Form & Formless | (6/29/21 - Ask Us Anything With Denny K Miu)

Denny draws from and summarizes the teaching of Master Ji Ru (Shifu) -- with comments from yours truly -- to link together the Four Great Elements, Four “Mighty” Postures, Four Right Knowings, Four Foundations of Mindfulness, Three (or Four) Dharma Seals, and Three Gates of Liberation. Other topics include: Double-slit experiment; the speed of time; Gaia; Seven Heavens; Mara; Dependent Origination; Paccekabuddha; dhammas; Satipatthana Sutta as "establishing" vs "foundations of" mindfulness,

Transcript

Good morning,

Good afternoon,

Good evening.

Thank you for coming to another episode of Ask Us Anything,

UA,

And again,

It's Josh and Denny.

Hey Denny,

What's going on?

Good morning,

I guess,

Huh?

Well,

Yeah,

It just turned noon around here,

So I guess it is technically afternoon,

How's it going?

Good,

Good.

So today,

We keep switching formats slightly,

But it doesn't matter,

But we are switching locations,

So I'm not at my usual location,

I'm actually down in Los Angeles,

Might have to do it from the Los Angeles,

I go down here with my parents,

For them,

This Chinese medical doctor,

And it might just work out.

Very cool.

So you wanna introduce the show and just get on with it,

Because I know you have a deadline.

Yeah,

Yeah,

So,

You know,

Last show,

Denny and I,

We,

You know,

I kinda,

We did something a little bit different,

I said,

Well,

Denny,

You pick,

Well,

First it was three topics,

But then we narrowed it to one each,

I said,

Denny,

Pick a topic that we've never talked about on the show before,

And I'll pick something that we've either never talked or rarely talked about,

And it'll be something fresh,

Because Denny and I,

Sometimes we rehash the same things,

And it was good,

So,

You know,

But this time I wanted to push it even a little further,

And I said,

Well,

Let's choose a well-known Dharma topic,

But let's give our own unique spin on it,

Or mention something that most people don't really look at it in that way,

You know,

And with the catch of,

Well,

We're not gonna tell each other what we're gonna talk about,

So that way,

I was thinking maybe we can get a more spontaneous nature to the conversation,

But,

You know,

The old diehard professor in Denny,

You know,

He told me right away what it was,

He got pretty enthusiastic about it,

And I was like,

Denny,

You're not supposed to tell me,

But I'm like,

Well,

This is so good what Denny's topic is today,

Because,

And it does warrant the presentation he put together,

And he put so much work and time and effort into this,

So,

Again,

I'm probably gonna most likely just back out of the way here,

And we'll just kinda feel out the times when,

Between the transitions and the slides,

Or whenever Denny feels it's good for me to chime in,

Because I don't really wanna interrupt the flow,

If I,

You know,

And I might,

You might see me taking little notes or something,

So I don't interrupt the flow,

So,

And when I have time to comment,

I can,

So.

Yeah,

So sometimes it's hard to translate languages,

Only because the culture is so different,

So if you try to translate the word spontaneous,

It will end up being chaotic,

So the Chinese culture doesn't allow itself to be so spontaneous.

Well,

That's pretty accurate,

Too.

Yeah,

Not,

Not the mention of my own.

A lot of times it does become chaotic,

Right,

A lot of times,

Oh yeah.

So I do like to pre-plan,

And then try to make it spontaneous,

You know,

As part of my planning.

Yeah,

Today's topic is something that I've been,

Wanted to do for a long time,

And because,

And I think the timing is just right,

And the reason why I've been holding back has a lot to do with a student on our Saturday practice.

So we launched,

Well,

We always had Saturday practice,

But we launched it on the Real Insight Timer platform,

And it was really overwhelming in terms of responding.

Josh and I were saying that,

You know,

Now finally we're preaching to the choir.

We're actually in the people who are,

Who have dedicated themselves to spiritual practice of all form,

Yoga,

Meditation,

Chanting,

And so we were very happy,

But still it took us a couple months for us to finally have a group of students who are repeating,

And this is a very important thing for us,

Because now that we have students that we can practice together,

We kind of slowly bring them,

And always kind of put the carrot in front of them,

Saying,

Hey,

You know,

This is where we're going.

So it's time,

I think it's important now to really talk about practice as something that is beyond,

You know,

Physical fitness.

Really what Josh and I think of our practice is that of spiritual.

So that's on one side,

And the other side is that this is,

After all,

A UA,

As I was saying.

So it is based on some questions of students.

So one of the questions that came from the student,

And then it was echo,

Which is,

Could we stop midway and continue,

Depending on the time?

So for example,

In the morning,

It's evening in Asia,

The evening,

Morning in somewhere,

So a lot of students say,

Well,

You know,

I can only the first hour,

But I don't want to miss the second.

Can I pick it up on the recording?

And then another student says,

Well,

You know,

What if I don't have time for the whole thing,

And then I just pick the one that resident practice staff.

And so the quick answer to that is yes,

Yes,

Yes,

Yes.

You know,

Definitely,

Definitely.

You can practice in any sequence.

You can practice it.

But having said that,

I still would like to talk about the rhymes and reasons for what we do.

What are we trying to achieve from the beginning?

And so the topic that I picked today,

And I thank Josh for indulging me,

Is the idea of form,

Forms,

Because we use that all the time,

Is that it's form and formness of Rupa to A Rupa.

And I think it might,

If I want to pick,

If I don't want to modify that topic,

It would form to formless and beyond.

So,

But for now,

I think,

I think stick with that topic.

And so I want to,

I want to just use that as a,

As a launch point for a rather in-depth discussion of entirety of spiritual,

Where we,

How do we start and where we're trying to leave,

But if we ever get there.

And so,

So to do that,

I want to,

I want to kind of review a little bit of what we have talked about in previous presentation.

And I always like to go back.

I always like to go back to good old Einstein.

I like this picture.

I like this picture.

And rather than kind of talk about what Einstein has,

I just like to take what he have contributed and try to put that in the context of us.

So one of the things that you notice in this picture is that Einstein holds up,

Hold up a apparatus.

That's for the measurement.

What is interesting about this is that you actually don't start with time.

You actually start with space.

And it's only because you have space.

And so the beginning of the universe is all about space.

It's all about the creation of space.

And it's only when you have space that there's a useful,

There's a useful time,

Right?

I mean,

I can talk about how long it would take for me to travel all the way to St.

Louis,

Meet up with Joshua Coffey.

But if he and I were in the same room,

Then we won't be talking about that.

We won't be talking about how long it would take for me to get to where he is.

So if space does not exist in the universe,

And there's no reason,

I think,

You have to go somewhere.

And we always said that,

You know,

If you're stuck in the traffic,

Why worry about,

You know,

How to be on time?

You are stuck,

You know.

So the idea of something,

The universe starting with space,

The creation,

And then once space appear,

Then the necessity,

Time is a measurement that you have a metric,

Then you can measure.

And one of the most important thing to measure is something called rising,

Fading away,

Or fading.

Meaning that now you can actually monitor something and says,

Oh,

It came into existence,

And then slowly rise in some chofana.

And then eventually,

If you didn't have time,

Then there's no way to.

Now,

Once you know how something rises and fading,

Then you can say,

Well,

Is there anything that won't rise that it will always be there?

And then the idea of particle versus wave become meaningful.

That particle is material,

Material has a way of rising and failing.

That it comes into existence,

Like you take a bunch of atoms,

And these are carbon atoms,

They're no different.

They're the same carbon atom,

Whether they eventually form a diamond or that they just form coal,

Right?

But in the time of the universe,

They have to come together.

This carbon atom has to come together,

And that's called a rise,

And eventually would dissipate in there.

But that phenomenon is true for a particular class of existence that we call particle,

Whereas the wave is something that won't do that.

It's something that will not,

That's the difference.

Now,

When you say wave,

Well,

Obviously we talk about electromagnetic propagation.

That's what it means.

And now a question that will come,

Says,

Well,

That's not true,

Because if the electromagnetic star,

As I move away from the star,

Will only start to fade.

And the answer to that is it doesn't fade.

It fade in intensity because the total surface area have heat,

But in terms of the amount of energy.

Now,

The reason that Einstein was interested in this is that he actually started out with a very different purpose.

He was trying to argue that there was no such.

Now,

Back in the days,

When we talk about propagation,

Every propagation,

Every energy,

Any sound wave and whatever,

It needs a medium,

Right?

So sound has to travel in air,

Has to travel through railroad rail,

But if you have vacuum,

Then sound won't propagate.

So this kind of energy requires a medium.

And Einstein basically says,

Well,

It's different for electromagnetic waves.

And so this idea that our planets,

Between the planets,

There are these medium called ether.

He says,

No,

That couldn't be the case.

So he actually started off by proving that there cannot be any ether.

And if there's no ether,

If there's no propagation media,

The speed of light would have to be constant.

And it's because the speed of light is constant,

Then that is the characteristic of wave and everything that would be particle.

That's how his logic works.

Now,

What's interesting about that is that you can't have everything in the universe being constant.

So if you make the assumption,

And this assumption could very well be wrong.

This is the thing about science is that everything that we ever assume is wrong.

It's just right at the time,

Right?

That's why when Galileo came along,

Newton has to correct him.

And when Einstein came along,

Then he has to correct Newton.

And when Stephen Hawking's coming,

He has to correct Einstein.

That's progress.

So don't assume that physics is something that is true.

And for every,

It's an assumption.

I actually call it a superstition.

It's something that you believe in because you couldn't believe in it.

But the point is that the end result of all that is that time cannot be.

In other words,

The time where Josh is sitting and the time that I'm sitting might actually be the same clock,

May actually be the same,

But there's no reason for that.

There's no reason,

There's no law,

Governing law that says that time has to be absolute in all corners of universe.

And that is the conclusion that Einstein comes to,

That I think is rather what it is.

So if time is not absolute,

Then every corner of the universe can have different.

And one of the argument that Einstein made is that,

Well,

He says that makes absolute sense because if you are with a beautiful girl,

Then your time must be different than if you were sitting on a hot cinder.

