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Dharma Talk, November 12, 2012: Magical Powers, cont./Old Wine
Reference: http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2007/6/1/four-steps-to-magical-powers.html
Today is Veteran's Day, November 12, 2012. We do give thanks to our veterans for serving this country; we have at least one here. We give especial thanks for them in their dedication to serving this country.
Today we're going to continue on in the 37 Aids to Enlightenment. We've been talking about the different aids last week. We talked about the Four Steps to Magical Powers which you found out that it wasn't that magical but in some ways they are magical.
We started off way back on the different principles of mindfulness: the Four Mindfulness and the Four Proper Exertions. We worked our way through to the Four Steps of Magical Powers and those being concentration of desire, concentration of exertion, concentration of mind and concentration of inquiry. In other books they called it zeal, exertion, memory and meditative insight.
All of these aids, in terms of description of these different powers and stages, they're names but we have to go beyond the names. It's not enough that we know for instance concentration of desire or it could be called zeal, we have to feel what that means. These are not aids in a matter of connect the dots. They're suggestion of practice that one may spend a lot of time on or one may move through them very quickly as one becomes adept. But that is not to say that one should just move through them quickly and just get a very quick taste of them. One has to have an absorption in the practice. For instance mindfulness, one should know what mindfulness is of the body, of sensations, of dharmas, of mind. All of those set the stage. We talked last week about phases in terms of the practice.
In the Abhidharma, it talks about the first phase of accumulation. In this phase of accumulation, they talk about the Four States of Mindfulness and through that, (those four states of mindfulness), the Four Trainings for Mindfulness and Four Contemplations to the Four Abandonments and the Four Right Practices through to the Elements of Magical Powers and here the Four Elements of Supernatural Powers.
All of these comprise the First Stage of Accumulation. They correspond fairly closely with the Djanas of these mental states and in the Five Djanas from the Abhidharma; they talk about the first Djana results in consciousness together with initial application. And you get to the second Djana which is with sustained contemplation. Then the third is joy and the fourth is kind of like Dharma-joy and the fifth is the state of equanimity.
In these Djanas, the term Dhyana is also used which is also the word Chan or Zen in Japanese. But the term Djana, the Pali root of it is "to think" and by Djana, it meant a willful of concentration on an object. We talked about that with the supernatural powers last week where we talked about faith and exertion, diligence and concentration and this idea of moving towards the concentration.
So this is very, very important because in the second Djana, it's called sustained application. We've gone from the point where the mind is a scattered mind and we're using these stages of mindfulness, these magical powers to transform to get to the next level of sustained application. So now, we're able to sit and meditate. Why are we able to sit and meditate? Because we apply the mind; we know what mind is; we've got a good idea of what we're doing there; we're working towards it and all of a sudden, the mind begins to settle down.
Now it's starting more to obey because the lights were turning on and we're beginning to see when scattered thoughts are there. We're less likely to take those scattered thoughts to be ourselves because we've gone through and looked at the body. We've looked at the sensations arising from the body, the mind itself and all dharmas around us.
We understand them and we begin to look at them from the sense of the Four Noble Truths as well where the Four Noble Truths begin to come up and it's kind of a refrain that arises in the practice. The Four Noble Truths that there's suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering and then there is this path to enlightenment.
In this first part, it gives us hope that hey, now our mind isn't so scattered. Now it's being applied for in the practice and we begin to understand that the practice is not just simply the practice of sitting on a cushion. The practice is being everyday in the game and working toward things and we're beginning to see from what we've established through the magical powers. I read that they're also called the Four Bases of Accomplishment which sounds a little bit better than magical powers although they are magical powers and I will explain why in a moment.
But what they do is that with these magical powers (I guess I can't get away from the term), they transform the dharmas that we see around us (dharmas being phenomena). In the beginning, they give us a little peek at wisdom; not a whole lot but just a little peek. They give us some hope, some faith there that we can work with. And we understand that if we put the effort in them, we can keep the mind stabilized.
This is a very important point in our practice because up until this point, we have this mind that doesn't mind us, that's all over the place. It's on automatic pilot of whatever we put in before the habitual energy will pre-select for us the quote/unquote appropriate response should be to anything it encounters in the phenomenal world. And it tends to make mistakes based on the idea of wanting to placate the self: make the self more comfortable, to please the self because we're caught up in the egocentric type of a view point. But as we begin to practice, we begin to chip away a little bit of the self. The self is still there but we're now feeling good about ourselves because we have this sustained application that we're doing.
And from that point, then there is a magical power because what it does is all of a sudden, we no longer choose the default program of the self in dealing with any issues that arise in mind whether we're sitting in meditation or we're up off our cushion. When we're meditating and we are viewing what is happening in mind, we are no longer enthralled by all the images that appear because we actually have a memory to remember that we're practitioners.
And through the calmness of the mind, we're able to keep the mind in a sustained application of viewing the method. When we get up off the cushion, then we utilize this idea of warmth and summit to begin to deal with things. All of a sudden, we become calmer, cooler. We're not so hard and not so quick to jump up and yell or to get excited or to get hurt or to love praise or any of those things that reinforce self. We're not so quick to buy into them.
In this point, these magical powers the first one that we're talking about, they are transforming us or as we believe they're transforming us. But what they're doing is they're illuminating the mind so it appears that there's a transformation here (Yes we can; we can sit to meditate. Yes, we can sit to practice. We can do this; we can overcome this).
Just like the civil rights movement where they talk about we can overcome. In the beginning, people thought "Oh, no! There's no way we can defeat this!" But through the wonderful civil rights movement activists, they gave people the faith. They gave them the method of how to practice on how to do the things that that they could do.
Martin-Luther King, Cesar Chavez, do you know who they studied? They studied Gandhi; they studied the practice of the Hindu. They studied this non-violent type of way of doing it. Softer, warmer, calmer, what a great contrast in the pictures if you remember (some of you were too young to remember this from the civil rights) is white policemen with snarling dogs and people who were non-violent on the other side. What else could Kennedy do so he sent in the National Guard to protect the people. Those were Americans there.
This is the way we begin to practice. In our practice, we become softer, kinder, calmer; we're not the snarling dog anymore. We're not the enforcer. We don't have to get revenge over everything. We can let things go. We become softer; we're transforming.
So we get to the state of integration or the faith of integration. This is where when we encounter this (reading from this part), it says:
A breakthrough in understanding which is conducive to the realization of the Four Truths. Integration refers to the integration into the direct realization of truth.
Here, direct realization of truth is still in the beginning level of the Four Noble Truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the path. But yet it's the beginning. We've now made the transformation from a non-practitioner to a practitioner. And in this, we have what is called the Four Enhancement - enhanced phenomena. We talked about warming - one first warms to the real meaning of voidness. We begin to say, "Yes, there's these things here; there's impermanence here. We're beginning to say, "Yes, I'm beginning to see the picture here! Why should I cling to that? Whatever I cling to, it's still going to go away.
It's like the person that wants to keep the ocean with them when they see it for the first time. The take it inland; they grab a handful of sand and it doesn't take them too long before the sand pours out of their hands. They begin to understand impermanence.
The summit; this is an interesting one:
One sees a panoramic view. The earth defilements have diminished to the point where space or voidness becomes more and more present. At the peak, one stands between heaven and earth, phenomena and voidness.
Very interesting, this idea of the summit where we're looking at things. We're beginning to look at the question: what's real and not real? Is phenomena real; is it not real? And if it's not real, then is emptiness real? Is emptiness not real? And we begin to run those questions in our mind. You still cannot get the answers but the question really enthralls us. It sustains us in terms of looking at it and we want to know the answer. This is very, very important. We begin to look at the world in a whole different way.
One of the other enhanced phenomena is forbearance and aspiration to certainty about phenomena and a skill needed to face the voidness and its implications.
If somebody says that nothing is real, some people gets shocked. Sometimes, when you tell people nothing is real, they walk away. They can't understand it.
I had a person come into my class about six months ago. They could not understand, could not wrap his mind around the idea that nothing was real, specially when I said I didn't see him. But the question was a strong question but it created the idea of fear in others.
But in others, one begins to look at it and get the skills to be able to look at that so that we don't fall into a nihilistic viewpoint of this. We are beginning to develop a profound wisdom as to seeing how mind really works.
The highest worldly point is the last enhanced phenomena.
This is the highest point and the end of Samsara. After the sub phase, there will be no more Samsaric births. The whole quality of the experience will change. The subsequent phase of insight has nothing to do with worldliness.
So here, what we're doing is that we're really working on it. We're really seeing the world as it really is. At this point, we're not coming back here unless we really want to come back here. We've transcended the idea of this Samsaric world. We see it for what it is. The questions have been resolved.
This doesn't all happen in the face of integration so don't get too excited; it's only the second phase. But this is where we're headed. We've got this accumulation or integration - an accumulation of all this practices that bring forth what we talk about today. (I got a feeling that we're not going to finish talking about this today)
But we're going to talk about these two next ones in the article that I have right now. They call it the Five Morals or Controlling Faculties. Controlling is a very important word here and the other is the Five Moral Powers. Oh, not again, we've got the powers coming up... don't get excited! (laughs...)
