Cutting through the identification with consciousness, the knowing mind.

0:01 Last night I talked a little bit about how identification with consciousness or with awareness can become the last hideout of self. And so in one way or another we want to begin the investigation of how to be mindful of the knowing, mindful of awareness, of consciousness without identifying with it, allowing it to fulfill its function of cognizing and realizing That that aspect of experience, the knowing mind, also arises out of conditions, is not I, is not mine, is not self. So the question is, how can we begin, just begin to get a glimpse of how to become mindful of this essential part of our experience, the knowing mind, to get a glimpse of how We might become mindful of it in a way in which we're cutting through the identification. The different Buddhist traditions have different techniques for this, you know, and because within the range of the Buddhist traditions there's a lot of philosophical differences and differences of methodology, but Suggest a fix for the passage at 0:01

1:35 the point of all the teachings in whatever form or method is used is to See the selfless nature, to realize the selfless nature of whatever is arising. So there are two approaches that I want to mention now and then one before we start walking. Suggest a fix for the passage at 1:35

2:09 So one of the most classical approaches to becoming mindful of the knowing, mindful of consciousness, is to realize that in every moment Two things are happening. There's an object and the knowing of the object. So we hear a sound. There's the sound, which is physical matter, and then the knowing of the sound, which is consciousness. There's a movement and the knowing of the movement. A sensation and the knowing of the sensation. So there's this, our experience is this pairwise progression of knowing an object, knowing an object, knowing an object, knowing an object. So we want to go from the more conventional way of interpreting experience, I'm hearing a sound, or I'm thinking a thought, or I'm feeling a sensation. Suggest a fix for the passage at 2:09

3:10 That's our usual conventional description. But the more meditative understanding would be to experience each moment as simply being this pair. You know, sound arises, there's a knowing of it. Thought arises, the knowing of it. So it's very simple. It's what's actually happening moment to moment, but we're just framing it in this way and really experiencing in this way. When we begin to frame experience in terms of the momentary, knowing an object, knowing an object, knowing an object, as we get very clear that that's what's happening moment to moment, then gradually it becomes intuitively obvious. Suggest a fix for the passage at 3:10

3:59 That the knowing itself is arising and passing with each object. So there's knowing an object arising and passing. Know an object arising and passing. Knowing an object arising and passing. So we're beginning to get a taste at least of the fact that consciousness itself is part of this impersonal process arising and passing. So as you're sitting Suggest a fix for the passage at 3:59

4:28 Again, you want to investigate this in a non -obsessive way. Suggest a fix for the passage at 4:28

4:38 We're talking of really getting kind of to the heart of where we are most subtly caught up. So just, if it's of interest to you, just begin to look at this and just play around with this framework of understanding. You know, and it may be that at times you'll get just a hit or a sense, oh yeah, this is how things are happening. So for example, in the sitting, if you're feeling the breath, you know, say feeling the breath at the abdomen, so there's a rising movement, and right along with the rising, simultaneous, is the knowing of it. If it were a corpse having its stomach pumped, the rising would be there, but there's no knowing. Suggest a fix for the passage at 4:38

5:31 I don't think. Suggest a fix for the passage at 5:31

5:35 So there's the movement. This is just physical. This is just material elements. But along with this, there is a knowing. The falling. That's just physical. That's just the physical elements. But along with it is the knowing. So one thing to keep in mind is just, as you're just paying attention to this, there's nothing you have to do. This doesn't have to be created. This is how it's happening. So it's just kind of settling back. And observing that this is how it's happening. One thing to keep in mind is that the knowing and the object are distinct but not separable. So it's not that you should be looking for this space of, oh, the knowing is over here and the object is over here. It's not like that. Suggest a fix for the passage at 5:35

6:30 It's a unity. It's arising as a unity. It's two different aspects arising together. So I'll give you an example. So if you just look at this, we can be seeing or emphasizing the awareness either of the color or the form, the shape. Shape and color are two different things. They're two different aspects. Shape is not color and color is not shape. And yet they're not separable. The shape is in a color. And the color has a shape. So these two are not separable, but they are distinct. Is that clear? So it's the same way with knowing and conscious knowing and the object. It's just like color in form, color in shape. Suggest a fix for the passage at 6:30