I'll come to that.

But if I were to look at the universe in terms of what's called a time dilation,

Relativity of time,

Then I can classify in terms of regions where time gradually comes to zero,

To stand still.

And that actually is what's called black hole.

And so the black hole has what is called the singularity,

Where time comes to a standstill and material no longer exists.

There's no possibility that there's only wave.

And then there's another region called the event horizons,

Where you're getting close into the black hole.

And now the time,

And so it turns out that the Buddhists have been doing that for ages.

And the Buddhists have,

You were gonna say Josh?

I should have given you a sense of comedy.

It's okay.

I might as well jump in now.

Yeah,

Please.

I should do that.

Every time it's too slow.

It's okay.

We're feeling it out.

Yeah,

That's the thing though.

Because sometimes we'll get into a transition where it messes up the transition too.

So we'll figure it out.

So the double slit experiment,

A few things,

The double slit experiment,

About that,

Right?

Where the,

You probably know more how to explain it than me about the particle going to a wave and wave to a particle depending on the observer effect.

And I thought,

Well,

That's interesting to maybe factor in here.

And like you're saying,

Yes,

These are all theories.

It's the theory of relativity,

Right?

It can't really be mathematically proven or maybe I don't,

This is way beyond my pay grade.

And also I've mentioned this question before too.

And I was looking at Quora,

This site on the internet that answers questions and whatnot.

And there is a post on it,

But I can't really pretend to understand a lot of it.

But what is the speed of time?

So if we have,

Does time have a speed too?

And I think the reason why that might be relevant is because yeah,

If somebody's traveling faster than another person,

Well then that affects different times too,

Right?

The classic thing,

If you're traveling so fast,

You can cover all this ground and come back.

Well,

It's like only a small amount of time passed for the person going really fast,

But the person that wasn't going as fast,

Then they might've aged a long time.

We hear this theory too.

Then you get into stuff like sci-fi,

Stuff like the grandfather paradox,

But I don't think that's really relevant here.

So again,

So Denny about the double slit experiment,

And then I don't really know if the speed of time,

If that's even relevant either,

But.

Yeah,

So yeah,

Those are interesting topic to explore.

Let me try to keep it simple by just drawing the parallel between what Einstein's,

Which is that just that time is not necessary.

There's no reason for time to be absolute,

That each corner of the universe can have its own time.

And if you rank the universe in terms of just time,

Then you get to a point where time will come to a standstill and that's the singularity,

The black hole.

And that's the place where it's just pure wave,

Now particle.

And what Josh said is correct in that,

We talk about particle wave duality as well,

That the particle is changeable.

Anyway,

So in the Buddhist teaching,

Actually this didn't come from Buddha.

He didn't invent it.

This is actually the yogic tradition.

This is actually something that Buddha himself had learned as he was a yogi,

That they separate the universe in this way.

And so in this case,

I used Einstein's language and he says that,

Well,

If you're sitting on top of a hot cinder,

Then as far as you're concerned,

Then time,

It's a very,

Very long time.

And then whereas if you go to,

And you actually be with hot girls,

Then time would go very,

Very fast.

And so the idea is that this universe has these extremes,

Has these extremes where time takes a long,

Long time and then it seems like it's very,

Very fast.

And so if we were to put that,

Now,

This is a solar system and obviously we only,

Humans only reside on the third planet,

But in that scale of time,

There is a region called the human realm.

This is where the human,

And then now if I were to take the black hole and it just turned upside down,

Then at the very tip of the singularity where there's no particle whatsoever,

It's just pure energy,

Then that's probably what Buddha would refer to as a liberation enlightenment where you're completely outside of attachment material.

Now,

Somewhere in here,

And again,

I will mention this because it just happens to be a big part of our popular culture.

I talked about this film called the Interstellar,

And that was done by a professor,

The Caltech professor who's in the middle,

Who's one of the three people that received the Nobel Prize about five years ago.

They actually received it for gravitational wave.

And so I suspect after his retirement,

Was waiting,

Professor Thon,

Who was waiting for his Nobel Prize,

You know,

You can't get a Nobel Prize until someone prove your theory.

So he had to be the one that,

He and a group of scientists had to go out there to prove the existence of the gravitational wave.

So he was waiting for the result.

So he got into filmmaking and he made this movie called the Interstellar where part of the story was that the astronaut got stuck at this planet called the planet Miller,

Which is outside,

Even outside of the event horizon of the black hole.

But the storyline was that they were supposed to be there just very quickly and come back,

Just explore to see if one of the,

You know,

If they're having any people there.

And they were supposed to leave and but because of some mechanical accidents,

They were stuck there for three hours.

And so when they returned to the spaceship,

The friend who were the same age as they were when they left had age,

In fact had age 21 years because every hour on planet Miller is equivalent to seven years in an hour.

Now,

If you work out the math,

That that translate to about 150 years.

And so that corresponds to this region.

Any case,

This is just for putting the two things in perspective here.

Now,

Of course,

When we talk about,

When we study this chart in depth,

We separate in three region.

And last time when Josh and I talk about practicing in the desire realm,

That's the lower part.

That's the lower part where human is right below what's called the heavenly realm.

And then above that you have the different realm of called the heaven.

I'm sure it's not the same as the heavens,

The Protestant or the Catholic,

Just the word used differently.

Probably one of the most famous heavenly realm is the one that is right on top.

And this is the story where Buddha had became a waken sitting under the booty tree and his spirit had rise above the human reaching this top realm.

And then he was encountered by Mara,

Who is the guardian for this realm.

His job is to prevent any beings from escaping the desire realm.

Now,

Of course,

Just for completeness,

Below the human,

Then we have the hell,

The hungry ghost,

The animals,

And something.

So this is,

We mentioned this before,

This is what we call the desire realm.

Now,

We talk a lot about genre too,

Right before the show.

Josh and I talk about potentially inviting,

Experimenting genre realm.

And so this is actually,

Above that is when we start to talk about the form realm.

And above that is when we talk about the formless.

And so one of the things I want to do is explain what is form and what is formless,

And is there beyond?

So the idea is that this is actually called the seven level,

The eight levels of samadhi.

So there's the four levels here that coincide with the fourth genre,

And then there's another four levels that go up in the,

Now,

There's another way to look at,

And of course,

When we say samsara,

Samsara is the constant rebirth.

So when you die,

Your energy dissipates,

Becomes the starting point of another entity.

So when we talk about that,

We don't just talk about samsara within the desire realm,

That someone could actually be practicing and elevated himself into the upper realm.

So Josh,

You- Yeah,

It's a few things.

Well,

Denny said we have a guest maybe that's been experimenting with,

And I think maybe that might be confused with,

I might've got,

We might've talked previously either on the show or off show about how I found it was interesting to have people that have actually experienced these realms and visited them in consciousness and explored,

Because I remember,

If I'm remembering right,

Joseph Goldstein,

Which is a pretty popular lay teacher,

His teacher,

Is it Menindurjee?

He said that he would have people that he was training with or practicing with,

He would give them assignments to go into these realms and report back what they've seen.

So that's where I kind of heard of that.

Now,

The potential guests we're talking about maybe having on,

Now,

I don't know if she's done something similar to that,

But I know she's practiced the jhanas under a pretty famous teacher.

So yeah,

So I guess it's just dependent on what Denny and I ask her.

She might've done some experimenting too.

We can find that out.

The other few things I wanted to say was,

You know,

You hear sometimes in,

I guess it's Christian,

The seven heavens.

So I wonder,

And that's another question I talked to Denny about too,

Or asked,

We chatted about is,

I wonder if anybody's ever done a comparative study with cosmologies kind of interlinking them or showing parallels.

I know throughout all kinds of different ancient traditions there are a lot of parallels,

But under different names and whatnot.

So I think it would be fascinating to do a,

Or as close to comprehensive as possible study cross-comparing cosmologies between things.

And then the last thing is,

Isn't it 31 realms?

So these can be subdivided into 30,

Because I know there's different hell realms too in the Buddhist cosmology,

Right?

Okay,

Now one other thing I want to add,

And this is because when we talk to students and teachers and so forth,

People talk a lot about their experience,

That they thought that they experienced something beyond and the question,

You know,

So where was I?

And so I thought this is interesting.

So when we talk about the six senses,

The translations are interesting.

So for example,

The Chinese,

They use duo.

So when they talk about the six senses,

The six senses being the eye,

The nose,

The tongue,

The skin and the mind,

The mind being the thinking,

Because this is all the bother.

Then the Chinese actually duo,

So it's a sense duo.

And with the idea that we're now supposed to be the doorman guarding a sensor.

But if you go back to the original language and you see how the way it was written in Pali,

It's actually set injera,

Injera.

So first of all,

Set is six,

So got that.

Now,

What exactly is injera?

Injera is actually the name of a diva,

The diva king who is in this region,

The Tiva Timesa.

Well,

Now of course,

The known as the Tama Tingse.

Now,

Of course,

Among the Chinese,

That diva king is known by a common,

Just called the Jai Emperor.

The Jai Emperor in the Chinese folklore is someone who always,

All the beings,

The human beings,

The animals,

And perhaps the angels and whatever.

Now,

If you look up the word injera,

Then they basically,

Injera is the name,

Is the Jai Emperor.

And injera means that all of those who are consistent,

All of those who are consistent,

Are the Jai Emperor.

So,

That's why we call it injera,

Meaning that what we call six senses is by design,

Limited to only to what Jai Emperor can see.

So,

There is no possibility of us experiencing anything beyond that using our earthy presence.

So,

Anytime you have anyone who tell you about that as is written in Pali,

It says that you can only go up to this point with your six senses.

Interesting.

And so,

Now,

Go ahead,

Go ahead,

Jeff.

Oh,

And then,

You know,

I think the word,

There's a word too in Pali ayatna,

And you know,

Not only,

And I don't know how that comes in here exactly,

But the injera,

Yeah,

It's like the five faculties,

Right?

That's another term in practice that they use,

Injera in,

And that's for a different time,

But you know,

I just wanted to point out that yes,

There are five senses,

And it's also known as the five doors,

Like Denny said,

Five sense,

Or six sense doors,

I'm sorry.