In Master Sheng Yen's book of the 37 Factors of Enlightenment, he refers to the Five Roots and the Five Powers. The roots is a very interesting word and the idea also of controlling faculties. We have to begin to put these words and to connect them to what we're talking about. Otherwise, we'll lose the purpose and the meaning of this.
Because what happens is when people study or I should say read these books, they go, "Oh, the five powers and okay, these are this, this, this, this;" actually, you're more likely get a stomach ache than enlightenment or a headache than enlightenment from that kind of an approach. It's more important for us to probe into it; to absorb what is being said. There is a key here, a code that's there. And they're common things. Have you noticed the common things in some of these that pop up? Mindfulness, concentration, faith; we look at these and we see they come up so often.
And when you look at it in that way... Let me see if I can find them. But actually, there are charts that show how many times these particular mindfulness, or practice of the mind, or exertion show up. It is important for us to understand that that these are not necessarily the perfect things. You cannot go through these one by one and say "okay, I checked this one off the list." It doesn't really work that way.
For instance in here, they're talking about: mindfulness occurs eight times in the fourth foundation to mindfulness as one of the controlling factors, as one of the powers, one constituent to enlightened and one right mindfulness of the Eight-fold Path.
Concentration occurs four times. Wisdom occurs five times. Supreme effort, diligence, exertion occurs of four times.
The point here is that these come up and they are transforming. Every time they hit to another faith, they are transforming. It's not the same mindfulness that you started out with but it's there. And along the way which is very interesting, is that the Four Noble Truths, as they go through it, they are also transforming.
As you begin to practice and looking into it, these phases as one goes in... and somebody shouldn't go to you and say, "Aha!!! I see you are in the phase of sustained application!"
And you go, "I'm in phase two; what phase are you in?"
"I'm out of phase..."
You cannot look at it this way. People will do that. People want to know what phase they're in. But it's not as important as the absorption of the practice of understanding how we're going through this. And as were doing it, we're pulling the Four Noble Truths along with us and when we get to the end, what do we find out about the Four Noble Truths, does anybody know?
Student: They're empty.
Gilbert: Can you say more about that?
Student: In the Heart Sutra it says no suffering; there's no cause of suffering; there is no path; no end of suffering.
Gilbert: Yes, they're empty.
But we don't get there from the very beginning. We're working through these aids to enlightenment to get there and the four noble truths are evolving along with our practice. If we don't put the right effort in it, it won't evolve. But if we put the right effort in and we have the faith, and we have the right concentration there, the right mindfulness, then it begins to evolve from one to the other.
That's why there are repetitions of mindfulness, wisdom, concentration. It's an evolution - constantly changing. And you don't know that. You shouldn't know what phase you're in. You shouldn't care as much as you shouldn't care that you are practicing.
Of course you should all start off... it's kind of like a Monopoly game. You're all going to start off at the beginning, right? I give you the little tokens. But because it's a Monopoly game, somebody may roll and because of causes and conditions, they may jump ahead of another person. It's something that's very, very difficult for people to fathom sometimes when somebody jumps ahead of them "why did I get left behind? I can sit for 2 hours; nobody can sit as good as I can!"
You know, that's all garbage! They don't see what's happening to the people. They don't see that people are really practicing sincerely with their heart, who really wants to know, or they're developing the Bodhi-chita or the Bodhi-heart which really, once developing that Bodhi-heart, really gaining the state of absorption of all of this.
But if we start thinking about accumulation instead of absorption, then the self is accumulating. Absorption itself is getting squeezed out. It is being seen as it really is, not as the operating system of the program but just as phenomena that's arising in accordance with causes and conditions. As one begins to see this, then really, there is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering and no path - the Heart Sutra.
People love to talk about that. They love to say the Heart Sutra. They love it, they love it, they love it to death but they don't get it so they end up dying again. They don't take the time, the effort, the concentration, the mindfulness, the wisdom to be able to see it. And what does the Heart Sutra even say about wisdom? Anybody know?
Student: No wisdom.
Gilbert: There is no wisdom or any attainment. We even throw that out. We go, "There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering and no path." And they go, "But wait, there is more; no wisdom or any attainment. Bodhisattvas having no obstructions in their mind depart far from confusions and imagining."
At that point, they're departing from confusion and imagining. They no longer take this place to be real. They no longer take it to be permanent. They've gone from this uneven application to a sustained application all the way through to the final djana. And as they are doing it, they are converting everything they see; all phenomena along the way. They're cashing the chips in to wisdom until finally, they even cash in the wisdom chip and the attainment chip. All gone... This is the Aids to Enlightenment.
But if you look at it as a list and a punch list (and that's even worse), you're going to be sadly disappointed. You're going to be sitting there on the steps, on the shore going, "They left me here by myself. I don't know why; I could sit for two hours."
But this is not the story here. What I'm doing is exhorting you to really absorb this practice; to really look at it and to see so that that will not happen to you; that you can see that this is how you study. You don't just study like you just read a book and you go. "That was really, really good! What shall I read next?" You can read more Mark Twain or Ernest Hemingway if you want to be entertained. But if you want to be delivered, you've got to be serious about the practice. You really have to be serious about it and really start looking at it and looking in the right way.
Like before the class, one of my students was talking to me about how she was reading what I had said at a previous lecture and she was highlighting part of my lecture. This is the correct approach. Take whatever books you have, whatever source material you have and mark it up.
One of my teachers, he told me "Take a book; don't be afraid to mark them up. Mark them up all you want, as much as you want. Don't be afraid. It is not sacrilege to do that." And people go, "Oh no, you cannot do that. These are holy words or whatever."
But he told me to do that and I did just that. Sometimes, I have three or four different color markings under one word or one passage because it means so much. What does it mean? It doesn't mean anything to me but it gives me something to talk about today. It gives me a little bit of a road map to be able to show you and say, "Okay, this is how it is or there isn't any path but if you follow this way, you're not doing too bad." It helps me emphasize what's there so that I can put this together and show you and say, "Here, take a look at this and see if you don't think it's the same."
Or you can come back and say, "You know what Gilbert, that's not correct; it's this way!" And I will respect you for it. If you get it out of a Mad Magazine I won't, but if you get it out of another Dharma book and if you are sincere about it, then let's talk. If you come only to show me how smart you are, you'll find that I'll probably tap you on the head before I listen to you. We continue on:
We're talking about the Five Roots or the Controlling Faculties and in this book it is: faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and wisdom. In the Abhidharma, they use different terms: confidence, as opposed to faith; effort, as opposed to diligence; mindfulness is the same; concentration and wisdom are the same.
But confidence and faith are the same. Confidence is that you have faith in something. You have confidence that whatever you're studying is a good and wholesome study and that there is a method there that can help you. So you have faith in it and when you have faith, that's an interesting thing because you should also have faith in the practice, faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. Buddha is the Buddha; the Dharma is the teaching that we learn and the Sangha are those that teach that are well-knowing advisors.
I also like to think of Sangha as group that we put together. That's why it's important that we should not simply wait at home and wait for the e-mail to arrive with Gilbert's new lecture notes rather than come to the class because we're not developing a Sangha. Maybe we're developing a Cyber-Sangha out there but it's nice to have faces that come to the classes.
Okay, the Five Powers are the same as the Five Roots that's why we'll talk about them today. The reason is because each one of those things, as one begins to practice them, one begins to have faith. Then you have the power of faith. That's important. Christians really rely on the power of faith. They are very, very strong. It's not exclusive to the Judeo-Christian doctrine – the power of faith.
We have Chan poem called "Faith in Mind" -- the faith of what we're doing. In this, it can generate a great power because we begin to look at this world from the viewpoint of "Hey, this is not the end point." There's something else; what else is there? We have to have the faith. We haven't gone further. We don't know what that is but we have to have faith in what we're doing. We have to try to use that faith to practice more so that we can obtain some form of a realization; to get a glimpse beyond what we see through the phenomena (to see through phenomena rather than see phenomena). This comes with faith.
So controlling part is controlling that faith, to apply it with the proper exertion. But also there is a great power there that drives our practice. It really, really could drive the practice and you go, "Okay, I'll buying on this; I'm going to really work on this; I'm going to see how it works." And as you do that, something very interesting happens as you become incredibly energetic.
It is funny sometimes, I go to different places teaching and they go, "Gilbert, how can you do that? You are a practicing attorney, you have a family and then you teach; where do find the time and where do you find the energy?" I never think about it. I just have this faith to do it and the energy just comes. I never think that Gilbert is doing anything. If I thought that Gilbert is doing anything, OMG, I'll be so tired.
Physically sometimes, the body gets tired and I have to take care of it but other than that, I really don't have tiredness to the practice. In fact, I feel very regretful when I am not as productive in my practice and not studious in my practice. I feel that I've gotten off to such a late start but I have to make up for time; but only to the extent that whatever I practice can help others.