7:39 They're arising together. They can't be separated. But there are two distinct aspects. One are the material elements, which don't know anything. It's just physical matter. And simultaneously, inseparable, in each moment of arising, is the knowing of it. So it's really quite simple. But it takes kind of settling into this particular perspective. So there's the rising, falling, or in and out. The breath coming in, that's just the physical sensations. Simultaneous with the in -breath is the knowing. Simultaneous with the out -breath is the knowing. So this is one way of beginning to Suggest a fix for the passage at 7:39

8:28 understand the process without adding the sense of I or me or mine to it. That the knowing itself becomes part of the unfolding process. Suggest a fix for the passage at 8:28

8:46 In one of the early stages of Vipassanā insight, there is a stage called purification of view, which is where we begin to get a clearer sense Of how this process actually is unfolding. And it's this insight that in every moment is the knowing and an object. This pairwise progression arising and passing, arising and passing. And that's all that's happening. The sense of I or mine is extra. That's an overlay. So this insight is really in a way the beginning of the whole Vipassanā path unfolding. So that's one approach which you could play with and just see if you can connect with it in some way or other. The other approach comes more from the Zen or Tibetan tradition in terms of cutting the identification with knowing. Suggest a fix for the passage at 8:46

9:52 And it's best illustrated by a little Zen story quite well known of Suggest a fix for the passage at 9:52

10:08 this student coming to see Bodhidharma, who's the person who brought Buddhism from India to China. And so this disciple comes and says, I'm suffering a lot, can you please pacify my mind? And Bodhidharma, who was sitting in his cave for seven years or nine years or something, comes out of the cave. And at first is reluctant to give the teachings, but the disciple kind of is insistent, please teach me. My mind is suffering so much, please. Please pacify it. So as the dialogue is expressed, Bodhidharma says, show me your mind and I'll pacify it. Now, again, as you listen to this, there's a profound teaching here, so let it go in. Show me your mind and I'll pacify it. Suggest a fix for the passage at 10:08

11:07 And the disciple says, I've looked for it everywhere and I can't find it. Suggest a fix for the passage at 11:07

11:18 I've looked for it everywhere and I can't find it. And Bodhidharma says, There, it's already pacified. So it's in the non -findability of consciousness. The non -findability of the awareness automatically cuts through any identification with it. And as one Tibetan teacher said, you know, when you look for the mind, there's nothing to find. And the not -finding is the finding. That's the insight to extract. When we look for the mind, there's nothing to find. It's not a thing. Again, expressed in another way in another text, it says the mind is, but it doesn't exist. So we can't find it as an object. It's empty in that sense. There's nothing to find, and yet the knowing is happening. So that's the great mystery of awareness or of consciousness. Suggest a fix for the passage at 11:18

12:29 So when you're sitting and something that I found very interesting to do in practice, I find it most easy to do, at least at first, with sound. So when sound arises, Suggest a fix for the passage at 12:29

12:50 the sound is known. You know, we're hearing the sound. So occasionally you might just ask or look, can I find what is knowing the sound? So in the experience of hearing, it's obvious that we're knowing the sound because we're actually hearing it. So just in that moment of knowing the sound, it's like turning the attention with the question, can I find what it is that's knowing it? And this is where it gets interesting. When we look, when we try to find what's knowing it, there's nothing to find. And yet the knowing is happening. And so if you just have moments of... You're looking at the mind, there's nothing to find. Just see if you get some sense of that or some taste of that. Suggest a fix for the passage at 12:50

13:45 Because in the not finding knowing or consciousness as a thing, it cuts through the tendency to identify with it. There's nothing to find. And yet the knowing is happening. So that's the mystery and the challenge of this inquiry. So settle. Just settle back, Suggest a fix for the passage at 13:45

14:21 get grounded in the awareness of the body, Suggest a fix for the passage at 14:21

14:37 continuing your practice as you've been doing it, Suggest a fix for the passage at 14:37

14:43 perhaps from time to time, just investigating your experience in terms of this pair -wise progression, moment after moment, with this knowing and an object, knowing and an object, arising simultaneously. Suggest a fix for the passage at 14:43

15:06 And if it's of interest, you know, at some point you could just experiment. Again, especially with sound, but it could be anything. With whatever the experience is, can you find what's knowing it? Suggest a fix for the passage at 15:06

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39:24 Do you have any questions about your practice and the instructions this morning? Suggest a fix for the passage at 39:24