Some people always,

You know,

Guarding the sense gates,

So sometimes they're known as the sense gates.

Sometimes they're called the sense.

Gate is more accurate,

Yeah,

Gate is more accurate.

Some people,

The six sense spheres,

Some people call them,

And some people call them the six sense bases.

So there's all kinds of different terminology,

And sometimes in certain contexts,

Different words are more helpful than others,

And I think it's interesting to say,

Denny talks about people describing their experiences.

Of course,

We know that what we try to put language to,

And depict in images is not the exact same thing as the actual experience.

We're trying to describe that experience,

Right?

And when you get up to these higher levels.

Let me clarify what I,

Yeah.

Yes.

Let me qualify what I just said.

Well,

Let's do that real quick.

Okay,

Go ahead.

Okay,

Go ahead,

Josh,

Sorry.

One last thing.

When we get into really the ultimate goal here,

There is no way to,

You can't accurately describe it with words,

So a lot of times you get things that just point at it,

Right?

So the finger pointing at the moon,

Because there's no way you can possibly,

Language is totally inadequate,

Images are totally inadequate,

But okay.

Yeah,

So thank you,

Josh.

So the thing that I wanna qualify when I said,

I might have overstated is that I don't mean that you couldn't experience beyond that.

I just meant that you couldn't experience it,

And your brain is part of your body.

Now,

That doesn't mean that you couldn't experience it with your mind,

Your pure mind.

So,

And just so that it's beyond my capability.

Anyway,

So again,

Using the same chart,

And just kind of just compare,

And we're still in the review right now.

Something that we talk about is that when you talk about Taoists,

Because a lot of our practice comes with the Taoists.

And so,

One of the things that I always want people is that until Buddhadharma,

Or Buddhadharma was a yogi who visited about 1500 years ago,

Until he came along,

All the Taoists were alchemy.

And it's only after the Chinese learned meditation,

Buddhadharma,

That they were able to refine the ten,

From what's called external Dhan to the internal,

That it's not something they just swallow,

But it's actually something within them.

This actually is much more consistent with original intent of the Taoist teaching,

Other than the alchemist part.

Because you remember we talked,

We had a talk about the difference between qigong,

Which is a very modern term,

Versus the original term,

Which is called Tao.

So the word Tao in that case is not the same as the Taoist.

It's actually the word for the Taoist,

Interestingly,

It's written in two parts.

One part is the head,

And then the other part is the boat.

And together it represents a path.

So it's someone who's on a boat,

And so that would mean a path,

A waterway.

Whereas the Tao Yan is the same word,

But with another word added to it called inch.

So in that case,

The Tao Yan is the guiding,

It's the guidance.

And then when you go to the Yan,

It's actually the same word for enticing,

For something that if you wanna,

One of the very famous problems that we used,

Where that word came up,

Is that you wanna entice the snake to come from the cave.

And so it's interesting to think about those two words,

To really understand that the original,

Other than the alchemist,

They were really focused on bringing something from within.

It wasn't about,

So when we talk about development of qigong,

It wasn't,

Qigong is not something that is external,

And now you wanna practice and get more of.

It's a complete opposite,

Where it is already in you,

And now we just wanna find a way to guide it and to entice it.

And so to Taoists,

Their practice is about elevating from the human realm.

So it's always about,

This has been the focus,

It's the focus is all the meditation.

So in that case,

You can think of the Taoist practice as a very subset of the yogic practice.

But it's very easy,

Much more accessible,

I mean,

Especially for us when we talk about qi and all that,

It's much more accessible.

And forget for a minute that it's only focused on the desire realm.

Now where's the yogic practice,

Is actually beyond the desire realm,

And is now into what's called the form and formless realm.

And this entire space is called Brahman,

Which is the name of the,

One of the,

One of the,

One of the,

One of the diva king.

And so the word yoga,

Yoga means mind and body to be one,

Right?

Now,

But it's interesting that when you study that,

What they call mind is actually Brahman.

And so a purified mind for them is the mind of a Brahman.

And so they actually believe that the North Indians,

The people who consider themselves the upper caste,

They actually believe that they are descendants of Brahman,

The Brahman,

Brahman king,

Okay?

And then all they're trying to do is return to that.

Yeah,

Go ahead.

And this is why the caste is called the Brahmins,

Right?

Yes,

Yes,

The caste is called the Brahman,

Yes.

But in Buddhism,

There's the Brahma Vihara,

So it's kind of reframed instead of something outside ourselves we're trying to get to,

We have these natural innate qualities that we can radiate,

Right?

Yes,

Yes,

So the Brahma Vihara is the house of the Brahman,

It's the house of the Brahman.

So those are the four corners.

So when you go to some rich people's house back in the old days,

They would have different room where they would meet the guests separately and each one has its own theme.

So if you have a scholar,

They would invite you,

It's like the White House,

Where you have the Lincoln Room and all that.

And so the four rooms,

The four is of the Brahman,

Each one has its own characteristics.

And in the middle of a lot of these houses or with Vedic architecture is the Brahma Stan,

The Brahma Stan,

So it's a thing from the very center that ties the whole room together,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah,

So the- Yeah,

The meeting place of everything.

So when Josh talk about the Brahman Vihara,

That's the compassion,

Loving kind of empathy and equanimity that represents the four corner of the house of Brahman.

Now,

So it's important to keep in mind that the historical Buddha was a yogi and has always been.

And in fact,

In his seven years as a wandering yogi,

He was able to,

We talk about this in the past,

That he was able to find two very good teacher and taught him so that he actually reached the uppermost of the eight levels of Samadhi.

And yet he was not satisfied.

He was not satisfied that even when you read the Aruba realm,

The formless realm,

That you're still not completely liberated.

And so eventually he came up with his teaching,

Which is a Buddhist teaching that allow him to escape not only the desire realm and not only the form realm,

But also the formless realm.

And with that,

He has completely removed it himself from what is Kumsara.

So that's the difference between the Buddhist teaching,

The yogic teaching and the Taoist teaching.

Now,

Of course,

We're sitting way down here and we're looking up.

And so anything I can get my hands on to elevate me,

To get me a better status,

I would do it.

And so that's why you will see that,

Going back to our practice now,

Whether or not we can do this in piecemeal or whether or not we can do that in disjointed manner.

And the answer is yes,

Because we're so far away from,

Like my master would tell me,

It's okay.

You're still very far from the Vana.

So at this moment,

It's okay.

Just do whatever helps you.

Yeah,

And Denny,

You can't buy this at Costco either,

Right?

And you can't buy this at Costco.

You can't get discount on volume,

Okay?

Okay,

So that's why our practice have so many different elements to it,

Because it's a very pragmatic way of elevating ourselves.

So part of it is the Taoist,

The 12 energy lines is very Taoist,

The energy point is Taoist.

But yet we do a little bit of yoga,

A little bit of yoga in the traditionals.

And then ultimately there's a big part of us that are rooted in the Buddhist seat,

Okay?

And you know,

When I came across this saying,

Well,

I think it's a reading in the suttas where somebody asked,

You know,

Like,

Well,

What happens after enlightenment is realized?

Will I exist?

Won't I exist?

Will I both exist and not exist?

Or will I neither exist nor not exist?

And the answer was given was none of that even applies.

None of that applies because.

.

.

It's beyond our comprehension,

You know,

Because some people will get,

You know,

Scared that life will go on forever and ever and ever.

Some people are the opposite,

You know,

The other extreme of annihilation,

Like there'll be nothing.

So those things don't,

We can't really fathom or comprehend because those things don't even apply to the ultimate goal,

Right?

Thank you for that,

Josh,

Because back to my first slide about his idea,

You know,

How he came to this idea of relative.

I said that the starting point is space.

Existence is space.

Existence is separate.

So again,

If there's no separation between Josh and I,

That we are one of the same,

Then there's no existence.

There's no distinction between us,

Right?

So if there's no separation between Josh and I,

And there's no separation between Josh and I and the rest of the universe,

Then we don't exist in that sense.

That's right,

But it's not non-existence either because that doesn't really apply either.

You know,

We can't really fathom anything without space and time.

You know,

Most of us can't.

There's no way to really fathom or comprehend when that's taken out of the equation entirely.

Maybe the next slide would be just a little.

So the question now is what is form,

What is R.

U.

B.

A.

,

Right?

So because the title of the talk is Form and Form.

So R.

U.

B.

A.

,

Like the R.

U.

B.

A.

Realm and the A.

R.

U.

B.

A.

Realm.

So every time you see A is the opposite.

So R.

U.

B.

A.

,

So the definition of R.

U.

B.

A.

Is form,

Is material form.

Now,

I just wanna list some examples of how that word is used.

And this hopefully will come back to Josh's.

So one of the most common way of the usage of the word R.

U.

B.

A.

Is together with the word called Gaia.

And Gaia we know,

Gazia means body.

So when we talk about the four foundations of mindfulness,

The first foundation is the mindfulness of the body.

But actually body is Gaia.

It's not just a body,

But everything is physical body.

So when we use the word,

The phrase R.

U.

B.

A.

Gaia,

It has a very important origin.

And it has to do with Buddha.

And so when Buddha,

So follow up the train of thought here.

So when Buddha became a Wiccan,

He no longer exists.

No longer exists in the sense that,

That he no longer has a boundary to his existence.

That he's one of all together,

Right?

But in order for him to actually give benefits to the being,

He has to attain some kind of form,

Okay?

It's not different from,

Now I'm sure I've stepped on some toes with saying that,

But think about the word incarnate.

Jesus was incarnate.

I mean,

This was in the Bible.

So,

You know,

Jesus was the son of God.

And in order for him to help us,

He has to incarnate into his body.

That's why he had to be a virgin at birth,

Right?

So the idea of the word,

The word R.

U.

B.

A.

Gaia,

Original use is when Buddha had a different body.

What he had was called a Dharma Gaia,

Which is a different kind of existence.

But in order for him to actually show up in a phase,

He would have to incarnate into a physical form.