This is the faith that one develops - this Bodhi-chita and as one develops this Bodhi-chita to help others, then there's even a greater and greater energy that arises from that. So you have that. You have a diligence to the practice and you keep bringing it up there instead of saying, "I think I'm going to go play pool or I'm going to the tavern and have some beer, and watch the games." We'll, that's the fourth time that you've done that this week.
You have to budget time. You find that we wasted an incredible amount of time in our life. Really, do you think that the world will stop if we don't know who won Dancing with the Stars? DVR it; that's why God created DVRs. You can go through the commercials and budget your time. You can still see the things that you want to see and still have time to practice.
You make the time. You carry books around with you. You put the books out so they're there; that if there's a book there you'll read it. If I have an auto magazine on the counter, I am going to read it. If it's close to a Dharma book, it's a close call sometimes. (laughs...) On a Monday for sure I will read my Dharma book.
In terms of books, I have them throughout my house, in my car, in my briefcase; everywhere I go. And if I don't have my books, that's why I have a cell phone; I Google it. You find the time to become diligent in your practice and putting more effort.
And again, we come up with the idea of mindfulness. In this idea of mindfulness of looking, now we have a more sustained application of our method. So in the sustained application of our method, we're more able to practice. We're more able to see things as they really are. And by doing that, we become mindful and say, "Okay, what is arising in mind," and using that as our practice field. We're using that to see what's coming up and we are developing an awareness.
This awareness is very important. Why, because this awareness enables us to see everything that's happening around us. When we get to the last djana of the state of equanimity, it's very, very incredible. It's very quiet. You could be in a room full of noise but still very quiet and one can observe everything that's happening around them simply by not attaching. But here, we're in this sustained application; were able to begin to develop this kind of a mindfulness to see things. We're beginning to use concentration.
This concentration of Samadhi is very important but again, it has to be the right concentration. In the right concentration, what we're doing is we're using a concentration to develop in the practice. We can have a concentration of let's say an assassin. An assassin could be on the top of the building and concentrate very carefully. You can see the object or the target. They can be very quiet but this is not the right concentration.
Our concentration again, this is why the Aids to Enlightenment are there: the faith, exertion, mindfulness, concentration. It's the proper concentration to bring about the proper practice, to staying with the method, being mindful moment to moment after we've gotten off the cushion as to what is arising; how to harmonize with those things arising in the phenomenal world; understanding that this world is impermanent. We begin to work with all of that. That mindfulness gets rolled in to the concentration and that concentration then produces wisdom. It really can crank out wisdom - this wonderful transcendental wisdom.
But it needs all these aids to have that come up. And as those things come up, wisdom will come and will begin to decipher the world around us like, "I know why you only come up this many times, or you come this way or that you do this or what you're doing, or that you're going to bring forth the translation of the article on a particular day or why." I know those things.
It's not because I'm powerful or I have magic powers; just use wisdom. It begins to clarify the world around us. When I don't use wisdom, I'm as big of a simpleton as any of you, and there are times when I do that and regrettably so. I still have plenty for shame and remorse and repentance but I do know the difference and I try to practice as much as I can. The more I practice, the more the world becomes easier.
I still have not been inoculated to causes and conditions, and causes and conditions happen in my life as they happen in yours: people are born, people die; there are fortunes, misfortunes; all sorts of different things that happen in our life.
If we only condition our practice to the extent that we're so thankful for what we've perceived, and expecting that if we continue to practice in this way that we'll reap even more rewards, then we miss the boat - we don't see that things are still subject to causes and conditions. We have to see that Karma still moves and we have to be at one with this Karma; to understand the Karma and not to try to escape Karma as if it's some kind of a Grim Reaper.
Understand and accept whatever the karma is. Understand that we can mitigate it. We can transfer merit to others to help others but still, everybody is subject to Karma. Karma is very important and at this stage of integration, Karma is something that we become conscious about; initially conscious about it and then afterwards, aware about it. And as we begin to move through these phases, we become simply aware and mindful of Karma and the wisdom begins to become more profound in its way.
Just like if somebody has a wine and it is a red wine. If you drink it in the first year, you'll be very disappointed. But as it sits in the bottle or the cask (I don't know, I'm not a wine person), it begins to develop a different body to it until they put it in the bottle. They let it sit and it changes. That transforms into this wonderful velvety liquid that originally was very bitter and too bright. But with the practice of warmth, of the enhanced phenomena, it begins to change things. It begins to change how one interacts with others.
Stan is one of the coolest guys around; cranky once in a while but most of the time, he's like this really, really fine old bottle of wine. Stan goes, "Thanks a lot!!!" (laughs...) He's full-bodied, has this wonderful deep texture, you know, to his reactions to what he's doing. He's figured it out, "If you only had this 50 years ago, right?" (laughs...) Not to age you Stan but if we carbon date each other, I'm not that far behind you.
Stan: Today is my birthday. I'm a very old bottle of wine.
Gilbert and class: "Oh, Happy Birthday, Stan!" But to some of you who are much younger or who are a couple of ticks behind us on the clock, you know this is a good chance. This is wonderful news that I'm telling you about these practices; very wonderful news as to how you can practice and how to get quieter and quieter in your practice and warmer. Not bad!
I only spoke about one third of what I want to speak about today. There are some things in here; I would just say that we can invite you to read Master Sheng Yen's article of the Five Roots and the Five Powers. But as we begin to practice, you will see is that this practice in terms of these controlling faculties, the reason that they're important is that they do grab control of the mind.
Before, we talked about the monkey-mind being like a monkey driving the car all over the road. But now, we're no longer in that phase. We're in this phase of integration where the mind is now beginning to wrest control from this phony default program of the self and now, it's beginning to see things clearly and work right. It's transforming moment to moment into the product of wisdom.
All that comes from these controlling faculties which also are the Five Powers because it's the power of faith, the power of exertion, the power of concentration. All these things that come forth that bring wisdom. As we do that, we're now practitioners so you can turn your tassel one over of the mortar board.
There are a few things I want to talk about because Master Sheng Yen really went in deep in terms of discussing this. But I think we'll leave it at that since I've been talking for a while; I don't want to make it too long.
Posted by Bill at 8:06 AM
Labels: buddhism, california, chan, dharma, dharma drum, meditation, podcast, riverside, sheng yen, zen
Dharma Talk, November 5, 2012: Four Steps to "Magical Powers"
A reference: http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2007/6/1/four-steps-to-magical-powers.html
We're going to continue on with the 37 Aids or Factors to Enlightenment tonight. Some of you who are new may find this material to be a little bit confusing or a little bit of beyond your comprehension but that's okay. Don't worry about that. If you have questions, you can certainly ask your questions. Today's class is going to be a little bit more advanced than what beginners would normally receive. But after the break we'll have an opportunity for you to have some training on meditation which we'll be glad to do. After that, we will sit in meditation for a while to give you a chance to practice.
The study of meditation is something that we also need the instruction. Without the obstructions, meditation would be of very little value other than allowing you to close your eyes for a while and rest. What we really want to do is to develop what's called insight or wisdom. The wisdom comes from understanding what you're doing with your legs crossed in a meditative posture.
So we're going to continue on today and what we're going to talk about today is called Four Steps to Magical Powers. Before you get excited about the magical powers, it's actually fairly mundane. It does not necessarily mean to say that there aren't magical powers associated with these. It's not something that's emphasized. That comes through the practice itself. But it's not something that we can bang the drum and say "You two can levitate" or whatever else you can think of magical powers. It's not in that way.
The magical powers are really being able to focus the mind, concentrate the mind and obtain insight. There is a another term for this which I think I like this term better which is Four Basis for Accomplishment. That sounds a little bit more ho-hum… and it's not as exciting as magical powers but it's more appropriate for the discussion that I am going to give today.
All of this is called in the Sanskrit word, Riddhipada and in Pali it's Iddhipada (without the "R" in the front). But when I'm talking about Riddhipada, that means this Four Basis for Accomplishments. Riddhipada essentially means steps to power – how you can obtain power. But here, we're talking about the power of the mind; power of wisdom, more appropriately to see things as they really, really are.
The Chinese term is Si ru yi su which means "speaks of the mind that can accomplish whatever it wants to." This is the mind that is a master of itself - free and at ease. This is the type of mind that we want. It's something you set your mind on to something you really want to accomplish and you can do it. And you want to use this in a very, very positive way.
There was a group that was quite famous probably about five years ago called The Secret - they thought they had the secret to everything. The problem with that was that they forgot about Karma. They just thought "well, if you just put your mind on to something as much as you want, then you can accomplish it."
Well, it's not enough. There wasn't that magical power there for them to do that because they lack the great foundation in terms of which to build upon. They simply had that naked desire - "I want this." And when you have is just this naked desire "I want this," it is not going to happen.
There are steps to what you're doing and we've been working in our practice through these 37 Aids to Enlightenment and we've gone over a section which is called the Faith of Accumulation and in that section, we talked about the Four States of mindfulness - mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of sensation, mindfulness of mind and mindfulness of phenomena as part of the practice.
Through that, we also went into the Four Abandonments and the Four Right Practices. Now we're into this "B" phase which is called Integration. In this integration part, it says:
Integration is a breakthrough in understanding which is conducive to realization of the Four Truths. Integration refers to integration into a direct realization of the truth.
