The ability to enlarge our knowledge base is essential to our success, in our careers, schooling, and home life. Sophistication, the skillful use of knowledge in a civilized and cultured manner is valued, but innocence, which can be seen as guileless and inexperienced, is not. Much of our self-image is formed by how knowledgeable and sophisticated we are and we can find ourselves competing with others to prove how much information we have obtained. When we know something, we place a fixed objective view onto life and freeze it within our past associations. The problem is that nothing is fixed.

This continuum speaks to the need to belong that is deeply rooted in our social and biological makeup. This need may well be one of the driving forces in our yearning for spiritual completion. Even when we group like-minded people around us, most of us still feel a subtle sense of alienation that we cannot overcome. We seem to be outside observing life rather than embedded within it.

The more defined and clear our individuation, the more isolated we feel. We gain our selfhood from creating physical and psychological boundaries upon our surround. Our self-definition is created by our physical, mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual definitions. Freedom is coming out of these shadowy images created by our imposed boundaries and accepting the clear light of our humanity.

There are three central reasons we get lost in our spiritual journey despite the rigor with which we practice and the sincerity of our purpose. The first is that we do not know the direction the journey takes and we get lost in the sideshows and entertainment of the process. The second is we attempt to move forward using motivations lurking in the shadows of our unconscious. The third reason we easily go astray is because our stated objective and our dharma intention are at cross-purposes.

We often miss how close we are to the sacred. We make it into a journey of distance and time when actually it is an excursion into stillness. We want some proof that all this work has been worthwhile and that proof is in comparison to what we were and what we are becoming. Though this comparison supports our spiritual egoic image, we will not find the sacred in the past or the future, but only within the living present.

A spiritual journey ultimately takes us beyond a self-focused life where “I” predominate, into a life of inclusion where we are not the center of our world. Moving beyond what is best for “me” seems so implausible as to be impossible, but it only seems that way because we do not know what we are or how we are formed.

There is an acceptable tension we each carry and are reluctant to address spiritually. That tension holds our thoughts, attitudes, self-beliefs, and projections together in a systematic self-serving way. It is the collection of aggregates laced together with our narrative that we will protect at all costs, and it is all tied to our current worldview.

We start our spiritual journey wanting to change our lives in meaningful ways, but there is only one way that we know how to do that.

In the Third Foundation of the Satipatthana Sutta the Buddha asks us not to weigh in and attempt to change or alter the mind no matter what its current disposition. “Notice,” the Buddha says, “When the mind is delusional or not, confused or not, etc.” He does not encourage us to change the mind, just to notice how it is regardless of its configuration. What is the Buddha trying to show us in this instruction?

A continuum is a story or narrative about awakening. Myths are spiritual narratives that often can be condensed into a continuum with a beginning and an end and various highs and lows throughout the process. An important point is that though a continuum is depicted as a linear journey it is not a timeline, though from the perspective of the individual it may seem like it is. (These talks are related to the book by Rodney Smith: Awakening: A Paradigm Shift of the Heart.)

If we review where the exploration of Dependent Origination has brought us over the course of this series of talks, we will notice four perceptional shifts that Dependent Origination has encouraged. The first is that through Dependent Origination we perceive there are an infinite number of influences on every event and that existence itself arises from multiple factors, and therefore there is no separate existences. Everything is tied together through the web of relationship. But Dependent Origination moves it even further by its second perceptual shift in which it shows how the web of somethingness was generated by the mind from nothing. Out of nothing, form arises and becomes the world of connected relationships with "me" arising within it. The "how did that happen," is explained by Dependent Origination, as the links build upon themselves to reveal a world of appearances that have no inherent substance. The third perceptual change from Dependent Origination is a variation of the second in which the world arises directly from "my" projections. In essence the world does not have a fundamental existence of its own. It is dependent upon "me" and what I know, for it to be. The fourth shift is the acknowledgment of struggle that is inherent in the arising of form from formlessness. We are birthed from that struggle and ultimately must grow old and die because of it.