So the word R.

U.

B.

A.

Gaia is used that way,

Okay?

Now there's another way that R.

U.

B.

A.

Is used,

Which is in one of the five skanders.

And so the word kandra,

Kandra is the same as skander.

Skander is Sanskrit and kandra is Pali.

And so for those who have heard of the five skanders,

Then R.

U.

B.

A.

Represents the first one,

Which is everything.

So for example,

Earlier I talk about,

You know,

How your six senses,

You know,

Is in Pali,

Is called set injura,

And you cannot experience anything beyond the J.

E.

M.

P.

A.

And I'm talking about R.

U.

B.

A.

I'm talking about just the physical form that you cannot experience.

And so beyond the physical form,

Then the rest are the mind form.

The rest are come after the R.

U.

B.

A.

,

After the form you have the sensation.

We talk a little bit about that,

Sensation,

Perception,

Volition,

And then consciousness.

The other four has to do with mind,

Pure mind,

Not thinking mind.

Whereas the first part,

The R.

U.

B.

A.

,

In this case,

Is called Rupagandha or Rupaskandha,

Skandha,

Is the totality of everything that was physical.

So it's not just about our body,

The eye,

The nose,

The mouth,

The ear,

And the skin,

And our thinking brain,

But which is the physiology,

But also the physics,

The sound that comes through the hum,

The ear,

The sight that comes to our eye,

The smell,

The taste,

And all that.

So all of that together is called Rupa.

So in that case,

Form represents everything that is physical.

Now there's another way,

Go ahead,

Josh.

Oh,

Sure.

The one other translation I've heard of Rupa is materiality.

So,

And then nama-rupa,

Which we'll get to,

Mentality,

Materiality,

But we'll get back to that,

Or we'll get to that.

That's very good,

That's very good,

Yeah.

Because it's,

Yeah,

It's a subtle distinction,

But now Denny's just pronunciation here,

That with,

I thought it was interesting,

It sounds more like to me like gaia,

Which some people will actually call the name of the earth,

Which I thought was real interesting.

Now I've heard this pronounced with more with a K,

Kaya,

Like dharma-kaya,

I mean,

It's very similar with the K,

But so,

And then the other one,

Skandha.

Kaya is very correct,

Yeah,

Kaya is very.

It might be,

And then skandha,

And the skandhas,

The kandhas,

So I don't know for sure,

There might be some distinctions,

But just for the audio only people,

The kaya is k-a-y-a,

With the mark above the A,

And then the kandhas,

Or skandhas,

Or it's k-h-a-n-d-h-a,

Denny's got,

And then the thing with nibbana though,

You know,

About taking a human form,

So I guess if I'm getting this right in the Theravada tradition,

There's a nibbana,

But then there's paranibbana,

So when the actual physical form passes away,

Right,

Then it's considered paranibbana,

So I think that's how Theravada deals with it,

And yeah,

And so I guess in the Mahayana,

It's considered a dharma-kaya,

So it's a different type of body,

So I'm not too familiar with the Mahayana way to do it either,

But yeah,

So there's subtle distinctions,

But they're both,

I find them both helpful,

So the more information I have on this,

The better for me,

So.

Yeah,

Yeah,

So another way,

And one last point,

Another way that the word rupa appear is,

As Josh had mentioned already,

That it's in another terminology called nama-rupa,

And in this case,

Some people would just translate the name and form,

Nama is the form,

But actually,

I like Josh bringing up the idea of materiality,

What's the other mentality?

Mm-hmm,

Mentality.

Yeah,

So this is very important,

So this phrase,

Nama-rupa,

Appear in the 12 links of interdependent origination,

Starting with ignorance,

Going to sankhara,

With mental violence,

Going to consciousness,

And then finally to the nama-rupa,

And so actually,

Nama-rupa,

In that case,

Is really the most encompassing term for mind,

With the idea that within mind,

There is the pure mind,

And then there's the thinking mind,

And so if you say,

Well,

Isn't a brain part of a mind?

And my argument to that is yes,

But it's the thinking part of the mind,

It's the materialistic part,

Materiality part of the mind,

Whereas when we talk about the mind as in the remaining of the four skanders,

The perception,

The sensation,

Perception,

Volition,

And consciousness,

That would be the spirituality or what Josh said is the mentality part of the mind,

Okay?

And just a quick point,

This is actually very important that when you try to understand the 12 links of interdependent,

That everything starts with ignorance.

Ignorance is actually a karma,

That's a seed from a karma,

So when someone goes out and murders someone,

Doing mass murder or whatever,

It's not because he started with external factors,

Like I happen to look Chinese and he hated me,

No,

Because the hate comes from within,

That he had karma is full of hate,

And there was a seed,

And the question is,

When does that become real?

Not real as in real imagining,

But where he has become actionable.

But the important thing is that it all starts with the ignorant seed,

And from that,

The next step is called the volition,

Where that seed becomes consciousness,

Becomes something that he wants to exercise.

Now,

Then it goes to the next one,

The next one of the chain,

Which is namarupa.

That's our mind,

That is a mind that it goes from the mentality mind,

And actually realizes itself in the materiality of your brain.

That's when he goes out and he try to locate the people and the gunners,

And so I like the word namarupa,

Because it represents the combination of a mind,

Both the physical mind and the spirituality mind,

Or what Josh calls the materialistic part and spiritual.

Go ahead,

Josh.

Yeah,

This reminded me,

I wanted to say at the beginning,

That the understandings we're talking about here realize that any kind of understanding we think you can get from these talks and whatnot,

That's pretty much kind of a hearsay,

Because what we ultimately want to do,

We want to see and know this for ourselves,

Right?

And this can be what we're doing here,

A great aid,

But just keep that in the back of the mind,

That this is all just things for you to check out for your own experience,

It's not to be believed,

It's to be put in the practice and try it,

And to know and see for yourself.

And then the Buddha,

One of the unique things he has said to offer was the codependent arising,

Or interdependent origination.

There's a few other translations for it as well.

One of the unique things about this is,

Yeah,

What we often think of it starting in ignorance and going in one direction all the time,

Realize that we can wake up on kind of any,

Well,

Not any,

But various parts of the 12 links.

And so when we actually have our experience where we realize that,

Oh,

This link is now in play,

Well then that's kind of our starting point temporarily,

Right,

We use ignorance because that's,

When we teach it or when it's being taught,

That's the best starting point,

But it is a wheel,

Right?

So it's not like a linear thing either,

It just keeps going around and around and around.

And then there's also the opposite of the whole,

What is it,

Maybe Denny can help me out,

I don't even know what it's called,

But the wholesome part,

Like not the cycle,

But no,

I'm blanking on this,

But it's not talked about as much as,

It's kind of more like the liberating wheel instead of like the,

But I don't know,

Maybe I'll make a note to see if I can find what I'm talking about.

Bad,

Bad dimension,

I can't even remember it.

Yeah,

So back to the chart that I showed earlier about the three realms.

So the practice is really about moving desire to formless,

But what's interesting is that Buddha wants to go beyond that.

So the question is that what is he trying to go beyond to?

And so now I'm gonna bring up this other concept called nimitta.

Nimitta,

It's not talked about as much in Western nature as it is,

Chinese culture is all about this word.

And so I just wanna say that rubra is a little bit,

Form is very different,

Nimitta.

And so I see translation of nimitta as a sign.

Let me jump in here real quick,

Denny,

With the pronunciation.

I've heard it pronounced nimitta,

Some people pronounce it nimitta,

So either way,

Just so we know what we're talking about.

So nimitta is translated as sign,

But rather than trying to figure out whether that is the correct translation or not,

Because the word nimitta is most commonly talked about in the diamonds,

In the diamonds.

And now one of the translation for the diamond sutra is that they actually translate that Chinese,

The nimitta into something called notion,

The four notions.

So what does that mean?

So in the diamond sutra,

Then they talk about the notion of self,

The notion of human,

The notion of beings,

And the notion of time,

Time,

Life.

Now,

And the idea is that when do you have the notion of self?

So again,

This is identity,

Or this is distinction,

Or what Josh talked about earlier,

Which is about existence.

So think about this.

So you wake up,

You're lying in bed,

You slept all night,

And you wake up,

What's the first thing?

Did you figure it out if you exist or not?

You figured out where am I?

Where did I sleep?

Sometimes you wake up,

You don't know where you were.

So that is the notion of self.

You're trying to find your own,

Okay?

So that's the notion of self.

Now,

If you were a Buddha waking up,

He probably doesn't even care where he wakes up,

Right?

Now,

The idea of notion of humans is that,

Like Josh and I are both humans,

As opposed to our pets,

Which is not human.

And so the idea that humans belong class to self,

That's a very interesting.

The idea is that besides humans,

There are different beings,

Things that we can embrace,

Like the pets,

The animal we go,

So whatever,

Right?

And then finally,

The idea that there is a limit or unlimited time span for us.

Now,

What's interesting is that they all belong to this idea of time and space.

And so when Buddha talk about being enlightened,

He's really talking about the opposite of nimitta,

Which is called a nimitta,

Or translated as sinus.

Okay,

Now it gets very complicated,

But the point is that when you are finally freeing yourself,

Not only of your desire,

Not only of form,

Not only of your fullness,

Because even then you haven't achieved enlightenment.

You're still stuck in the three realm,

You know,

Forever reaper.

And what Buddha basically says is that in order to,

Once you escape that,

You are beyond space.

You are now at the singularity of the black hole.

That's enlightenment.

Now,

This is important.

I wanna just,

I wanna,

Hang on,

Hang on,

Josh.

I wanna,

The reason I mentioned that is not to cause any more confusion,

But to say that ultimately is a purpose of our spiritual practice.

Sorry,

Josh,

Go ahead,

Please.

No,

Yeah,

It's really important,

And I'm glad you brought this out,

Because I'm not familiar with this.

The context I know nimitta in is the practicing the jhanas.

So it's completely different from,

I'm pretty sure it's spelled the same way.

Maybe I'm mistaking something here,

But there's supposedly- No,

No,

I think you're correct.

I think you're correct.