The Four Mindfulness kind of set the stage to say "okay this is how the mind works." Now it's a matter of looking into it and saying "okay, what is necessary in the search for us to do that is going to bring about this development of wisdom?" And in this search, there is these Four Magical Powers. The Four Magical Powers are: concentration of desire, concentration of exertion, concentration of mind and concentration of inquiry. In Sanskrit it's: Chanda, Virya, Chitta and Mimamsa.
In another book, they had these Four Magical Powers as: zeal, exertion, memory, and meditative insight. They are the same thing. What we're doing is we want to first start with concentration of desire (Chanda). But it's not the desire that "oh, I really want to get close to this boy or this girl, this man or woman or car or jewelry. It's a concentration of desire on a particular goal - a wholesome goal. That's where we start.
And we get to Virya which is concentration of exertion. Exertion is essentially putting effort into that. And then, concentration of the mind (Chitta) - knowing how to focus the mind or concentrate the mind on something. And then the final stage of this is the investigation or looking into mind (Mimamsa) and trying to see what this mind is.
The first step is the fact that you're here and it shows that you have the desire to look into this subject. You may have a deep desire; some of you may have a very passing interest in it but it's a matter of looking into it so this is the start. As we work through these powers, it does develop power. It develops a generation of mind energy towards a particular goal. We will talk about that in a moment and go over those states a little bit further.
But I want to also touch on this. This is the book of Things Pertaining to Bodhi from Master Sheng Yen. I will read a little bit from his book. He says: Before talking about the Four Steps to Magical Powers, I want to briefly describe what are called the Four Enhanced Phenomena.
The progressive view of practice, one begins with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and proceeds to the Four Proper Exertions. At the point of being able to practice both together, one is close to being able to experience the Four Enhanced Phenomena. These enhanced phenomena have very mundane names to them but they are very important. One is warmth, the other is called summit, the third is forbearance, and the other is supreme in the world.
These are critical in terms of understanding what we're doing in terms of the practice. He says:
These phenomena grow out of one's practice and validate that one has indeed planted virtuous roots. Warmth means one's mind is soft and gentle and that the harshness is receding.
Do you know people in your life that are very harsh, that are extremely loud? (If I had a larger group here, everybody would be pointing to their wife or their husband) but anyway, somebody who's very short-tempered. All these things are very tough. Sometimes when you talk to people and even when you're nice to them like when I was in a retreat up and somebody had said something and I said, "That was a very good question and people are asking very good questions."
And the person said to me, "You tell everyone that's a good question!" And I am going… "Because it's true" because of the way it was asked." But there was the harshness on the tone. And it was very sad because after that time period, that person still had that harshness after three days of practicing.
But we begin to soften a little bit. Rather than making some very strong abstract painting with very sharp pointing, very sharp angles to it, we begin to move with soft pastel. Who would you rather be with, you know? Do you want to be with somebody who is very blaring, bright, like some kind of a brass instrument, or something very soft like flute sound?
I don't think most of you would rather like to be with somebody that would be always playing a brass instrument like a tuba or a trombone that's very loud like a circus. Rather we want to be very smooth and soft in what we do. (And I have to be politically correct; I have nothing against trombone players or tuba players). (laughs…)
Summit means that we've gotten rid of the harshness and the mind as ascended to a peak where it takes a look around and sees the way the world is.
And it's really important because it gets kind of a bird's-eye view of what's happening around us. Most of the time when we're in our life, we're in the trenches and we are fighting and we're not really harmonizing very well.
But when we can see what's happening, when we know what's going on around us, it gives us the opportunity step back a little bit and kind of take a look at the picture of what's going on - "What is going on here? Let me see how I can make this a little bit better. Maybe with a little bit softer color here, I can do this and change the tone of the environment."
The next is forbearance which means one will not cause harm to oneself or others. Do we cause harm to ourselves? Do we cause harm to ourselves in what we eat, what we do, what we spend, what we say, how we treat our body or even more importantly, what we do with the people around us? How do we treat them? Do we treat them good? Were you a good citizen today or were you a tough person to be around? You have to think about that because it does have a cause to it.
So the idea of practicing in meditation is one where we begin to get this insight. We begin to take a look at these things so that we know what we're doing when we're on the cushion. It gives us time to practice in a kind of a controlled environment so that when we get up off the cushion, then we're harmonizing with the people around us through the insight that we gained from sitting on the cushion. And also the insight gained from listening to lectures and studying on our own independently.
And the final one is supreme in the world which means that one has transcended worldliness and is approaching the stage of an Arhat. An Arhat is like a high-level practitioner.
And Master Sheng Yen talked about:
At the level of summit, one's mind becomes soft and gentle; not just sometimes but all the times. People often mistakenly assumed that if one can enter Samadhi, ones problems can go away. Another misunderstanding is to expect that having a glimpse of enlightenment, one will no longer have vexations.
Let me explain the term Samadhi. Samadhi is a concentrated state where one if they're working on the method and staying on the method, they can keep the method. A state of Samadhi by itself will not produce insight but it will be able to concentrate the mind. So it's half of the equation but not all the equation. A lot of people practice and they are very good at Samadhi but when they get up, they're still the same miserable self that they were when they sat down. They just had this moment of peace but no insight there. There was no Vipassana insight that enables them to see the world around them.
And that's what we're doing; meditation isn't just sitting on your cushion to escape. It's to be able to harmonize in the world, to see the world exactly as it is, exactly why it works the way it does. Wouldn't you want to know that when you're dealing with people, why they say things, why they do things, why things happen?
In the practice of Chan, Chan enables one to enhance that wisdom. And it essentially just brings up all of let's say the contrast -that one can see clearly what is happening at any given state and whatever is in the environment, one is aware of it. One knows and you know what to say and what not to say in any particular point. You're a lot softer and you don't have to be rough. You don't have to be tough all the time.
Today, I was in court and there was a lady that I was representing with her husband. The other side had accused her of this and that. But she was at a very low point in her life and she got up and slammed her purse on the seat where she was sitting on in the hallway and started yelling. I just told her "please be calm and quiet. You need to relax!"
Little by little, she began to listen to me and I started helping her because she felt so low that she had nothing and they wanted to take away from her. I said, "What can they take away from you if you have nothing? You can't go down any further. So there is a chance for you. But on the other hand, they can't do anything to you."
By showing her with insight that they could not harm her in any way, I said, "Just this breath! This breath is special. And you know, we only have a certain amount of breaths to take. We don't have infinite amount of breaths. Make this one special. Right now they haven't taken anything away from you. Think about this moment. There's no problem in this moment. They have not done anything to you at this moment."
Little by little, she calmed down through my facilitation of her own insight into the problem where she realized there's nothing they can do to her. She relaxed; she calmed down. She loosened the knots that she has bound herself with.
And this is what we do with our practice for our own knots that we bind ourselves with. And then we begin to realize that we can help other people to loosen their ropes that bind them. And then you find that the world is a lot easier place to live in and it makes more sense. It doesn't necessarily mean that people are better. It just mean that you understand why they act the way they do. And if you act in a certain way, you can either make it better for yourself or worse for yourself and more importantly, if it's worse or better for the people around you?
We continue:
The truth is that only when wisdom and Dhyana (Dhyana is practice) rise together, we're at a stage where we will not cause vexations to ourselves and others. Until then, though we may be at ease with the joyous mind, we are not yet liberated because we are still attached to the idea of self. To attain the summit level is not really that high but is still very good. It speaks of spiritual power and it is at this level we begin the practice of Riddhipada.
So at this level is when we begin to use these magical powers to practice with. It's the level that we now begin to take a look around at our surroundings and we begin to see that things are not there just simply by accident but by causes and conditions - the very causes and conditions that brings you to this room tonight. Everything that you do, even when you come out of here and you get into your car, your car is made up of causes and conditions of different people that came together to put your car together and to produce the fuel that goes into it.
All the other things that happen in there - how you drive down the road and you see that the road was built with people. Everything is connected in this way. No matter where you look, there's nothing that stands independent of anything else. This church that you're in now was built by carpenters many, many years ago and they had in mind a certain idea of what they wanted to do. The floor that you have your feet on or your seats on, they're made of wood; they were trees. What causes and conditions brought those forth that they were cut to make floors here? Everything is in this way. And when we see things in this way, we begin to understand how it all fits together.
So we talked about the Four Steps to Magical Power and the first one we talked about was called Chanda. Master Sheng Yen calls it the concentration of desire. In the Abhidharma, Chanda comes from the Sanskrit word "to wish." So this idea of to wish is a little bit more than desire. Desire is like saying "I desire this" but it's like something that you want to wish for. It's not like I might wish that something bad would happen to somebody. It's like trying to put a very big wish there, "I really wish to become enlightened."
We say the Four Great Vows before the class and the final one is the wish to attain supreme enlightenment. You have this wish, "I really want to have this enlightenment" so you put that in there. But the very first vow is I vow to deliver enumerable sentient beings - means that you want other people to become enlightened before you. So you put this big wish out there and you say "I really want to do this! I really want to have this mindset that I'm going to do this."