Birth and aging inevitably lead to dying and death. The Buddha suggests this pattern can be broken by waking up to the sequencing of Dependent Origination. We cannot prevent the body from dying but we can opt out from the paradigm in which "I" die along with it. When we live encased within the idea of "me," with the "me" as real as the physical form we embody, then as the body ages we will fear our death. Interestingly enough, by eliminating everything that lives within the cycle of birth and death, we find our way out of death. Investigating what remains after death or what cannot be born or age can begin to move us away from dependency on form. We cannot rest our answer on the visible world because all we see will be taken away. If _what_ we see dies, perhaps the invisible _seeing_ itself holds the deathless. What is it that sees out of our eyes? Again, not what we see, but the seeing or awareness itself. Awareness gives us the capacity to see, but awareness cannot be seen. Though awareness cannot be seen, it can be intimated through a felt-sense of the body.

As we move from birth to aging, the sense-of-self is dragged along in time, and we begin to notice the effects of memory and accumulated experiences on consciousness. Aging can create a burdened and heavy toll, but when used correctly this maturation process can culminate in wisdom and help us understand Dependent Origination. Maturation brings perspective and when coupled with dharma practice, it reveals the limitations and struggles inherent in our desires and aversions and begins to free us from many of our youthful oppressive states of mind. It can also slowly season our intention toward moving into the here and now. But aging can also be a time of great protest and bitterness. Our life did not turn out the way we wanted, and we now see only death in front of us. We must close this bitterness gap quickly, or it will define our later years. If bitterness arises, ask, "In the present what is left unfulfilled? What is left to do? In the present, how has the past betrayed me?" Our bitterness cannot enter the present, because the present sees the past and future as thoughts arising in the present. Here then is the final step of our maturation. Do we want to carry ourselves through time and arrive at our death with all the scar tissue time gives us, or do we want to enter the timeless present and leave ourselves behind?

Becoming, the previous link in Dependent Origination, is not continuous; it moves from birth to birth to birth as the necessary conditions come together that foster its arising. It is useful to get a sense of the birthing experience of self and what the conditions are that bring this about. Instead of trying to catch your origin, which is a little like trying to observe the first moment after your mind wanders, get a sense of how you inflate, relative to the strength and intensity of the thoughts you have. Notice in times of relative quiet how the egoic sense of you is markedly diminished, and at times of reactivity or heightened enthusiasm, the sense of you is large and noisy. Don't explain this away by saying that "you" became noisy and self-righteous because you care about the issue. Take the personal out of the observation and just notice your relative size as a phenomenon related to the noise of your thoughts and emotions. As this increases, so does that; as this diminishes, so does that. Now contemplate this question: how does the noise of your inflation move in accordance with desire and clinging?

Let us explore the link of becoming a little more. We and the world arise together through the link of becoming. The feeling tone provides the inception point, the tear in the fabric of the formless, through which we and the world of form emerges. We come out naming and forming, with body and senses fully functioning, and a consciousness filled with content and states of mind - all thoroughly convincing "us" that we are someone interacting with "something." This manifestation needs to maintain momentum or it would be only a momentary fluctuation of personhood. Thought provides that continuity allowing ignorance to misperceive the sense-of-self as continuous. Thought establishes time and time and memory build a past and future whereby the sense-of-self can substantiate its existence. Thoroughly exploring thought allows a natural quieting that begins to disassemble the mental construction of "I."

With the link of Becoming the sense-of-self is now fully alive within the dynamics of the mind. It does not exist outside of the mind as it likes to believe but as a working confluent whole with the other links of Dependent Origination. The sense-of-self wants to assume the "someone" who is receiving the desired object so it can chase after them, but to do so it has to spin the deception that it is the owner of the mental phenomena. To be perceived as the owner, the sense-of-self fractures the perception into the subject and object: me and my mind, or me and the object I want. Once the deception is complete it must continue to think in terms of past and future to keep the illusion going. If the mind becomes quiet, the past and future ends and the whole of the mind falls into the present where sparation cannot be maintained.

When the energy of self-formation moves through desire to clinging, there is a dramatic change in intensity. The grasping feels like a compelling need of the organism. We may feel that we must have this experience in order for life to be worthwhile, and we are usually willing to do whatever is needed to obtain it. The energy is very tightly bound to the sense of survival. The Buddha grouped the areas of clinging in four broad categories: (1) pleasurable experiences, (2) views and opinions, (3) rites and rituals, and (4) belief in self. When we see the ferocity of our need to procure and defend our right for pleasure, our personal and political opinions, the indoctrinated beliefs in our religious views and practices, and the obstinate way we defend our self-image, we begin to understand the entrenched positions our egoic state stands upon.