Yeah.

There are,

It's just,

It's a question of,

You know,

If the question is that are they the same train,

The answer is yeah,

They're the same train,

They just have different stops.

Oh,

That might be it,

Because in jhana practice,

Some people talk about seeing this sign or this light,

And it's supposed to be incorporated into samatha practice when you're doing these jhana practices to go through the jhanas.

But,

You know,

I'm not experienced or qualified enough to talk about this,

Other than to say,

Now,

I know when we,

Some people who practice jhanas and absorption practices and somewhat to practice,

They have a very kind of like,

You know,

There's particularities around nimittas or not nimittas or how to use the nimitta in practice,

How not,

You know,

So there's all these different variations and whatnot.

And,

You know,

A side note here,

I recently found it fascinating,

That's one of the teachers that I know in real life,

She's said she's been working for a while on all these different types of practices to do to get into jhana states and how many different versions there are.

Again,

If I'm remembering that correctly,

Maybe more information to come when that's available to release publicly.

But yeah,

As far as this goes,

Denny,

This is these,

Breaking down these notions,

You know,

Of existence,

It's a very helpful self,

You know,

More specifically into delineating between humans and different types of beings.

And then of course our lifespan,

Because,

You know,

Some of these higher realms,

They said to have so long of lifespans,

Right?

I mean,

Compared to ours,

Yeah.

Oh,

Vice versa,

You know,

Our license is so much longer than,

You know,

Some of the lower species,

You know,

Like.

That's right,

It's relative,

It depends on your perspective and viewpoint or what being you are and what being you're looking at,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Okay,

So now,

You know,

It took an hour to kind of lay down the background and to review.

So now I wanna get into the practice itself.

And the practice starts with understanding of Rupa.

And so,

Remember I talked about the Rupa scandal as something that combines both the physiology,

The physics.

And so the question is,

You know,

How is it related?

And I like this chart,

Hang on a second,

This is a good one,

But.

So let this one,

Sorry,

I did it.

So we talk,

So this is another way to classify the physics,

Classify the external.

So we call this the four elements.

And then there's another way to classify it,

Which is the sight,

The sound,

And its corresponding sense store.

So sight would be the eye,

The sound with the ear and smell and the taste with it.

And the touch of skin is the body.

So this particular way of explaining,

I like a lot.

In front of me,

I'm a monk monk,

It's actually one of my grandmas.

So it basically says that,

What is earth?

Rather than trying to argue,

Oh,

Earth means,

You know,

Dirt.

No,

No,

No,

Earth is something very simple.

Earth is something you can see,

You can smell,

You can taste and you can touch.

If you could do all four,

That's earth element.

Now,

If it's something that you can see,

You can taste,

You can touch,

But you cannot smell,

That is called the water element.

If it's something that you can see and you can touch,

But you cannot smell or taste,

That is called the fire element.

But if it's something that you cannot see,

You cannot smell,

You cannot taste,

But you can touch,

That's called the wind element.

So wind element is not just air flow,

It's actually all your neural sensation.

If you feel pain,

For example,

Then it's a combination of the wind and the earth element.

Now,

The reason I want to do that,

And let me come back to this slide,

This is actually very important.

Over the years that I've been an attendant for,

He has said things,

It's just profound,

And it's something that I would just record and then it just resurfaces,

Keep going appreciation.

The first thing he said,

Which he has only said in English,

And a lot of times he said it in Chinese and he translated it.

So this is something that he said only,

And he says,

There is no mind.

Well,

That's what I used to say,

That there is no gravity.

And Master Ji-Woo gone on,

There's only the effect of,

Because there's only,

In other words,

You're being a being in the desire realm,

You should not think that you can actually experience,

You can only infect,

That's one.

The other one,

He said in English,

And he said that they actually come from the Agama Sutra.

And many times when Master Ji-Woo said that they're coming from the Sutra,

I can never find them.

I can never find them.

I don't know if he heard it directly from Buddha himself,

Maybe,

But I can't find them.

So this is one thing that he said that I can't find.

And he says,

No,

I'm very limited.

So he says,

If I translate it,

And I have never seen this translated in English,

Basically it says that if there is one Dharma,

Did I spell it wrong?

No,

Dharma.

Now,

Notice I used lowercase D as opposed to capital G.

So there's three definitions for Dharma.

One mental activity,

Because when you talk about the eye,

The nose,

The ear,

The tongue,

The skin,

And the mind,

And then the corresponding physics is the sight,

The smell,

The taste,

The sound,

The touch,

And the Dharma.

Okay,

So in that case,

The little A Dharma,

Just means all the stuff that goes on,

All the electricity that goes on into your brain.

There's another definition of a Dharma,

Which is methodology,

Okay?

And then finally,

The most important definition for Dharma with a capital D is the truth of the universe.

So here,

I just want to make sure that,

Because it comes from the Chinese word fa,

Fa.

So I'm going to translate it directly to Dharma.

So basically it says,

If there's one method,

Which can directly allow you to reach nirvana,

It would be the mindfulness of body.

Now,

Of course,

The word for mindfulness of body is gaaya,

Gata,

Satay.

Satay is mindfulness,

Gaaya is the body,

The root for gaaya,

Remember?

So basically what Master says is that if there's one method that would allow you to reach nirvana,

That would be the mindfulness of body.

Now,

Keep in mind that when he used the word nirvana is in the context of the Taravada study,

Which is that when you reach arahantship,

You already escape Samsara,

Then that's the first stage of nirvana,

Something that's charged.

But whereas the Mahayana,

The Chinese monks,

They think that you have the Buddhahood in order to be called nirvana.

Okay,

So there's a little slide there.

Now,

This is a good piece of information here.

The point is that what we're doing is all about the mindfulness of body.

And what I'm about to explain is my understanding of Master's on how we can go from A to Z,

How we could start with breathing exercise and joint exercise and eventually become enlightened.

Okay,

Because here what Master says is that if there's one method that would allow you to go from A to Z all the way to nirvana,

It would be the mindfulness of body,

Right?

So I heard that and I said,

I gotta figure this one out.

So this is actually the pretext for this presentation is I'm trying to report to you that I think I have figured out,

But I'm not 100% sure,

Okay?

So I'll start with this chart now.

Okay,

Go ahead.

Well,

Denny,

I can give you some verification on that too,

By the way.

Go ahead,

Please.

Well,

Real quickly,

What was the first thing for dharma?

I have methodology and reality,

But what was the first interpretation you had of it?

Mental phenomenon.

A phenomenon,

Okay.

Do you wanna back up just one quick?

Yeah.

So yeah,

The thing about there is no mind,

I'll just start at that top.

That's right,

Because how can you actually prove it?

We can't sense it.

Using our other five senses,

There's really no way to sense the mind.

So we can't really prove that a mind really exists,

Right?

Directly with our senses.

So yes,

Well,

We can see the effects of it.

The other thing with dharma,

I think in a different tradition,

It's called,

They usually say,

Well,

There's a dharma that means the teachings of the Buddha.

And then there's the dharma that means reality,

Truth of the way things actually are.

And as far as reaching Nibbana directly,

From what I remember in the suttas,

The Buddha said that the whole universe is within this fathom long body,

And the fathom is of course an ancient,

Or an older unit of measurement,

Right?

And I wanna say I heard somebody say once that,

You know,

That maybe that after the Buddha died,

Somebody asked Ananda who would be our teacher now,

And I thought one person said the interpretation was that,

Well,

Mindfulness of the body will be our teacher now.

But now don't hold me to that.

I don't know if that's 100% correct or not.

It's actually,

Yeah,

That's a very famous saying,

Is that sila is a teacher,

Discipline is a teacher,

And mindfulness is our foundation.

So there was,

Yeah.

So he actually asked,

It was,

Who was his attendant,

What's his name?

Ananda's attendant or the Buddha's attendant?

Ananda,

Ananda.

Ananda,

Yeah,

Yeah.

The story was that when,

As Buddha was dying,

Reaching Navana,

Ultimate but Navana,

Ananda who was his attendant,

It was actually his cousin,

I think.

Yes.

Cousin or nephew,

I forgot.

His cousin.

And he was crying.

Yeah,

He was crying,

He was crying.

So he's 40 years old because he was born on the day when Buddha,

Enlightenment.

And so he's 40 years old and he was crying like baby.

And so one of his elders says,

Why are you crying?

Why don't you make use of time and ask the Buddha some important questions?

So he asked him four questions.

And the first one was that teacher,

When you pass away,

Who is our teacher?

And the answer is that,

Is that discipline,

The precepts,

The sila,

That will be your teacher.

The second question is that when you pass away,

Who is our anchor?

Who is gonna be at the anchor of a pursuit and or the foundation?

And then Buddha says,

Mindful.

And then the other two are not as important.

Very cool.

No,

No,

No.

Then the only other,

Go ahead.

Yeah,

No,

No.

The only other thing I wanted to say was.

The reason,

Let me just say.

Sure.

Because this goes back to what Jesus said and then you can start on your topic.

Okay.

And I want you to finish.

Sorry about that.

Sure,

Okay.

So it's important it's distinguished between Dhamma as in Buddha's teaching versus Sutta,

Which is a record of the Buddha's teaching.

Because Sutta is a documentation,

Okay?

Whereas Dhamma,

You know,

So if you didn't hear it from Buddha himself,

Then you couldn't say for sure that the Sutta is Dhamma.

Okay?

And even if you heard it directly from Buddha himself,

You have to accept that possibility that because you're limited understanding that what you heard is not Dhamma.

But the important thing is that what Buddha said is Dhamma.

Okay?

And it's important to understand that methodology is,

So what Buddha said is Dhamma and the mental phenomena is Dhamma and the truth of the universe is also Dhamma.

And the reason that the three are called Dhamma is because for Buddha is one of the same.

Ah,

Very cool.

I haven't heard it played out like that.

His mental phenomena is the truth.

His truth is what he said.

And what he said is,

You know,

And go on and on and on.

So all three are Dhamma,

Right?

At that point,

They all interweave,

Yes.

So yeah.

Very cool.

Okay,

So continue.