39:42 Because we are brought up. Suggest a fix for the passage at 39:42

39:46 So I guess I know it sounds a bit odd. If we were to be brought up, let's say, in isolation, right? Just hypothetically. And we have no one instructing us how to be. Would that be an innate ability that we have? Okay, so did you hear the question in the back? So the comment was about this addition of adding I, me, and mine to experience. And the comment was how that is also very conditioned by just society and how we're brought up. And what would happen if one were brought up in isolation without that conditioning? Would the mind just be resting in the natural awareness without that? Suggest a fix for the passage at 39:46

40:42 Given the Buddhist understanding of the birth and death and rebirth, which you may or may not believe at this point, but as my first teacher would say, Manindra, as he was talking about rebirth and the different realms of existence to Westerners, knowing that many Westerners are skeptical of that, he would say, you don't have to believe it. It's true, but you don't have to believe it. Suggest a fix for the passage at 40:42

41:14 So given that framework, as Trungpa Rinpoche said, when asked, what is it that's reborn? He said, your neuroses. Which, it's not that we come in with a pure blank slate. The very reason, the very cause within the Buddhist cosmological understanding, the very cause of rebirth is craving and attachment. So it's like we're coming in with that. And again, it's over countless lifetimes that this conditioning has been, not Suggest a fix for the passage at 41:14

42:11 just about the knowing, the knowing in the object. Suggest a fix for the passage at 42:11

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43:11 I think one of the places people get a little caught up in has Suggest a fix for the passage at 43:11

43:25 to do with exploring and integrating the notion. Of two levels of truth. The relative level and you could call it the more ultimate level. So on the relative level, that's the conventional, ordinary way we relate to experience. And on the relative level, there's I, there's self, there's other. When we're doing mettā meditation, we're not saying, Suggest a fix for the passage at 43:25

43:57 may the five aggregates which are arising in you be expressive of loving kindness towards other five aggregates. That whole understanding of selflessness and it's just the play of the aggregates and it's impersonal, that's on one level. On another level, the relative level, here's Joseph, there's you. We're relating with Joseph as a certain identity and a certain history of experience. So these two levels are happening together. So let's see. Suggest a fix for the passage at 43:57

44:42 I need to show and tell now. I don't know. We'll see if this works. Suggest a fix for the passage at 44:42

44:55 Okay, so what do you see? Okay, a tissue box. Actually, we don't see a tissue box. The eye does not see tissue box. The eye sees color and form. And then the mind thinks, puts a concept on tissue box, on what we're seeing. On the basic level of seeing, of just color and form, and if we were really paying careful attention, we would see the flow of impermanence in that. As soon as we put a concept on tissue box, the concept remains the same. Tissue box today, tissue box yesterday, tomorrow. Even if we know that it's just seeing color or form, or to put it another way, if we could see microscopically, there'd be no tissue box. Suggest a fix for the passage at 44:55

45:45 It would just be... Atoms and electrons and the whole other level of reality where tissue box disappears. Suggest a fix for the passage at 45:45

45:55 The fact that it's possible to see an underlying level of reality, the tissue box -less reality of this, doesn't mean that we also don't relate to it on the relative level of tissue box. It's here, and if I need a tissue, I'll reach down and take the tissue. So these two are not... Mutually exclusive, the two levels. So there is the conventional relative level of self, of other, identity, all of that's part of the way we live in the world. But in underlying reality, you could say it's the subatomic particle level or the selfless nature of it. The more we tune into that level as well, then the less attachment there is to the conventional level. Suggest a fix for the passage at 45:55

46:51 So we operate in the world with the ordinary concepts, but if we have insight into the underlying reality, then we're not caught by the relative level. Suggest a fix for the passage at 46:51

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47:59 It's not the separation, it's the distinction. The Suggest a fix for the passage at 47:59

48:13 so what of beginning to be with the experience in this frame. So this is the more ultimate frame, not the conventional one. Of really seeing that all that's there in each moment is this process of an object arising, one of the six sense objects being known. Suggest a fix for the passage at 48:13

48:43 Now many of you may, in the course of the week or the nine days, may think that your mind and your life is quite complicated. But it really isn't. Because only six things ever happen. So everything that we think of as our great, big, complicated life, it's only six things. It's either seeing, or hearing, or smelling, or tasting, or feeling a sensation in the body, or some mind object of thought or emotion. Did I catch all six? It's the five senses and the mind. When we really drop into the experience, the flow of experience moment after moment, you see it's only these six things. You know, in different combinations, happening very rapidly. And so we put it all together. It's like the frames of a film, you know, that are going very quickly. Suggest a fix for the passage at 48:43