Another definition of it (which is I think is a better definition) than desire is zeal. It's like saying I really want to do this. Was there anything that you've ever undertook in your life that you had a great zeal for? Might have been Yoga; it could've been something; painting, singing any kind of music; a zeal for taking care of animals, right?
Stan, you have a great zeal for taking care of animals. That's you!! People bring you injured wild animals to take care of and you have this great zeal. And then what happens with that zeal? You find yourself start taking care animals. You put your mind on it and after a while, you start looking into it and you become very good at it with that zeal that you have.
Some people have a zeal, "I want to lose weight." (Most of you here don't have that problem). But you go "I want to lose weight." You start for a while. You may be counting calories: this carrot is worth 60 calories; this cookie is worth 400 calories; you do all sorts of different types of things. But then you lose your zeal for it when your appetite is hitting you at four o'clock in the afternoon and you go, "oh, being skinny isn't all that important!" and so we give up, right? (laughs…)
But a zeal that we really want to do is important. So when we practice, we want to have a zeal. We want to say, "You know what, this make sense. This makes so much sense to do. I really want to do this. I really want to an effort into it that will work." And it's the zeal of let's say somebody when you're a teenager or twenty and you see somebody that you really are interested in. And you just keep thinking about that person, thinking about them, thinking about them and you want to get that person. That's never happened to you guys, right? (laughs…)
So anyway looking at that and going way, way back before some of you were probably born, there was a song; it kind of went like this:
One way or another, I'm going to find you.
I am going to get you, get you, get you, get you. (laughs…)
One way or another, I'm going to win you.
I'm going to get you, get you, get you, get you.
One way or another, I'm going to see you.
I'm going to meet you, met you, meet you, meet you.
And lo and behold, with that kind of seal you probably would get the person, right? Very interesting because in the same song, I don't know if you guys know this song. But after they got the person, because this is just raw desire and it does not have the zeal for something completely wholesome, it says:
One way or another, I'm going to lose you.
I'm going to give you the slip; a slip of the lip or another.
I'm going to lose you, I'm going to trick you, trick you, trick you.
So sometimes it's not all what you make it out to be. But here is this zeal if we have this zeal for the practice, it's a wholesome zeal. It's something that you can put there and say, "If I put forth this effort, I'm going to get good at this." So Stan, he's going to put forth the effort to take care of injured wild animals and all of a sudden, one becomes very good at it. He knows what to give a sparrow versus a raccoon or you know, what's wrong with this or how to make the bird's wing heal. He knows how to do that. Me, I'll probably just put some kind of ice cream stick on its wing and put it out there but I don't think that would work. So he knows how to do it because he's got this really great zeal for doing it.
And when we look at the world and we see what's worthy of this kind of a zeal, this gaining wisdom as to the world itself is incredibly noble; incredibly noble. And what it does is it runs right headlong into the Four Noble Truths that there's suffering, what causes suffering, (which is desire, this connective type of desire what they call Loba(?)) – grasping, and that there's practice. And with practice, you can get rid of suffering. And in getting rid of it, there is enlightenment. These are the Four Noble Truths. You come face-to-face with that zeal.
And then what happens is that we get the next part which is Virya. Virya is concentration of exertion. It means one is equipped with a strong vow to attain supreme Dhyana and therefore diligently applies the method of practice.
In some of the other text, Virya is called energy, diligence, enthusiasm, effort. So it's this effort that one puts into it. You have this zeal and then you put the effort into it, and whatever you do you really, really work on that effort. The effort in terms of Virya is one where they also call it persistence, persevering, vigor, diligence and I would add to that, to me I think it's tenacity; the word tenacious - to stick with it where a lot of people would put forth a great effort in the beginning and then they would poop out. It's because they just don't stick with it.
But when we have this tenacity, I equate it to a Terrier dog hanging onto somebody's pant leg. I don't know if you've ever seen a small dog holding onto somebody's pant leg. You could lift your leg like that and the Terrier will still be hanging on the pant leg. No matter what happens, they won't let go. They're very, very tenacious.
And that's the way we have to be with the practice. It's this tenacity where "oh, I didn't practice yesterday but today I'll practice. I didn't read anything but today I will read. I'll be mindful about what I am doing; I am going to practice." And you stay at it.
But with us in our society of instant cake and frozen pizza, you like to stick something in the oven and have it done in two minutes and settle for that. We never want to wait to bake a cake. We never want to work on all the ingredients to get them right, to get them perfect and to really make something good. Instead, we want it right now but sometimes it isn't that way. We can get some immediate benefits but the very deep benefits do require effort on our part.
And it's an interesting thing because this idea of zeal and exertion reminds me of my children when they were young. They would get out Legos for instance. You probably stepped on a few of them in your life but if you give kids a bunch of Legos, in five minutes they are going to be all over the carpet and everywhere, or another toy and another toy. And they have great zeal to take the toys down.
But when you ask them to put them away, they go "No, that's work!" It wasn't work to take them out but to them it's work to put them back. And it doesn't really make any sense because it's the same thing; it's the same toys, but now putting them back to where they belong initially is work.
And the thing is that it's just us in the way we practice. This is a very important point I'm making here because it's taking you effort to have that habits that you have. This wasn't something that you got habits all in one day. You each have your habits. I have mine and we have whatever habits they are and we've created them. They could be fear, insecurity, pride, jealousness, whatever it is. Like I said, we each have something and some combos.
Here in Southern California, Mexican food we've got combo platters of habits that we've cooked up and it's taken us time to develop those habits. Likewise, it'll take time to get rid of them. Why, because we need to dissipate the habit energy that we've generated from developing these habits.
But the good thing is that it is reversible except maybe in California losing your hair is probably irreversible. (laughs…) but getting rid of your habits is reversible. It's something that you can do. And you go, "Why not? I can live longer; I can take pressure off myself; people will like me; I will be popular; I will be calmer; I'll be able to deal with things with wisdom. I have a plan in my life." Not bad. But we cling to those habits so strongly and we don't realize that every time we repeat those habits we strengthen them. They're going to come back. Why, because we put them there.
But with this zeal for the practice and the tenacity to stick with it, little by little the habit energy that you had that developed bad habits will break down. There's one habit that's most important than any other habit that's the worst habit that we have. Does anybody know what it is?
Student: Thinking something too hard.
Gilbert: No, what is thinking? The self; the self is a habit. It's not real. The self comes up in mind just like any other thought. We just take it to be us thinking and saying I'm thinking therefore it must be me. But if you think of something, then the self will come up and it will attach itself to it - I like it, I don't like it!
So if we think of something "Oh, I really, really like that!" Where did that come from? It wasn't there a moment ago. It popped up. You think it's always been there because it has an opinion on everything: I like this, too hot, too cold, too salty, too sweet, too pickley; too whatever. And you rarely get it that this is just right. Now it is really a fairytale.
But the idea is that you have to see that that too is a habit that comes up. It's this judgmental habit and attaching habit. It likes to attach itself to things. The difference is that you can't see it coming up in mind. It's not like a red apple. If I ask you to picture the red apple in your mind, you'd be able to see the red apple in your mind. But you would not be able to see your likes or dislikes.
But you really could and if you quiet the mind enough, you are able to see when self suddenly appears in mind. It wasn't there a moment ago. It just appears and the greatest trick that happens in the mind is that the self tricks you into thinking that it's always there. But it's not. It couldn't be that way.
Sometimes you say, "I think I'll have a grilled cheese sandwich. No, I changed my mind. I think I'll have a pizza." You couldn't change your mind if the self was there all the time. It would always want the cheese sandwich. But causes and conditions changed it and it changed the idea of what the self is. We won't go off on self today other than just to point that out. But essentially this tenacity that we have helps us break that down.
Now in the Abhidharma, they talk about Virya and it says:
It's derived from Sanskrit "to go" strenuously carry out work uninterrupted. This says something very important which is: Just as a strong reinforcement will help the army to hold on instead of retreating, so Virya upholds and uplifts its con commitment.
Con commitment is very interesting term. It took me a while to figure out what this meant but what it means is that all of these Four Factors that we're talking about are all con commitment. They are all things that if you put them into motion, they will come to fruition and it will give you this kind of mind power that you're seeking. But they all have to be there and they all have to be working; the proper exertion there, this tenacity, that holds that altogether.
Without the tenacity it's going to fall apart. No matter how smart you are "I'm the cleverest person in the world. But I'm tired of this game; I think I'll go to sleep or I will play chess because I can beat anybody at chess." And then after a while you lose it because there is no tenacity. But you can't beat the self so you want to play some other games that you can win.
But when you have this tenacity, it goes right into the next one which is called Citta. Citta in Sanskrit is mind but the idea of mind here is not the intellectual mind or let's say the conscious mind so much of what is described by the Indians and also the Chinese. And we don't really have a term in English for it which is Heart-mind. The only way I could probably describe Heart-mind is in one of the books I was reading. It said it was a motive of nature of the mind but I disagree with that to the extent that Heart-mind is not a motive like an emotion.