Josh,

You have something else unless you forgot about it now.

No,

I was just gonna get this on to the next slide too.

And what to point out when we do experience,

You know,

The senses,

Obviously there's the sense organ.

So there has to be an organ for us to experience the sense.

Then there has to be an object.

And then there's the consciousness between,

So there's the eye,

The physical eye,

The object that's being looked at,

And then eye consciousness.

So there's those six consciousnesses as we've talked about the other ones.

But now Denny is going to relate them again to the elements,

Which I find fascinating.

And I'm glad this teaching's been shared.

Because in order to understand Master Jiro's teaching,

You must understand the four elements because his mindfulness of the body is all about contemplation.

And it always starts contemplating the four elements,

Okay?

So it's easy to say that the four elements is the earth,

The water,

The wind,

And the fire.

But you must have a definition of what they are.

You can't just say earth means dirt.

That's not gonna work,

Right?

So I like this interpretation,

And I'm gonna stick to it,

Which is that earth is,

Yeah.

Earth is what you can see,

What you can smell,

What you can taste,

And what you can touch.

And wind is what you can touch.

Yeah,

Yeah.

This is like a great verification,

You know?

And I was gonna ask you too,

If you know of any specific four elements practice,

Because I'm working on some,

I've been collecting information for a long time to do a presentation just on the four elements itself.

And the way I've usually heard it taught through Theravada type things is,

They just,

They focus on like for earth element,

It's solid,

Well actually there's various ones for earth,

But it's solidity,

Like the bones.

There's other ones too,

But I'll skip those.

Water is like fluidity,

Cohesiveness.

And fire is just temperature.

And wind is movement.

Now there's people that give slight variations on that,

But that's experienced in the body.

And the same type of element that's within the body is pretty much more or less the same thing as the elements outside the body too.

So there's,

Yeah.

Do you know of any specific four element teachings?

There's so many different interpretations.

There's so many.

There's so many.

Well I mean for practice,

Like a specific practice.

So I usually,

I just say here's my definition.

And I like it,

And so I'll use it.

But if you have a different interpretation,

I'm okay with that too.

But I think one thing worth mentioning is that you don't actually experience,

It's very rare that you would experience one of those by yourself.

It's always a company.

That's the same.

Just keep that in mind.

Yeah,

Keep that in mind.

Now,

Let's go on.

Well hang on just real quick.

The practicing,

I don't know if Denny's ever done specific four element practices,

But that's right.

They can't be held in isolation.

I think some people do,

For practice sake,

Try to break them down individually.

But that's only for an experience,

To try to experience,

But yeah,

They can't really be separated from themselves.

They can't exist in isolation without the others.

Correct.

All right.

Okay,

So now I wanna talk about my understanding of thought and how the foundation are set at it.

And that is start with the four element,

Okay?

With understanding that there's fire,

There's earth,

There's water,

And there's wind.

And then the next thing is to talk about the four posture.

And this is one of the thing that is very unique about Master Jirui's teaching is that we don't just sit.

In fact,

As far as we're concerned,

There's the five postures.

There's also the exercise.

Now of course you can argue that exercise is sort of like standing and walking combined,

Okay?

A little bit of both.

Now I added the word komai-ting.

I never seen that word.

And the reason is that the Chinese phrase for the four postures doesn't get translated.

So there's four,

And then there's sort of the posture,

Maybe the symbolism,

Maybe.

And then there's a word here that never get translated.

There's a word here that never get translated.

And so I just go ahead and translate it as mighty.

And so whatever it is,

It's important to say that it's not just posture.

It's some kind of noble form.

And the reason I believe why we say that is because human is the only species in the animal kingdom is capable of all four.

So that to me says that it would be a shame you don't make use of it,

Okay?

Now what's interesting is that Master's teaching basically associate these four postures with the four elements.

So example,

He says standing is one,

Is the posture that accentuate the fire.

Because fire in this case is say the muscle.

Is that if you stand,

Especially,

So he always talk about you stand like the pine tree.

You know,

The foot firmly on the ground,

Growing roots.

And then the rest of the body has to be flexible.

So you know,

You have to unlock your knee,

Let the muscle take over.

So as a result,

The fire element grows in you.

And then sitting is the solidity part,

Is the earth element where you're supported in the upper body by yourself.

And then the lower body.

So we talk about sitting as in sitting like a bell.

So your waist down is the pedestal for the bell.

Your spine,

Your body is actually like the clapper on the bell that is hanging from the ceiling.

And so the proper way of sitting is where you use essentially no muscle.

You just basically stack,

You know,

Stacking on top of each other using only your structure.

Now the lying down,

And Master talks about that being a water element,

Because there's no form,

There's no shape,

You just lie there.

And you're not supporting with anyone.

But yet,

We say we lie like the bow,

Like bow and arrow.

So a bow looks very static,

But it's full of energy.

And so the idea that just because you're lying down,

Doesn't mean you're dead,

You know,

You're actually full of energy.

It's just that you don't support your body.

And in that case,

The water is like nutrient.

It's like replenishing your body.

And then finally walking.

Now remember we said that wind is something that you can feel,

But you cannot touch.

No,

Something that you can touch,

But you cannot,

You cannot,

You only know the presence,

But you cannot see it,

You cannot smell it,

You cannot taste it.

So wind in this case is much more to do with your nerve,

Your nerve sensing.

And the way Master teach walking is all about the touch,

It's all about the making yourself very sensitive to the bodily contact with your environment.

Now what's interesting is that Master not only associate the posture with the element,

But he also use them interchangeably by explaining how each of the element has both a positive and a negative.

So for example,

He talks about the earth.

Earth is dirt,

It's celerity.

So you use that to build your house,

But you have too much of it,

You would be buried in it.

Now water is what you use to irrigate your dirt.

So you add your vitality to your dirt,

But you could be drowning in it.

Similarly with fire,

You know,

Earth needs warm because nothing else grow unless there's a little bit of warm,

But you could be incinerated with fire.

And similarly with wind,

You know,

Wind adds ventilation to your dirt,

But you could be blown down by the wind.

So the idea then is that you have to understand the interoperability between the posture.

So one thing that Master says is that don't just wake up in the morning and sit,

Right?

This is one thing that he's really against is that you come to the Dharma hall,

You stand,

You stand,

Because you're not even wake up yet.

So you stand and you let the fire element rise you.

And he talks about how,

But when you start to feel sweat,

When you,

Then you sit,

You don't wanna overdo it.

And then he talks about how,

For example,

When you're tired,

When you're tired,

You know,

At night,

And you still wanna meditate,

You know,

When you're tired at night,

You should go to sleep.

But if you still wanna meditate,

Then you lie down and you let your body recover yourself before you sit again.

Sitting is always the central posture.

And you just like,

He talks about these things that have each other.

Similarly,

Walking,

Sometimes,

You know,

You might have too much energy.

You might have too much energy and you get too nervous.

And so walking becomes a very good practice.

So I like the way he makes and match these different postures.

And the idea,

And it's very rare.

I mean,

I've been with him for three years before the pandemic.

It's very rare that he would ask his students to sit more than 20 minutes.

I mean,

He would even go as far as saying that 30 minutes is the limit.

40 minutes,

That's crazy.

An hour,

Two day,

You know,

That is ridiculous.

So two days,

Yes,

But keep changing back and forth because he talks about how if you don't have enough fire,

That means you don't even have circulation in your body and blood flow and all that,

Then the best you can do would be lazy Zen,

You know,

Slipping through the whole thing.

And if you don't have the concentration and your mind is wandering,

Then you have what is called the monkey Zen.

You know,

None of that is good for you,

Right?

You need quality,

Not want.

Now the next line is when he brings the concept of the element into this one thing that he talks about,

Which is that if there is one method that will lead you to nirvana,

It would be the mindfulness of body.

And so let's talk about mindfulness.

So in this case,

There's the four foundations of mindful.

So the word four actually never appear in the sutta,

Okay?

The sutta is satipatanya sutta.

Sati is mindfulness.

And patanya,

And you mentioned in one of the email that sometimes people call foundation,

Sometimes people call something else.

And that's because patanya could be also upatanya.

And it's a slightly different interpretation.

One is the foundation and the other one is more like the attention.

But anyway,

In the sutta,

They never really separate into four as if you have to go from one to two to three to four.

It's more about the four aspects of the mindfulness.

And that's the body,

The feeling,

The mind,

And the dharma.

Now,

This is something that no one talks about like that.

A master will say,

Well,

Let's just think about those four in terms of the four postures.

And so basically,

He basically says that standing is when you can really observe your body.

And sitting down is when you can really observe your feeling or your sensation.

And then lying down is you can't experience anything else,

But the effect of your mind,

Not the mind,

But the effect of the mind.

And finally,

He thought that dharma would have to be something with walking.

And he even has stories about he actually entered Samadhi while walking.

All right,

So now let's move on to the next slide.

And Josh?

Well,

It might be a good time to comment now if you wanna go back to the other slide.

So,

You know,

When I first heard these teachings,

It just made complete sense to me,

Although I'd never heard of them anywhere else,

The four main postures,

The four major postures and how they correlate,

You know,

Fire,

Standing.

It's just like,

Well,

That energy will just flow up.

And I know late at night sometimes if I wait too long to meditate,

Then,

You know,

I will stand up because as far as I know,

Nobody's ever fallen asleep standing up before,

Right?

You can't,

Obviously,

If you wanna continue practice,

Like Denny said,

You lay down and rest first,

But it's almost impossible to fall asleep when you're standing up because of the kind of the fire energy.

And then,

You know,

The sitting,

Obviously.

Only then,

You need your mind,

You need your thinking mind to stand.

The body has to support,

You know,

The body has to adjust.

It's what we call the unstable posture.

That's right.

Because I have actually kind of fell asleep,

But I only tilt just a little bit,

Wake right back up.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

So it's a very good way to actually practice mindfulness because half of it is already done for you.

That's right,

Yes.

And then the sitting,

You know,

You just look like a mountain or a huge stone or something.

Talk about the earth element,

You know,

It's just stable and,

You know,

Sit like the bell.

