I had to do something different, either than think the same thoughts, have the same reactions over and over again. There had to be a different way. Sue. It was something that, excuse me, It reminded me of in the years when I farmed, I met a farmer who believed that farmers were wasting too much time removing weeds from fields. And so his idea and what he did was to only remove the weeds around the plants and leave the weeds in the field. And he thought they were helpful. because they would hold the soil and they would cultivate the plants but not the weeds and they were worried about the weeds and somehow there was this simultaneous growing of the weeds and the plants that they wanted to cultivate.

[39:35]

Well, I'm definitely not a gardener, but I've heard that weeds have lots of good things to offer. We just don't like them. Is that true or not? You're a gardener. You know, we make the judgment about what's a weed. Yes. Well, that's a good point. We name them that, but even something like anger, there's energy there. The energy itself isn't bad, it's what we do with it. True, yes, that is definitely true. But it's confusing, can be. There are ways to transform all these seeds through our practice.

[40:53]

And it is true that nothing is really good or bad. It's, you know, the language is very discriminatory and That's why I actually kind of like the words wholesome and unwholesome. They don't seem as judgmental, you know, as good or bad. We're just nourishing seeds that are healthier and kinder and rather than harming. Do we have time? How's the time situation? One more. Tom, did you have a question? She noticed that we've gotten a lot closer over the past 20 years. She doesn't know why. My mother is not self-reflective at all. And our memory's not great either.

[42:13]

So no, I never said, Ma, you know, one day I realized. You know, I just became a lot nicer. But I'm also very firm. Our old relationship used to be hanging up on each other. You know, she'd scream and hang up on me or I'd hang up on her and all that stuff. Once in a while, we still hang up on each other, but it's not really even mean. It's a little bit like, let's take a break, call you in 30 minutes, you know, and we'll laugh again. So it's really improved. So, but I really draw the line. I mean, if her behavior gets out of control, I don't sit there and take it. That would be really unhealthy. And I would never encourage anyone to let themselves be a victim of that.

[43:17]

So, but there are ways to connect with the person without being a victim. You know, I don't believe in shutting people out. So, you know, unless there's absolutely no other way, and usually there is another way. Anyway, it looks like my time is up. Thank you everyone for listening. I really appreciate it. I appreciate all your comments and thoughts and your practice, your companionship, everything.

[43:57]

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