It's your True Nature. It is the fundamental mind that one has. The intellectual mind comes and goes. It attaches and dis-attaches but the Heart-mind is the foundation of everything that you see. If you look around you in this room, everything you see is mind. Whatever you see, wherever you see it is being seen in mind; nowhere else.
So you begin to look at this and trying to see, "Okay, what do I have to put into mind to practice? So I've got this zeal, I've got the tenacity, now I want to really practice. I want to put into mind that I'm a practitioner. I've got to keep putting that in there.
In here, they talk about concentration of the mind but in another book, they said something very important. Another way of saying it is memory. It's a very good point to have this idea of memory because there are two aspects of memory here. One of them comes from the Yogacharra School of Doctrine of Mere Consciousness and memory there is a wholesome Kaita or mental factor - I remember, I am a practitioner. I remember to practice. I remember to stay in the present moment. So you're constantly remembering that you should be in the present moment.
Now there is another way to approach this. It's very, very interesting and it is what makes us think that we have a sense of self. Memory can be destructive aspect of mind as well. In this way, it reinforces a sense of self by bringing up things that happened in the past and either to deal with them in the present or in the future.
"Oh, my car is almost out of gas. I'm going to run out of gas; I'm going to run out of gas; I'm going to run out of gas" and you're so petrified. And then you finally make it into the gas station, right? But you're so petrified because you're thinking of the future. You have these thoughts of this that keeps coming up. Now that's a very mundane way to look at it.
But if we have a memory and you go "How are you doing? Oh, you haven't come to the class in a while. You mustn't be a very good student, huh?" You look at this and you go "I remember now. Yeah, you're a wise guy. So it colors what you do (and I'm kidding you, BTW); it colors what you do in the present moment. It has nothing to do with the present moment but it colors that and it makes you think that.
Now there's a difference. If somebody would come up to you and say, "Hey, I really need to borrow some money from you. I'll pay you next Tuesday."
And you go, "Let me think. Well, the last time you borrowed money from me or the last 50 times you borrowed money from me, you haven't paid me."
So that's a positive memory and you go, "I don't think so. Not this time." But the memory of "No, you're just a dead beat;" there's no need to have that kind of memory. You just have to have the wisdom and don't lend him the money unless you really can afford to just give him the money. That's different. There is no attachment there and you're just using your wisdom to deal with the situation.
But the one that brings up the ideas that we have a sense of "self;" that someone has attacked our sense of "self;" that we need to protect our sense of "self," "No, you can't talk to me that way! Do you know who I am?" You have this kind of sense of "self" that comes up that builds the "self."
And when that happens, then you reinforce that "self." That's a bad type of memory. That's a mind factor that comes up. So we are careful about that and in our practice we let go of those memories. We only use what is necessary to properly function in the present moment. It's seems easy to say and hard to do, right? Especially when somebody's there "Oh, there she is again. I can't stand her. Remember her, she's really bad!" And then what happens is anybody that looks like her.
I was at a restaurant and they were writing down my name. They go, "What's your name?"
I go, "My name is Gilbert" and they almost threw the pen down.
I'm going "Why, why are you treating me this way. This is the first time I've been to your restaurant."
They go, "Oh, we have a Gilbert that used to work here and we can't stand him!" (laughs…)
Well, he has nothing to do with me but yet that memory colored that moment for him. So you see how very, very tricky how the self comes in and makes in that very moment something that happens there. So you have to be very mindful. That's what we're talking about.
Number three - the concentration of the mind; keeping the mind where it should be. The mind and the body are in the present moment. They're not somewhere else. So you use the zeal, the exertion and the understanding that where the mind is at. Where is the mind?
A long time ago they used to have this public service ad on TV and it go, "It's 10 o'clock; parents, do you know where your children are at?" Really bugged me when I was a teenager… (laughs…) But in any case, we should be saying that all the time. "It's the present moment; do you know where your mind is at?"
Now some of you since I started talking, maybe perhaps on one occasion or two or maybe 10 times have left this room in their mind. You've gone somewhere totally different; you've floated away. Is that reality? No, why would you want to live your life in an unreal state? But yet you're always imagining this and imagining that and going there. Some of you even went to work which I can't understand. You're not getting paid for it but yet you go to work, thinking about work, thinking about work.
But if you tell them to pay you overtime tomorrow when you go in they'll think you're cuckoo! (laughs…) So why think about work? Your work has its time; your rest has its time. Everything is this way. You tend the mind. Be careful about the mind.
Let me see if I can find some more about Cittas.
The Pali English dictionary suggests that Citta is Heart-mind and emphasizing more motive (like what I was talking about). It represents one's mindset or one's state of mind.
And he says that one of things in terms of the idea of one's state of mind, there is a definition of what the practice of Zen or Chan is. They say the practice is to accord the mind in harmony with whatever state of mind is arising at that moment.
So let's say you have a state of mind where all of a sudden you walk into a room and people were fighting. What do you do? Do you want to go in and fight with everybody? "Oh my gosh you know, this person is fighting with his person. Hey, that's my best friend. I'm going to get involved too." And all of a sudden people were trying to hold you back. "You're a fool. No, you're the fool!" No, you're all fools pointing your finger at each other.
Or do you go and say, "Hey, let's calm down; let's calm this down and bring this down a little bit. Let's quiet down." And you separate the people because you know no good is going to happen when people are fighting like that.
So when that happens, you are in accord with whatever state of mind that's there. What do you need to do in that state of mind? Not your "self" but the idea of your "self" going, "You're calling me that? You can't call me that!" (And now you're fighting with him). But to accord and not being disturbed by all of that; not being disturbed about right or wrong, but just simply resolve the problem or whatever that arises there. Sometimes, it is not so easy for us to do that because it's so difficult for us to put down the self. But if we can put down the self then it would work.
The last one is Mimamsa which is concentration of inquiry. This is the idea of investigation; you're investigating something. This is the pivotal part of the practice. One of the people I'm reading from today indicated that what the Buddha taught (the Tathagattha), essentially wasn't in the words but what was in the invitation to investigate. So the idea is that when you have this mindset, now you begin to investigate what is arising in mind from moment to moment. It's not in the words that I say to you but in your investigation.
Some of you who were new to this, this is going to stick to you kind of like a sweet taffy on the back of your tongue. You can't swallow it but it still tastes sweet. It bugs you "What was he talking about? What was he saying about investigate? What is mind? What isn't mind?" And you start thinking about it; thinking about it and you're investigating.
The more you investigate, the more you look into it, something very interesting arises from that. Does anybody know? Wisdom… wisdom will come from this investigation. You begin to see things in a very clear way. All of a sudden, you see how mind works - why this thought is there (when you know for instance when you sit to meditate and the thoughts are arising in your mind. You know exactly why they arise).
Does anybody of the new people here know why thoughts arise in the mind at any moment to moment? It's because you put them there. They are thoughts from before. They are like an echo and if you pick up that thought that was an echo from the past, it will produce another echo in the future.
So all you have to do is not engage in picking up those thoughts and those thoughts will dissipate on their own. Just like if you yell your name in a canyon, your name will eventually dissipate out. And essentially that is what you are doing is you're not calling your "self." You're not bringing your "self" up in mind and when you do that, after a while your "self" doesn't appear in mind anymore.
What is interesting is that you function better without the self because you don't need the self to function. You need the mind; you need thoughts. You don't have to attach to the thought. You don't have to say "I am doing anything." You don't; you just use the mind in the proper way.
There is a saying in Spanish about a fly on the ear of an ox that's pulling a load. And the fly says to the ox, "We are moving." But who's pulling the load? The fly is relatively insignificant in all of that equation. Likewise, the self is a tiny fly in comparison to mind itself. But we are constantly trying to recertify the existence of the fly rather than seeing the mind - this great mind that that connects everything. And when you can see them in that way, we're less likely to make mistakes in what we're doing.
Let me see and make sure I've touched all the things for today. That's about it. Essentially we've touched on the major issues in terms of what I want to accomplish today. All of these factors as I mentioned con commitment, con commitment factors that support each other. And by supporting each other it brings one's mind to a stable point.
Are there any questions? No, okay. We'll finish here. I know it is difficult for some of you in terms of it but little by little, it will become clear as you go. There is no beginning point in the practice of Zen or Chan and no ending point. These are just points like the facets of the diamond that you look through this point, you look through this one, and it's all the same.
So wherever you are and whenever you come in, if the information is useful for you in your life then that's important. What you do is you have to make it your diamond and let it shine through your utilization of wisdom.
Labels: buddhism, california, chan, dharma, dharma drum, faith in mind, meditation, obstruction, podcast, riverside, sheng yen, zen
Dharma Talk, October 22, 2012: Five Wholesome Faculties
Good evening and hello to all of you listening by way of the Internet. Today is October 22, 2012 and we're going to continue on with our work. I believe the last time I gave lecture we were talking about parts of the 37 Factors of Enlightenment. At that time, I think we were talking about the Four Proper Exertions, and we're going to continue on with those. We talked a little bit last time about the 5 Wholesome Faculties, and I want to work on those a little bit more tonight.