A bell is really stable when it's sitting down,

Right?

Or the outside of it.

In water,

There's no resistance,

Right?

So water follows the least resistance,

Right?

So you're not fighting,

It's just gonna completely relax and just go wherever,

Whatever you're laying on,

Conform to whatever you're laying on for a while.

And then wind,

You know,

The movement,

Walking,

I mean,

That's so obvious,

Right?

So wind is movement,

Blowing and movement.

And then,

But this is,

When Denny just did this thing with the four right knowings,

That's,

Those are new to me and they make total sense as well.

And I'm glad for that.

Yeah,

Well,

Sometimes master make them up as he goes.

Well,

I mean,

That's then,

Right?

Absolutely.

No,

No,

I mean,

Seriously,

You know,

Like there are two kinds of teachers,

Okay?

There are two kinds of teachers.

I was a professor for nine years.

I can tell you for a fact that when we teach undergraduates,

We teach from the book,

Okay?

And when we teach graduate students,

We teach from experience.

So there are people who teach based on what they read and how they interpret.

And then there are people who teach based on the experience and then they would go and find words and interpret it their own way.

That's right.

I love both modalities,

Yeah.

Oh,

You need both.

A good teacher for me,

Exactly,

Can do both.

What Denny mentioned though,

The four foundations of mindfulness.

Actually,

My original point was just a very minor one for the original topic was that,

You know,

For years it was translated as the four foundations of mindfulness.

I know people in Theravada now are often translating as the four establishments of mindfulness.

Now it's a subtle distinction because it used to be four foundations.

You would get a foundation and then you would use your mindfulness from there.

But now if you frame it,

If it's framed in terms of the establishments of mindfulness,

Well,

Then it's kind of like you're only mindful of just what you're establishing it.

Right?

So there's no,

You know,

That's it.

But I've also heard it as attending.

It's like the four corner versus the four wall.

The four corners is the foundation,

But now you have to build a wall.

And then now,

You know,

Establishment is kind of like that.

How do I know if I'm,

Yeah.

I also like attending too,

The word attending.

So this is how you attend with mindfulness.

So you establish or have this as a foundation,

Then you attend in this way with all these,

With this way that we're talking about.

Then you attend to whatever as well.

Correct,

Correct,

Correct.

Very good.

Okay,

Now I make a joke about how often Master Jiro will say,

You know,

From the sutta,

You know,

This is,

Then I said I can never find it.

You know,

I don't know what he's talking about.

He must have heard it directly from Buddha himself.

But there was one time that he did quote something from the Nirvana sutta.

This is the last document of what Buddha said before he passed into Nirvana.

And again,

I don't have the English translation,

So I have to kind of make it up myself.

And it basically says,

Again,

Using the Dharma,

All methodology.

No,

Actually now,

This time the word Dharma is not methodology.

This time,

Dharma is all phenomena,

Okay?

Specifically,

In this case,

It's all mental phenomena.

In other words,

All of,

Not just the physical phenomenon,

But the mental,

Or maybe it encompasses everything.

All phenomena,

All phenomena.

And basically it says that all phenomenons are impermanent,

Meaning that these phenomenons together when the condition's correct,

And then they will disappear when the condition is correct again,

Right?

Condition has to come together before something happens,

Whether it's,

So it basically says all phenomenons are impermanent,

All phenomenons are phenomenons are rising and fading,

Fading away,

And when the rising and fading ceases,

Then you have reached Nirvana.

So this is actually from,

Well,

Supposedly from Buddha's mouth.

It's a very important part of the Nirvana sutta.

It documents what he said in his final days,

And it's basically that is what Nirvana is.

Nirvana is a sensation of rising and fading.

Now,

Going back to the slide that we had for Einstein,

And if you work your way back,

Okay,

Because it was from space to time,

From time to the rising and fading.

So again,

It means that when time and space,

When the notion of time and space cease to exist,

Then you are in Nirvana,

Okay?

And the way to further explain it is that you have,

When you have time and space,

Then there's rising and fading.

Now,

This is very interesting,

Because now we're gonna go back to Master's teaching once again.

Now- Denny,

I would just weigh in real quick.

Yeah,

There's 32 synonyms for Nibbana,

So I've got a post on my site.

If you're interested on that,

You could maybe check that out.

One of them is,

I think,

Is cessation,

Right?

Or relinquishment,

Right?

And the fourth foundation of mindfulness in Pali is Dhamma's plural.

And like Denny was saying,

Sometimes that's interpreted as phenomenon.

Some,

And some people interpret it as contents of mind.

The technical way is it's a list of other lists,

Though.

There's a list of other lists is another one.

And then,

You know,

Maybe I'll include also in the Pali and Theravada,

The last words of the Buddha.

I think Denny's quote there was really helpful too.

So that's really cool.

I'm not familiar with the Nirvana Sudha.

All right.

Now,

There's a phrase of four verses.

I mean,

There's four verses that are very,

Very popular among the Mahayana yidnas.

I have never seen it in the Theravada.

And it talks about the contemplation of the four foundations,

The body,

The feeling,

The mind,

And the Dhamma,

And what each one of them represents.

And this is very,

Very common.

Everybody says it.

Everybody says it as if they understand it.

What's interesting is that masters said it completely different.

Some of them are the same,

But very different.

And so rather than comparing the more common versions versus mastering version,

Because that will take some time and it's probably not really what we want to do,

I just interpret what he said,

Okay?

Translate what he said.

So basically he says,

This is the beginning,

You know,

As you begin to contemplate your body,

You will realize that the body is not solid or not firm.

As you begin to contemplate your feeling,

You realize that,

Now it's important that we understand in this case is the feeling,

Because in the past,

We talk about sensation and perception.

So this way,

For a while I was gonna use,

Because the Chinese word can mean both.

And so I use the word feeling because that's a literal translation.

But in reality,

It's really more about the combination of sensation and perception.

In other words,

If you are able to sense without assigning a value to what you sense,

This is what we said,

Attention without,

Then there's no suffering,

There's no dukkha,

Okay?

So it's when you feel,

Meaning that you use both your sense store and your brain,

Then you will end up with suffering,

Okay?

This is very important.

This is actually very important,

Because when master,

And I was there,

When master,

I pick up master from the airport,

And we started talking,

And he has this revelation.

And the revelation was that he is not gonna teach beginners anymore,

Okay?

He's gonna let his student teach beginner,

Because he doesn't have enough time,

And he's gonna concentrate on teaching advanced students.

And so from now on,

He's gonna focus on the contemplation of feeling,

And he's gonna teach I-Jing-Jing,

Because I-Jing-Jing is like the five breathing exercise to the contemplation of body.

Whereas,

When you practice the contemplation of body,

You have to practice the breathing exercise.

And when you practice the contemplation of feeling,

You have to practice I-Jing-Jing.

And he said,

He actually said,

Explained it,

And he says,

The reason is that feeling can be pleasant,

Unpleasant,

Or neither pleasant nor pleasant.

Those are the three feelings they have to do with your thinking brain,

And we don't want that.

We want to go beyond that,

And we wanna go to the kind of feeling that is really,

He used the Chinese word that meant relaxed,

But essentially,

No thinking kind of feeling,

Just sensation without perception.

And so he elaborate on that,

But the point is that if you,

If it's,

So in fact,

He explained the word sama,

Which is right,

What makes something right?

What makes mindfulness right?

What makes knowing right?

Right is when you're not hindered by your,

When you're not hindered by your five hindrings,

No thinking,

No attachment,

No aversion.

Okay,

So that's what he said about the foundation of feeling.

Now,

What's interesting is that he changed the mind.

The mind in the traditional way is about no self,

And he changes that.

He says,

When you contemplate your mind,

It's about contemplating the rising and fading.

So his technique is really actually starting with the contemplation of the four elements to the contemplation of the rising and fading.

In fact,

He talks about not participating in your breath.

Let your body breathe and observe your breath as it is just rising and fading.

And so he talks a great deal about it.

Now,

The funny things he talks about is,

He says,

But contemplation of dhamma doesn't make sense.

He says,

I've never been able to contemplate dhamma because dhamma is not standalone.

Contemplate is embedded in the first three.

So that's why we talk about dhamma,

No drama.

Now,

What's interesting,

Go ahead,

Josh.

Oh,

Just a few things.

And that's the feeling thing.

It might,

If I don't know if you can hear this in the background,

My refrigerator is making strange sounds.

So the feeling,

That's right,

Because it's only when we start assigning perceptions to these sensations or the way we're sensing with our sense organs,

Then that's when the possibility of dukkha at least increases,

Right?

So if it's just pure sensing,

Then there's no perceptions,

No labeling of anything.

Then it's just like,

It's yeah.

And then the rising and fading,

We all know that on the night of the Buddha's enlightenment,

Right?

He was set to start reviewing his past lives and then seeing the transmigration of other lives coming and going into other lives.

But then he turned his mind to this rising and fading,

This impermanent nature.

And from what I'm gathering from the Theravada,

That's actually how he started to attain enlightenment is turning his mind to the impermanent nature,

The Anicca thing.

And then the dhammas,

You know,

That it's,

I've tried that too.

There's a whole list,

You know,

There's the four foundations of mindfulness,

Five hindrances,

Five sense bases,

You know,

The six sense bases,

You know,

I won't go through them all here,

The seven factors of enlightenment.

So technically in the sutta,

There's like these five different lists that are technically,

And you know,

To try to contemplate,

Well,

I don't know,

I'll just stop there.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

We talk about that,

The 40 ways of contemplating.

Okay,

Now,

This is very interesting.

I actually,

I remember he talked,

He said that in one of the lecture,

And then right after we got on the plane,

And I made a mistake of actually getting a sign seat next to his,

That's never been pleasant.

And so after that,

After that one experience,

I just,

I escaped to the back of the cabin,

And I stay away from him for as long as I can until we get off the plane again.

So I sat next to him,

And you know,

He is,

You know,

Like when he flies,

You know,

His students would buy him,

Not a first class ticket,

But sometimes a business class,

And sometimes a premier,

You know,

A coach,

And like that.