49:47 We don't see that it's just separate frames. And so a whole story is created. Because we haven't really seen carefully the nature of this process of what we call our lives. It's only these six things happening, ever. But if we're not paying very careful attention to that process, We experience those six things in different patterns, and they create a whole story, and then we're living in the story of our lives with all the attendant joys and sorrows and complications. So the so what of beginning to see this experience of what we're calling Joseph or life, seeing it in this way, it enables us to drop back into experience with much greater Ease and simplicity. And then as different thoughts and emotions are arising, and we've talked about this a little bit, to see that the thought is essentially empty. Suggest a fix for the passage at 49:47

50:57 There's not much power in the thought. The only power is the power we give it. And the same thing with emotions. You know, emotions are a powerful, vivid experience. Can we be with it just as it is, seeing the conditioned, impermanent nature of it, or are we collapsing? into into the story of it. The more we see the emptiness, the selflessness of the process, then it enables us to be with experience and on a relative level discern which of these experiences are worth cultivating. Which thoughts should I follow? Which emotions should I cultivate? Which thoughts should I let go of? Which emotions are not that skillful and I can abandon? Suggest a fix for the passage at 50:57

51:50 If we're of the belief that each one of these experiences is who I am, then it's a problem. Because there's a mix of wholesome and unwholesome, and so if we're identifying with all of that and beginning to see the unwholesome aspects can so easily lead to self -judgment and guilt and I'm such a terrible person, which is often certainly my thoughts in the very beginning of my practice as I saw the whole range of my mind. Until I began to see more deeply, that's all empty, it's all selfless. And that understanding gave the space then to discern which to respond to, which simply to let go of. So it provides that greater space and ease with which to engage in the world. Suggest a fix for the passage at 51:50

52:48 We have three minutes. Who has not asked a question? Okay, all the way in the back. Suggest a fix for the passage at 52:48

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54:11 Right, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. This is a totally reasonable question, especially given our scientific paradigm for understanding life and the world. So just a couple of things. Suggest a fix for the passage at 54:11

54:36 If you're proceeding with... With the belief of brain and mind being the same thing, Suggest a fix for the passage at 54:36

54:55 mostly you could come to the same understanding of selflessness as long as you don't assume it's your brain. There is a brain doing these things, right? So even within that context, it's possible to understand the selfless nature of it all. It's all an impersonal process. From the Buddhist perspective, there is a distinction between the mind and brain. And the brain becomes the Suggest a fix for the passage at 54:55

55:34 physical basis for consciousness to arise. So, for example, the thought. Thought is immaterial. It's not a material object. It's mental. It's immaterial. There's no... Suggest a fix for the passage at 55:34

55:59 But it's arising out of certain electrical impulses in the brain. But the thought is not the electric impulse. The electric impulse is the condition for the thought to arise. Suggest a fix for the passage at 55:59

56:14 So you could just work with it in both of those ways. In either case, in whatever way you're holding it, you can still be seeing the impermanent, selfless nature of it all. And the purpose of the practice is not necessarily Although one might, but it's not necessarily to create some new philosophic metaphysical system. That's not the purpose. The purpose of it is to see things in such a way that deconditions grasping, deconditions clinging. Because the cause of suffering in our lives, in the most fundamental way, is clinging or craving. For experiences in this whole unfolding process, but it's craving or clinging to things which in their very nature are going to change. Suggest a fix for the passage at 56:14

57:15 And because of that, if we're attached to it, if we're attached to youth, we suffer in old age. If we're attached to summer, we suffer in winter. If we're attached to things staying this way, then we suffer when it changes. And so the freedom of just being in the process, sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant. It doesn't mean that it always gets pleasant, but the mind is free in the experience of both because we're not identifying, we're not adding that extra layer, we're not clinging, we're not attached. So that's the essence of it. And even within Buddhism, the different traditions have different metaphysical systems describing it all, but it all comes down to the mind that does not cling. Suggest a fix for the passage at 57:15

58:02 That's where the freedom is. So that's really... The practice and all the suggestions of method and philosophy and Buddhist teaching, they're all to that point. And it was expressed Suggest a fix for the passage at 58:02

58:20 in one sutta where the Buddha says, nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as I or mine. Whoever practices this practices all of the teachings. So it all comes down to that point. Suggest a fix for the passage at 58:20

58:42 Just one little announcement. Suggest a fix for the passage at 58:42