The Five Wholesome Faculties are faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. It's kind of a funny thing that when you go through all of these, whether it's through the Eightfold Path or the 37 Factors of Enlightenment, you find that mindfulness is always there. It's kind of like the joker in the deck that keeps showing up everywhere. Some of the others repeat as well, but mindfulness is one that repeats quite a bit. The idea of mindfulness that I'm talking about is not the idea of being mindful in a polite way. Although that certainly is a component of it, it's small in terms of what mindfulness is. By looking at the five wholesome faculties, we're going to kind of see what the composition of mindfulness is.
The first one is faith. In the Abidharma they don't call it faith; they call it confidence. This is interesting because we can ask, "What is faith?" Well, it's kind of like a confidence in what you're doing. Sometimes I think, at least in the Western World, that faith is interpreted to have a more narrow meaning. We say, "You have to have faith in God," and it's kind of like saying that you have to have faith in a belief system. Confidence, though, I think is a better word, because it includes faith, but it also encompasses a mindset that one has toward the practice.
This mindset is something that is developed as you go along, and there is sort of a three-fold progression to it. First, one has blind faith. Blind faith is very similar to what one may have say in the Judeo-Christian belief system where one believes in something because people tell them they should believe in it. You're born believing it so you're born a Christian, or you're born a Muslim, or someone from a Hebrew religion. It's very funny, because when you ask people what they religion they are, the might say Buddhist and actually know very little about Buddhism, just as Christians sometimes know very little about Christianity. They were born into it so they just have this blind faith about it.
As you begin to practice more, you'll start using your studies to give you a direction. This will cause your faith to develop because, as you begin to practice, things will start making more sense, and you'll start to see how everything fits together. At this point, you have gone beyond blind faith to a state where you're exploring and studying and working with the practice. Perhaps you're working with it by way of principle, which is studying it, or by way of practice, which is utilizing it in daily life, or maybe both.
As we get to this place, through our practice or through the principle itself, we might have certain revelations that come to us, or realizations. You can call them whatever you want—I think Christians call the epiphanies—but they're insight into something. These are very, very precious moments in which one receives insight as a result of their studying and practice. The insight is not necessarily of seeing your own self-nature, at least not in the beginning, but it's an insight into how everything works, how this world is put together. And, little by little, those insights build.
Now, if you stop there, at what is a very, very shallow insight, and somebody tells you too soon that you've seen your self-nature, then human nature will cause you to become very, very complacent in that, and you'll stay there. You really won't want to know there's something beyond what you have "attained," and because of human nature you'll feel that you've gotten pretty far, that "I've got it!" Once someone says, "I've got it!" if they don't have a well-known adviser to slap them into reality, they will just stay there. We'll talk more in a moment about what reality is.
The idea is that we use realizations to fuel our practice. This gets us to diligence, which the Abidharma calls effort. In the eightfold path, it's called the right effort. Like we have right view, we have the right effort. This is not a diligence where one says, "Wow, I really sat well last night, I'm gonna sit for two hours tonight," which is an attitude that leads you to become overzealous in the practice. If you have this kind of attitude, then you aren't going to practice very well. Just like if you get the idea that I'm right and you are wrong, I have the right view and you have the wrong view. However one arrives at a state in which they are very presumptuous about the practice or they start over-practicing, it will not produce good fruit.
Likewise, if one is very, very lax about the practice then they're really not doing too much. And when I say practice, I also mean practice of the principle, or studying the Dharma, because I believe this is part of it. It's kind of like we're in a boat on a river, and every once in a while we begin to move the oars, but we're trying to go upstream. If we use only a little effort, we won't actually make much progress. At best, we might stay in the same place, but we'll probably find ourselves moving down river, and all the while we're totally convinced we're doing something. We might be satisfied with no progress. Or, we might lose interest altogether, pull our boat to the shore, and forget about it for now.
So this effort that we should have is really, really important. It's really important that we remind ourselves everyday that we want to practice, and that every moment we try to use the practice in some way in our daily lives. When we sit to meditate, we should sit with the right effort as well. This will prevent us from sitting, and after two minutes, kind of brushing ourselves off and saying, "That was a great sitting!" Now, I don't mind that if you're a beginner, because I'd rather have you sit a little while with the proper method then sit there for half an hour and just watch movies in your mind. If you're a more experienced practitioner, however, then you should be sitting for longer periods of time. You don't have to try to make it a marathon, but you want to have enough time that is productive. Normally, they indicate the length of an incense stick. And you go, "What the heck is the length of an incense stick?" It's between 40 to 60 minutes, give or take the length of the incense stick you're burning and its thickness. Basically, it's a measure of time that one can feel comfortable with. And when you do this, you shouldn't have a clock in front of you, or down by your knees, so that you sit there looking at it with one eye and meditating with the other. If you do this, you can get to where your method is watching the clock so you have to be very careful with that sort of thing.
I remember at a retreat I went to that there was one person who was having a real difficult time with his is method. He said that his method changed as it went along. The timekeeper's name at this particular retreat was Fred, and the guy said that his method was thinking: "Ring the bell Fred. Ring the bell." Until finally, he got to: "Ring the damn bell Fred!"
This is really not the kind of effort we want to put into it, but it can be difficult when we're at retreat because we're in more of a pressure-cooker kind of situation. We want to put a real sincere effort into our practice, and it's important that we use our faith to say, "This will work," so that when we sit down, we program ourselves to have a positive experience. We should think: this is going to be something very good that I can do. Then, we use this effort to sit in the proper way, not over-doing it or under-doing it, but using the Middle Way. Again here is a term, the Middle Way, that meaning is often confused, and we'll go into that a little bit later on in the lecture. At this point we can use it to mean that we have the right effort.
The Middle Way is an interesting thing, because it's really in the essence of what our practice is, and we'll find out more about that, but for now, we have to use insight to say to ourselves, "Okay, if I practice diligently, if I have faith, it will work." That's how all these things begin to fit together. One begins with one insight and then adds to it, and adds the next one, and adds the next one, and eventually they'll take you back again to reinforcing the practice and these Five Wholesome Faculties that we need to cultivate. The idea of sticking to the practice is that we need to practice in the proper way to overcome the obstructions that we have. Initially, when we sit, we have leg pain, scattered mind, and drowsiness, and we need to work through those obstructions. Later, we'll have other obstructions come up. We just let those go. We just keep letting those go. We do that through the right effort. If we give into it, and we go, "Oh my leg hurts. How much time has it been? Oh, five minutes. Ok then I'm just going to do six minutes," then you're not really working in the proper way.
If you can do it in a way where you overcome the obstruction, that's good but if you overdo it then that too becomes an obstruction because you'll be sitting in a prideful way. You'll think to yourself, "I can sit for a long time. Matter-of-fact, I'm sitting here and I don't even have a thought." A lot of people think that way believe it or not. We really have to be honest with our practice. Is your pride there? Is the self there? Am I on the method? Am I using the proper effort? Or am I just kidding myself? A lot of people just kid themselves. We should not be this way. We should have faith that if we sit with the proper exertion, the self will drop off. We use the proper exertion, the proper effort, to continue to study. We really want to explore the Samantabhadra's 10 Great Vows. One of them is to follow the Buddha in study. This is something that's very important. We study in our own ability.
Now, for some of you who just started, it's enough for you to read a book from Master Sheng Yen. It's actually all in there. He's pretty much done all the work of studying for you, and put it all in one place. Little by little, though, one begins to study more in depth because they'll become very serious about the practice.
I knew that Stan was getting serious about the practice when he started talking about the Diamond Sutra. That's not something that somebody just picks up right away. When you start picking up a Sutra like that it means that you're interested in the practice because you're going to a closer source. There's also the Lankavatara Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra. The Heart Sutra is one that's very easy to knock off, because it's a very short one. All these sutras are important, and the treatises of the great masters are very, very helpful—those from people like Hanshan and Hsu Yun, Empty Cloud. All of these are vital in terms of understanding what the practice is, and what you'll find is that there's common ground all over. You'll find that what one says here is repeated over there, and you may see something like "It's just a bubble in a stream," and you'll go, "That's from the Diamond Sutra!" So, all of the sudden you can cross-reference, and this will help you to start seeing what the practice is.
This is when the practice really starts to pay off because the common ground you find in your cross-referencing, becomes a kind of matrix upon which you can build your faith. Then, your ability to concentrate will start to improve, and you'll produce wisdom. We haven't talked about that yet, but we'll get there. And all of this, again, is mindfulness. So, all of this is very, very important.
In talking about diligence, the key is that what diligence does is cut off attachments. If we don't do that, then we're just subject to the exact same attachment, the same grasping, that we have been. The Heartwood of the Bodhi of what Shakyamuni Buddha taught was don't apprehend, don't attach. In Chan, they say "Just put down." Sometimes, though, when people say "just put down," they're thinking: "I should put down things." That's not it. It's "put down." Indeed, there's no "I" in any of that. So we put down the "I," and when I say "we," I mean mind. This is essential. When we use the proper exertion, then we can use our practice in a way that's productive. It will begin to cut off these attachments not by using effort to slash everything that comes in sight, but actually through effortless action. Why? Because it uses illumination to cut them away. It uses the ability to have faith that by continuing to sit, the thought will tire out, and that which we call self will also tire out. All those fragments will disappear.