And so if I follow him,

I would be sitting next to him,

But he completely wastes those things,

Because he doesn't drink,

He doesn't eat meat,

He doesn't even use the leg room,

Because he just meditates,

He puts his legs up and meditates.

So I'm sitting next to him,

And I said,

Master,

You just mentioned these four things.

And then I just,

Like the next few slides is what I said,

I said,

Doesn't that lead to this,

And lead to that,

And lead to that?

And he looks at me,

Turned back,

And went back,

And I set through that whole journey like a fool,

Thinking like,

What did I say?

What did I do,

You know?

What did I do?

I thought I was being so smart.

So like half an hour later,

He turns to me,

And says,

So do I need to add anything more?

He basically said,

Yeah,

What you said is right,

That's exactly what I meant.

Okay,

So what did he say?

What did I say?

So I said,

Here's the three Dharma seals,

Or four Dharma seals,

Or the four marks of existence,

They're very similar.

First of all,

If you want to call this the four Dharma seals,

Then it's impermanence,

Dukkha,

Nirvana,

And non-self.

Okay,

They call it the Dharma seal,

Meaning that if you reach nirvana,

Those are the four things that you would experience.

Those are the Dharma,

Those are the truth of our existence that you would experience.

Now,

It turns out that the four can be reduced into one,

Because dukkha,

Suffering,

And impermanence is one of the same,

Right?

We suffer because we think that something should be impermanent is actually permanent,

Meaning that if we don't like something,

We don't want it to go away,

And if we like something,

We don't want it to waste.

That's a different attachment.

But on the other hand,

If it's impermanent,

It will go away on its own,

And whether it's something you like or you like.

So the three seals,

The three Dharma seals,

Is just that,

It's impermanent,

It's nirvana,

It's non-self.

That's what it says.

Okay,

Now,

What does that mean?

Oh,

Back off.

It means that the way that master teaches the four fangtei,

The body,

Contemplation of the body,

Will allow you to experience and dukkha,

And by the contemplation of the mind,

Experiencing the rising and fading,

Ultimately will lead to nirvana.

And finally,

The idea that when you get to the end,

Dharma is no drama,

That the Dharma is not standing alone,

Then that means that empty.

Now,

What's interesting is that corresponding to the seal is what's called the gate of liberation.

Now,

The gate of liberation is not three consecutive gates,

And the master actually accepts three consecutive gates.

It's actually three gates that you can choose one,

And when you pass the gate,

You liberate it.

You don't need to come back and do it a second time.

That would be crazy,

Okay?

So the three gates that you can choose,

One is called the desirant,

Desirantess,

And it's called the end.

So essentially,

By focusing,

By having everything else culminates into this idea of having your practice,

One,

The contenting rise,

Would open up this thing called sign one that had nowhere,

The notion of space.

That's it.

That's what I asked him if that is true on the plane,

And he ignored me for half an hour.

Before he returns,

He says,

Do I need to add anything any?

Heh heh heh heh heh.

So what did I learn?

What did I learn from all this?

Over the three years and the five,

Six years that I've been practicing,

I think these are the things that I want in what I have,

What I have yet to.

Denny,

Could these,

Is it possible,

Oh,

Sorry.

Before you jump into the slide to comment very briefly on this,

These liberation gates are really profound.

The way I understand them are,

With it,

It's also known as the three characteristics of existence,

Right?

The seals.

That's the flip side of it.

That's right.

They're not exactly the same.

They're not.

That's right.

The seal is when you reach liberation,

The characteristics before you reach liberation.

I see,

Okay.

They're similar,

But not the same.

Gotcha.

Now the death or the desireless gates,

So impermanence,

One of the best ways I've heard of,

Impermanence,

It's kind of inconstancy too.

So no matter how we try to,

We try to arrange external conditions in our lives to get things the way we want,

But we realize that we can't maintain those external conditions the way we want in the long run.

So it's not a success for happiness in the long run.

That's right.

So this is almost like,

Desirousness is almost non-attachment.

That's right.

So what I'm getting at here is when you realize that no matter what we do on the external to try to maintain things to our liking,

Eventually we can't keep that up.

So then when we see that,

There's less and less desire for things.

Oh,

I wanna go do this,

And I have to have things this way.

It's what we call fool's errand.

That's right.

It's what we call fool's errand.

So when we see that there's no way to keep going like that,

Then we just start desiring less and less,

Because what's the point of spending so much time and energy doing all that,

Right?

And then the signless gate,

I'm gonna pass on that too,

Because that's the one that I have,

That word signless,

I don't completely fully understand that,

But the emptiness gate.

It's really bad translation.

Well,

No,

It's awful,

Yeah,

But that's used a lot,

Signless.

That's used a lot.

And then the emptiness is just,

You know,

There is no,

If you look at everything,

Especially since everything's impermanent,

Always changing,

Non-maintainable in the long run,

There's no essence.

So because of that,

You can't boil anything down to its essence.

So everything is basically empty of an essence.

So that's what I always ask.

Well,

What's it empty of?

And that's one of the translations.

So,

All right,

Jenny,

Let's,

Yeah.

Yeah,

If I may,

I know you're running up to your start,

Or maybe even beyond.

So the three,

So think of this this way.

This is how I understand it,

That if you talk about nirvana as just necessary Buddhahood,

But at least,

You know,

Outside of the three realms,

And you have escaped since aura.

So what are the three ways to do that?

The most common way,

One is the Theravada practice,

Where you try to achieve aura hunch,

Okay?

That's crossing the emptiness gate,

Okay?

Now,

I forgot the word,

But you know that there's another way of becoming Buddha.

What is that call when you just like basically observing the 12 links of interdependence,

Understanding the how the nature behave itself?

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I'm not sure,

No.

Well,

You know,

The one where he says that,

That is someone that he doesn't even know the existence of Buddha and Buddha's teaching,

But somehow he figured out on his own,

Oh yeah.

And become enlightened.

Well,

Yeah,

There's,

Well,

The private Buddha's too,

It's not that one though.

Yeah,

That's,

It is that one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They understand,

But they can't teach other people,

Right?

Or that they experience on their own,

Without really relying on the previous people's teaching.

So they just basically observed the nature,

And he's essentially observing the impermanence of nature and become liberated,

Become emancipated.

That's the design escape.

It starts with a P Buddha,

A prop,

I think it means private Buddha,

But I'm not sure.

So that's the design escape.

That person crosses that gate.

Now,

So the question is,

What is a sign escape?

Well,

You know,

A lot of people,

They chant Amita Buddha.

Okay,

So,

But most of the people who chant Amita Buddha don't know what Amita Buddha stands for.

Amita is both Amitabha and Amitayu.

Those are the two,

They actually have two names.

Ah means none,

Zero,

Opposite,

Right?

Amita is basically beyond time.

Amitayu is beyond space.

So the Amita Buddha is actually a select Buddha who's beyond both time and space.

So that is the Amitabha Buddha.

So if you chant Amita Buddha,

And you're successful,

Then you enter the non-sign gate.

Okay?

All right.

I'm gonna have to leave,

And I'm gonna let Denny wrap this up.

I apologize for that,

But it's okay.

Thank you,

Josh.

I'll see you soon.

We'll be in touch soon.

So make sure you watch this,

Because there's more to come.

That's right.

Cool.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Bye now.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right,

So he left me on my own.

Man,

That's dangerous.

So this is the last slides anyway.

So these are the things I have,

And also what I do in practice is that there's no mind.

We just,

All we do in effect of them.

The second one is that the reason why we practice Qi,

And again,

This is unique.

The Qi,

The understanding is unique to the Taoists,

And the Taoists represent thousands of years of Chinese culture,

And when the Taoists really experience Qi,

So that makes the sort of a subset of the yogic practice,

And yoga,

The word yoga,

Yog,

Y-U-J,

Means the union.

It's actually the harness between the oxen.

It's the word for the yoke.

It's the word for the harness before the oxen as they pull the cart so that you synchronize.

So the idea of the word yoga,

Or Y-U-J,

Is that you want to achieve synchronicity,

Or unity between the mind and your body,

And the harness in this case are interpreted.

So we talk about physical body,

The Qi body,

So we practice Qi not only for physical health,

But also as a way of bringing it together,

And then the next thing is that people talk about intelligence as it's saying that we're intelligent about our emotion,

Which obviously is important,

But people often forget the other definite intelligence as an intelligence agent.

You need some way in your practice.

It's not theory.

It's very primary way of your immunostate,

And in mind,

As we develop our breath,

Develop our mindful breath,

And they become very sensitive.

They are like the canary in the cave,

That as soon as your mind will generate or hinder it,

The first thing that your body reacts and your breath will,

So they become the intelligence,

So that's important.

Now,

In the Buddhist teaching,

They talk about the 84,

000 called dhamma,

Can't say it as the gates to dhamma.

So the idea is that Buddha himself,

84,

In possession,

Is in possession of 84,

000,

The knowledge of liberation.

Now,

Why is it 84,

000?

He was a teacher for about 45 years,

Right?

He renunciated with 39,

Took him six years at 19,

And then,

Oh,

I'm sorry,

29,

And took him six years.

So he was at 19,

And then he,

Out of now on,

Was 80.

So he spent 45 years as a teacher,

And so if you take 45 years,

265 days a year,

And multiply that,

And then multiply five,

Which is number of times that,

Because old tradition,

It's not 24 hours and 12,

It's six different time periods within a day,

One of which is sleeping,

And so he was able to,

At best,

Teach five times.

So if you take 45,

365,

And five,

So the fact that he had 84,

000 methods just meant that he had 84 different,

To teach his technique,

Different audience,

And each time,

He tuned the audience.

So all of the 84,

000 rising and fading,

Actually,

Is rising and fading,

Of a body,

Of breath,

And fading.

So of course,

I'm long,

Long away from,

But that's,

In summary,

Meaning Saturday.

Okay,

So with that,

Thanks,

Thanks,

Thanks,

A big thanks to Josh for tolerating me for so long,

And a big thanks for all of you who are watching live and recorded.