We think of desire as a spiritually undesirable state of mind. Because it holds such power over our actions and thoughts, we are reluctant to thoroughly take it on and explore what it is. Desire is not just one simple state of mind. It is the composition of all the links that preceded it in Dependent Origination, the confluence of ignorance, mental formations, consciousness, name and form, six sense base, contact, and feelings. It holds all of that and the idea of "me" as well. As an analogy, think of snow as being the composite of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, etc. Snow seems like something separate and different from the conditions that form it, but it is those conditions. We can enter and examine the energy of desire through any of these composite conditions. Encouraged by our thoughts, desire also has a strong sense of becoming something, something essential to us. But when we look at desire, it is a future thought holding the wish of a different life. Sad, is it not? When properly seen, we can you feel the grief of the unfulfilled desire?

Each feeling tone has a body posture and pose that reveals its occurrence. As pleasant feelings emerge and shape themselves into a psychic force, the body starts literally leaning into the experience with expectations. This can be noticed as a hurried pace, and a forward leaning tilt. Aversion is just the opposite. The avoidance occurs as a kind of backpedaling, a leaning away and tilting back in contraction or a sudden change in direction. Delusion is harder to pin down but is spacey, airy, and glazed over, often only tangentially connected to the earth. Delusion has lost the ground of its experience and because of that is usually more difficult to notice physically. There is of course the vertical stance that is upright and open to whatever comes that the homework is meant to address.

We are now entering the feeding frenzy of Dependent Origination. Once contact is made, the following links condition the manifestation of the sense of someone very quickly. This someone is the one who is perceived as receiving the sense data. How did this someone get there? He or she was not present prior to the contact, now suddenly, like a magician's trick he or she appears. If we slow the process we see a very important link at the heart of this formation, and that is feelings. Feelings are the pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral tastes that the contact conveys. These tastes awaken the conditioned sleeping giant of ourselves, and we come out hungry. As the feeding moves from a taste to wanting more, the volume of our noise increases considerably. The lines of definition are starting to form as the person builds itself upon all the similar tastes stored in memory. I first the person starts out simply hungry (desiring) but within the right conditions that hunger grows in magnitude to become ravishing (grasping).

Think of the senses as six channels that are constantly flooding the brain with raw data while the brain attempts to coordinate this barrage of input into a meaningful presentation of events. The brain selects what data it will focus upon and leaves the rest out. When the particular sense data is allowed to make its way into consciousness, we call that, "contact," which is the sixth link in Dependent Origination. After contact is made various formations of mind encircle the contacted sense impression with perception, recognition, and memory. Now the contact becomes connected to all the other data, and actions are taken in relationship to the definition the contact (now the focus of experience) is given. Is this significant or not, how does this fit within my worldview, and shall I approach or avoid? If there is unconscious contact, we will likely see unconscious action, and if there is conscious contact then the action will not come from the past conditioning of the mind but spontaneously from what is.

One of the questions answered by Dependent Origination is where our information about the world comes from, and what it is based upon. As we have seen, much of what we know is what the past allows us to know. By reflecting on the moment and commenting continually about it, we use past memories as our pathway to move forward. This imagined response (meaning these ideas we hold about reality are not based upon what is true here and now)is being organized by the brain. To show conclusively the difference, the Buddha in his famous Sabba Sutta (SN 35.23), stated that formed reality holds the six senses only: the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect and ideas. "That is all (there is in form)," he said, "there is nothing that can be added or subtracted from this." The Buddha is specifically showing us that all our added responses from the past about the present are actually one of the six senses arising, as all the senses do, in the present moment. This arising of ideas in the present also includes the person who seems to be receiving those very sensations. Not spoken about in this sutta is the unformed, commonly referred to as sati or awareness. Awareness holds a direct wordless knowing, which does notrefer to the mental way we usually know something by giving it a name. There is space between this wordless knowing and the formation of words in the mind. Thoughts from the mind encircle this wordless knowing when, under the veil of ignorance, the two forms of knowing are perceived as one and the same. Ignorance enmeshes form with the formless, confusing the sacred with the mundane. Once this occurs we have only the sense data and our accompanying commentary to give us the information needed to navigate the world, the wordless discernment of awareness is no longer perceived.