The next faculty is the faculty of mindfulness and we are mindful of many things. One of them is keeping the practice. We should be very, very mindful to keep the practice. We should be aware at any moment where our practice is, where our mind is. Is our mind listening? Has it strayed? Or is it clear? We should have awareness of what is happening at any given moment. In this way, it also does something very incredible because it fuses with the principle. What I mean by fuses is that they start to reinforce each other. As one begins to practice more, the principle becomes clearer, it becomes practiced. Without the practice, the principle gets you nowhere. The only thing principle can do at that point is develop a strong Samadhi. The Samadhi is the ability to stay in one place, but the maximum level you can achieve with it is the Unified Mind. It's not going to get you to where one can see the Self-nature. You get there through the principle and illuminating mind. It's possible to get there without the principle, but it's much easier to get there with it, and one will have deeper and more profound wisdom generated when the principle is there as well.
Huineng did not need the principle as much, but then again he was a very unique individual with very strong karmic roots. If you do not have the Karmic roots of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch, then I suggest you best practice and engage in the principle.
Another thing that we need to be mindful of is the Right Riew. Then we say, "The right view of what? What is this Right View?" We can't just say it's right as opposed to wrong. What does this right view mean when we really break it down? What do you think right view means? What would you say Sentha?
Sentha: Right view is recognizing impermanence and emptiness.
Gilbert: What's emptiness?
Sentha: No self.
Gilbert: Anything else?
Sentha: No clinging.
Gilbert: Ok, if there's no clinging, then who's clinging?
Sentha: There's no self.
Gilbert: Ok, then what comes up?
Sentha: Wisdom comes up.
Gilbert: But if we do not have wisdom what comes up?
Sentha: Your suffering is clinging.
Gilbert: Ok, and where does that come from?
Sentha: Attachment.
Gilbert: And where does attachment come from?
Sentha: Self.
Gilbert: You're missing something.
Sentha: Subject/object distinction.
Gilbert: And subject/object comes from, can anyone help her out? What's she missing?
Another student: Desire?
Gilbert: No, something even more basic. I'll give you a hint from a 1980s song: "You turn me round baby. Round, round." What is that? Pratityasamutpada - Causes and conditions never fail.
This is called the Law of Dependent Arising. There is nothing that arises that has not had a cause. Things do not arise by themselves. Everything is connected. Everything is connected. And as you look at the world you're clear about that, clear about why you wore what you wore today, why you put your hair the way you did today. All of these things are clear from the most mundane things like dressing to very complex things like world politics, office politics, family politics, all things that arise in the mind, all things that roll off your tongue, all things that your body does, you see that they're all connected. This is the Right View. When we see things in this way, we know fundamentally that all things are empty because they have no separate existence. It's not enough for us to say suffering. It's not enough for us to say emptiness. We have to go to the Right View. We have to really look at it, and see it clearly. When we see that, it's not so hard, but we start from that Pratityasamutpada. It is the essence of the practice. It is what drives the Yogacara school, it's what drives the Tientai school, drives the Huayin school, drives the Chan school, drives the Theravada school. It is the essence of the practice. Pratityasamutpada is the Middle Way. It's when one understands there is real and not real and no not real. When we look at things we don't negate that something has happened, but we also don't accept it as being real.
Somewhere in the middle of all that is the transcendent understanding of how mind works. It's the essence of it. From the essence that causes and conditions never fail, comes the rest of the practice, comes suffering and no self, anicha, impermanence. The terms dukkha, anicha, anatman, come from Law of Dependent Arising. When we understand them, then we understand what Right View is. When we understand Right View, we use the right mindfulness in what we do. We're aware of it and we clearly know what's there.
So, everything that arises, everything that arises, is conditioned. Know that, know that, know that until mind reflects it and there is no more knowing. Again, we were talking about fusion, and we fuse that mind-ground, the matrix of mind itself, that enables those things to arise, because that too is mind. Everything is connected.
The Huayin schools talks about Indra's net which has mirrors all over it so that wherever one looks, the rest of the net is reflected. In the same way, these schools are not inconsistent with the Chan School. Each has their own ways of coming at things, but they all have co-dependent arising as their basis. When we begin to understand that, we see that it's the arising from mind that brings forth all the different things. Whether it's from one's consciousness, through all the Skanda, all the way through form, sensation, volition, perception, consciousness. All of those things are fundamentally empty, because they all rely on conditioned arising for their existence. There is no separate existence for any of it.
So, when we look at it, we see emptiness, suffering, impermanence, but it all comes down to dependent arising. The reason we practice not attaching and not apprehending is because there is nothing there to apprehend, there is nothing for us to grasp. As we begin to practice more, using our concentration, we will produce wisdom. We use the concentration to properly practice our meditation so that when we're coursing through either Prajnaparamita, or through ignorance in what we do, we can keep reminding ourselves to concentrate, to use the right concentration. We also use the right concentration when we read any kind of treatise or Sutra or commentaries. We don't just read the words. Sometimes when I'm here, I'll read something to you and ask, "How does that sound?"
"Oh, that sounds wonderful. So beautiful. On a cloudless night, the moon shines and an egret moves across it. Oh, that's so beautiful!"
"What does it mean?"
We don't make the effort to penetrate it. With the proper concentration, the proper exertion, the faith, we penetrate the Sutras. We should think, "I want the proper concentration. I want to really read this. I want to know what this means," but it's difficult for us because the words are foreign to us. What does anicha mean? Dukkha? I don't know any of these words. I don't even know what noumenon and phenomena are. As we begin to understand it more, however, it takes on a different life, because we'll want to know. There's something there. Something very, very precious, and it's not written down on paper. It's written between the lines.
One master could not bring his disciple to realization so the disciple went to see another master at the suggestion of his own. The second master brought about the disciple's realization of being able see his true-nature. When he went back, he saw his master reading the Scriptures, but the manner in which he was reading was not using the proper concentration; it wasn't penetrating. A lot of times people misunderstand this to mean that whatever's written isn't of value. It's not that it's not of value. It wasn't of value to the master because he wasn't using the proper concentration, or exertion. So, when the disciple saw him he said, "What a pity it is that you're just sitting there seeking for truth, and the truth is 6 feet beyond your scroll." That meant it was the window in front of him.
What he was telling him was that his effort wasn't proper; his concentration wasn't proper. He might have had the faith but he lacked the right effort and the diligence to really read the Sutras rather than just read one and be able to say "Oh, I read this Sutra." If you can read and understand a portion of a Sutra, whether it's the Lankavatara Sutra or the Vakataka Sutra, or the Diamond Sutra, and you really take it to heart, that's more valuable than for you to read the Sutra over and over again, because the truth will be revealed. It's not in the words, but it's in the effort that one makes. It is in the concentration on the mind.
When we concentrate in this way, we use the real right view to do it. Then, what happens is that we get wisdom. This is wisdom that's much, much different from the wisdom that we're used to thinking of. When I say transcendent wisdom, I mean that it transcends the gap between emptiness and things, between right and wrong, up and down, black and white; everything is transcendent. It's as if one was watching a movie, and the projectionist realized that it was out of focus and corrected it. Everything is still there. It doesn't deny or negate the apparent reality of this world, but it doesn't cling to it either. It sees from where it springs forth. Using this transcendent wisdom enables one to delicately carve meaning in this world, to delicately carve effort and action, proper action that does not harm others around us. We shape the world around us through this transcendent wisdom. We begin to put into motion things of benefit—not through the intention of putting anything into motion, but simply because the mind is settled. It just simply does that naturally. It doesn't have the idea that it is doing anything—that "I" am doing anything—it simply uses this wonderful wisdom to operate.
That wisdom doesn't come from any kind of prescription that I can write for you other than this prescription that I'm telling you now: use the 37 Factors of Enlightenment. If you use these Five Wholesome Faculties, it's the proper prescription to bring about a realization. If you lack in faith, lack in diligence, lack in mindfulness, in concentration, then wisdom will not come. You may be smart, but the wisdom will not come. If you bring about the proper faith, the proper effort, mindfulness, and concentration, then there is no doubt that wisdom by it's self will manifest, because it's already inherent within you. It's in the self-nature. It just needs the proper wholesomeness to manifest, and the wholesomeness is just simply clarifying the mind, body, and speech to reveal what is there.
By doing this, one sets the proper foundation for wisdom to manifest. If you're looking to manifest wisdom simply by sitting on your cushion, it won't happen. I don't care how long you sit, it won't happen. You might get in Ripley's Believe It or Not for the person who's sat on the cushion the longest, but you're not going to become enlightened doing that. If you set the proper foundation for the practice, I guarantee that your self-nature will be revealed. Precious, precious, and you won't even be there to realize it.
Posted by Bill at 8:42 PM
Labels: buddhism, california, chan, dharma, dharma drum, meditation, riverside, sheng yen, sutra, zen
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