Consciousness processes the mental formations by labeling and calling them something. Suddenly from a vague appearance arises the names and forms of life as we know it. Nama Rupa (name and form) arises from the fertile ground of mental formations and consciousness whose empty nature is confused by ignorance. To be called something, content requires information imparted about its nature. For example, we say an object is round, red, smooth, and small. Having recognized those traits through memory, we amass the data and call the object an "apple." The name we give separates it from the rest of the content before us. When we are hungry, "apple" rises to the forefront of all other forms. When we are not, it falls back and is barely noticed. The mental formations that encircle the words determine the object's importance to us. Consciousness is now ready to develop a narrative about the relative relationships between the objects, and where there is a story there will be a storyteller.

The third link in Dependent Origination is Consciousness. Consciousness springs forth from the fertile ground of ignorance and mental formations. We might think of this expression of consciousness as "egoic consciousness," the sense that "I am conscious of..." Different traditions use various definitions for the term, consciousness. In Buddhism there are different consciousnesses for each sense door. To get a sense of what this means, image you are standing on the ocean shore. If you focus exclusively on sight, certain memories and sense impressions will flood your mind, but if you concentrate exclusively on smell, there will be a whole new set of sense impressions and accompanying memories that may be very different from your visual consciousness. So too with each sense door - hearing, tasting, thinking, touching - each evokes a different set of memories and mental formations. The mind collates these separate consciousnesses into a single consciousness with "me" as the central casting figure. When each person speaks of "my consciousness or my mind" they usually mean the summation of all the separate consciousnesses falsely organized (ignorance) as a single conscious entity.

We continue our exploration of the second link of Dependent Origination, Mental Formations. Mental formations consist of everything "formed" by the mind. We can understand why some spiritual traditions call these displays "dreamlike" and "illusory" when they come from nothing and seem to form into something meaningful, but the meaning is an internal response to the image and not intrinsic to the image itself. We can directly observe their transparency, and yet at the same time be fooled by their presentation. In the same way we become mentally enmeshed in the rapid succession of two dimensional celluloid still pictures (called a movie), likewise we translate our mental formations into our life's story. The reality we give life is derived from these mental images. They form us and the world and establish a hunger (called desire) to reconnect with what is true and lasting. At first we attempt to discover this through our worldly pursuits, but we eventually awaken to the fact that what is true and lasting cannot be found within those images. <br />

Sankharas or karmic formations, the second link of causality within Dependent Origination, appear only within the environment of ignorance (first link). In other words, sanskaras form when our back is turned in denial or aversion or when we do not look beyond conventional meaning. Using the analogy of the sky, as clouds form and we are conscious of what is occurring, we do not take the clouds to be anything other than the formation of moisture in air. If there is a lapse of awareness and the cloud shapes itself into a recognizable form, we will no longer just see the cloud as a cloud but could easily lose ourselves in the shape it has now taken. So too, like a Rorschach inkblot test, ignorance or the lack of awareness brings our conditioned mental tendencies forth and configures each moment as a personal representation of our past. We then fall in line and behave as the formation dictates. If it says we are sad, we assume the posture of sadness, never questioning how this filter is coloring our experience. If we infuse enough belief into the formation, assumptions and attitudes create the sense of a personal truth that we then play out in action. The only tool we have to free ourselves from these false assumptions is awareness, and it is all we need to break their hold.

Ignorance, or "ignoring" the facts, begins the conditioned chain of events known as Dependent Origination. Our refusal to acknowledge and look is the essential first cause of the sequencing of conditions that leads to struggle and separation. To reverse this process all we have to do is be amenable to seeing what is in front of our eyes. This, together with our willingness not to turn away from the implications of what we see, are the sole requirements necessary for the interruption of the links of causality. Awareness ends the belief that the world is static and fixed. We usually gloss over the continual unfolding and disarray we call, "our living experience," so we can use ignorance as a life preserver and steady our position by fixing it within the world. How much of this unfixed universe we are willing to see will be determined by our sincerity, but the seeing, and therefore the ending of struggle, is always possible.

As we move through the links of Dependent Origination, one of the key areas for exploration are the linkages of craving, clinging, and becoming. What starts out as a simple feeling of pleasantness suddenly erupts into a needy and tumultuous sense-of-self. Dependent Origination explains the causal factors and conditions that led to full addiction and the reaction that followed. D.O. shows us how we carry over the remembrance of previous encounters that sets us up for our current display. Once the present is colored with the past, we carry the momentum of the past into that current relationship. An object is no longer seen for what it is (always neutral) but for what it has become through memory. We then chase after our memory like a cat would chase his tail, believing that the object is the same as the memory.

Dependent Origination asks us to see the world from a vastly different perspective than our normal understanding. It exerts that fundamentally nothing exists independently, and everything is co-dependent upon everything else. Most of us do not see the world in this configuration. Normally we think of ourselves and all other objects as having separate existences. Let us loosen our grasp on seeing life as separately existing and ease ourselves into the symphony at play. Notice that coincidences and chance occurrences are part of the wonderment of inseparability. Nothing is happening randomly by accident. Although even a philosophical understanding of this eases our individual burden, it is the realization of tis fact that dramatically effects our lives. When we see we are not separate from the world around us, we release the need for a personal and binding narrative, and the formless sacred comes into view.

Dependent Origination is the formative way that self and other arises in the world. When we look deeply at each of these twelve links we only discover emptiness and stillness. The question arises, how have we deceived ourselves to believe we and the world are formed and substantial? The answer the Buddha tells us is because we do not really look at all. We simply assume causes from previous conditions; we let our past decide the present. When we look, we see through this pretense into a world of mystery.

Dependent Origination is the way the Buddha understood the arising of individuated forms in the world. The question D.O. attempts to answer is how the world and the sense-of-self come into existence. That is, what are the causal conditions of separation? Why do we see the world as we see it? The first two talks in this series are overviews of the sequential unfolding of D.O. and the remaining talks examine each of the twelve individual link within this chain. Conditioned causality is the fact that many conditions conspire to allow a single internal or external event to arise. Western thought usually focuses on a single cause, but with increased insight we see that causal factors are limitless. No one person or one event "made us angry," the whole universe was the reason that anger arose.

Insights remain a dormant potential but not a formative actuality until they are put into action. Action validates the insight and establishes our intention to move in line with its truth. Action overcomes doubt and aligns our cognitive system with our spiritual transformation. It is the essential component for moving our spiritual journey forward. Too often our insights get lost within our conditioned habits and are never brought into the light of day, and therefore never fully position our mental and physical systems to the Dharma.

Rodney Smith answers questions from the sangha.

Many of us do not realize the accessibility of the heart. We think it is distant and attainable only through hard work. But it is as close as a pause in our thoughts, a hesitation in our busyness, and is the natural response of awareness to life. Our thoughts cover the heart with a foggy distraction, but when we interrupt the stream of our thinking the heart response with a gentle appreciation for living. In that moment life is acknowledging itself with gratitude. During this season of Thanksgiving, look deeply and silently to call forth this natural appreciation for living.

Fear is the dominating emotion controlling the world of formations and forms the edge between the ideas that hold us together as a formed entity and the ever-present universe of mystery and wonder. Inevitably consciousness will be confronted by the fears it harbors. Fear is fear of something and that something has been conditioned into our minds as a threat. The threat is held within a narrative and the narrative warns us that if we do not contract back on ourselves a tragedy will occur. We take this narrative as a literal truth and find ourselves avoiding the feared event. All of this maneuvering keeps us formed as a person and separated from all internal and external objects that are potential threats. By avoiding the threats we never grow beyond ourselves as a formed entity, and thus we perpetuate fear.

Love throws many of us off a little. Some of us would like our path free oftenderness and caring because love involves a part of us that is not logical orrational. Love puts the world together in a way that can't be calculated orreasoned. The mind wants everything organized and direct, nothing cloudy orconfused, but the spiritual journey is intuitive and not mentally derived. Atsome point we must leave the crisp edges and clear surfaces of the mind and moveinto the wonders and mysteries of the heart, and love is the path that does justthat.

One of the more common emotional responses to practice is that at times we feel like we are failing in meditation. Nothing seems to be going according to the instructions. We try diligently and then hear that striving will not get us anywhere. We want to like ourselves but are full of self-contempt. We would like to wish everyone lovingkindness, but we do not feel that in our hearts. All of this has us feeling like a spiritual failure. One way to sidestep the thought that our practice is not going well is to remember that our practice is about self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is always working. Like a mirror that always reflects what it sees, it may not be showing us what we want to see, but it is always reflecting back what it sees. The practice is to accommodate what we see, no matter what is reflected back. Just let the reflection show us the state of affairs. Now comes the hard part. Do not attempt to change, judge, or get over what we see. If we want to do something, relax with what we see. Let the built up tension be dispelled. If we try to get over a problem before we understand what the nature of the problem is, we will further complicate our struggle. Much of our struggle is arising from the sense of being a personal failure. In a culture built upon evaluations and comparisons, many of us feel like we are defeated before we begin. We lead with self-uncertainty and for a Dharma practitioner that is the worst possible assumption. Awakening needs everything from us, and self-uncertainty holds us back in timidity. We have to address this assumption head on to end its tyrannical rule.

Relax, observe, allow, and respond are the quiet R-O-A-R of the Dharma. These words place us in the proper orientation to life so that life can affect us. Notice this is not passivity, since responding is essential. These words set us up so that we are aligned with our spiritual intentions, each word offering a perspective on the ease and observation needed for our spiritual fulfillment.

We cannot talk about the fundamentals of Dharma without mentioning honesty. All we have to do is meet a truly honest person to know that honesty is infectious. We sense that it must take courage to live with honesty and integrity, but what it really takes is a love of the truth. Honesty in Dharma practice is simply the love of what is true. It is behind all of our inquiry and Dharma investigation. "What is going on here?" is the soul searching question that opens the doors of the heart. We release our deceptions for two reasons: first, it is painful to deceive, and second, we have a profound urge to know the true causes and motivations for our defensiveness. That urge, when properly honed, will be our vehicle for the completion of the spiritual journey.

Surrender is not something we decide to do. It is what is left after we have tried every way to avoid or surmount a problem. Surrendering is releasing your guard and allowing the experience into you without protection or defense, and therefore it is an activity of faith. Mostly we try to adapt our way through a difficulty, changing strategies according to the results, but surrender is not another response to a problem, it's the ending of time, distance, and separation from the problem itself.

Faith means "to place our heart upon." It encompasses trust, clarity, confidence, and devotion and is the opposite of spiritual despair. Faith is not faith in something; it is the willingness to allow something new and unknown to enter our consciousness. Faith is the willingness to explore a new perception of life beyond what we have known life to be and provides no guarantees that the search will lead to a better outcome. Why do we offer ourselves to the unknown without any assurance? Because it becomes intolerable to our hearts to stay where we are.

Wisdom is the integration of truth into your life. It is not theoretical or abstract in any sense, but a steady confidence of knowing what is true. Wisdom comes from seeing an experience in stillness, free from our normal commentary. Our narrative confines us to just what we have known and in the absence of the narrative arises a new perception. This is called wisdom.

Mindfulness is the ability to generate attention toward oneself or an outside object. It is a step toward more conscious living. But mindfulness is coming from our exertion of will; that is, we are making ourselves mindful. When we relax our efforts, mindfulness goes away. As long as we are in control we will continue to believe in the truth of separation and will not see the end of the assumption of self. This is the spiritual fix we are in: either we let go of mindfulness into effortless awareness, or we stay bound to the person who is making herself conscious and thereby limit freedom.

Our culture has made renunciation into an austerity rather than a virtue, a contraction rather than openness. The word has the negative connotation of self-deprivation when it really means releasing ourselves from what binds us. We are usually willing to release any constraints that do not serve our greater intentions. Simplicity is the natural result of renunciation, but simplicity is not an austerity. It is not forced, but rather is the natural clearing away when everything in excess has been eliminated. Ultimately we simply renounce our separation and live life from that view and intention.

Questions and answers about meditation practice.

Wise intention is the energy that moves all spiritual practices forward. We mistakenly think it is our willpower, but it is always and only our intention. There are two expressions of intention: the primary intention associated with the longing to be free and the secondary intention for gain and acquisition. The secondary is formed by the mind from the primary intention, and that is the reason we believe that satisfaction can come through desire. The mind tells us that. For the energy to be reinvested back into the primary we have to prove to ourselves that secondary gains will never be truly fulfilling. That is what is left for many of us to do.

Wise view is fundamental to everything we do in the dharma. Having adirection establishes a context for all dharma activities. Without it weflounder and move in the direction of our conditioning toward pleasureand ease. Simply stated, wise view is the view that our thoughts distortour perceptions away from the inherent interconnection of all things.Working in clear alignment with interconnection allows us the courageand intention to move toward the difficult, toward that which seems toseparate, and confirm the truth of oneness. All dharma activity must bein accordance with that intention, or it will further support theconditioned sense of separation.

Why is generosity a fundamental dharma issue? The dharma opens us beyond our self-limitations, and generosity is the essential direction of that opening. There is a balance between staying within ourselves and our understanding without idealizing the dharma while working with our edges that keep us contained within ourselves. Generosity is the authentic journey out of that container where we realize we were never alone or isolated. Generosity is the manifestation in action of connectedness and is the fundamental conduit of a life lived from the heart.

We usually approach ethical conduct (sila) from either righteousness (morality) or idealism (I must never harm any living thing!) but not often from stability and unification of heart. From the heart we just see what is appropriate to do and do it within the context of connection and nonharm. When we transgress we learn and move on and never expect anything miraculous or perfect in any way. We simply live within the fullness of our humanity, and that is enough.

In the West we have little preparation for dharma practice because our lives have not been tuned to staying within ourselves. We have been taught to look outside for approval and to compare ourselves to others. How can we possibly find ourselves within any comparison? All we will ever find is a sense of lacking. Leaning toward the world does not allow us to find our own stability, and yet we cannot question the sense of self without inward evenness and dependability.

The Buddha once said that his teaching directed us toward three principles: sila (ethical conduct), panna (wisdom), and samadhi (firmness of mind). Samadhi is the fundamental principle of a steady and harmonious mind. During samadhi, consciousness is not wavering with each thought but firm and stationary, allowing attention to be bare and free for observation. There is a component of wisdom within samadhi since the mind is resolute and unperturbed by states of mind, yet there is a difference between samadhi and awareness. Awareness is not a state of mind and samadhi is a conditioned state that changes over time; awareness is more easily acknowledged when the mind is firm and steady.

Any review of the fundamentals must go squarely through bare attention. Bare attention is the essence of our practice, and the single tool that nourishes our wisdom and understanding all along the way. "Baring" our attention is why the practice seems to take so long to mature. We are so used to looking to thought for guidance that we overlay a film of thought on our attention to give a familiar tinge to what we see. Without that film of memory there would be the simple essence of emptiness seeing itself. Many of us feel unprepared for that level of reality so we subtly think about what we see, and our thinking makes this great expanse feel safer and more manageable. Cleaning up our attention becomes our work.

Why did the Buddha say he only taught suffering and the end of suffering? If this is the core of what he taught, how diligently do we practice it? Do our practices attempt to understand the nature of anguish, or do they sidestep that issue and attempt to create anguish-free environments and foster greater dependency on pleasant experiences? Do we see anguish as a fundamental dharmic principle that guides and directs us toward liberation, or do we pull back and adapt a philosophical approach to anguish - "This too shall pass." Suffering provides all that is necessary for a complete understanding of the formation of self, but we must be willing to move toward the difficult for that to be imparted.

In this series we open an exploration of a few fundamental dharma principles. Students will already have some familiarity with many of these topics, and some may seem trivial. But the reality is there is no trivial truth. Any and all truths can only take us as deeply as we allow them to enter. Most of us reach a comfort level with these fundamentals and then build our practice on top of that partial understanding. If our practice is to move forward these principles must be reexamined and thoroughly realized, then the simplest truth can have a profound impact.

In this series we open an exploration of a few fundamental dharma principles. Students will already have some familiarity with many of these topics, and some may seem trivial. But the reality is there is no trivial truth. Any and all truths can only take us as deeply as we allow them to enter. Most of us reach a comfort level with these fundamentals and then build our practice on top of that partial understanding. If our practice is to move forward these principles must be reexamined and thoroughly realized, then the simplest truth can have a profound impact. This first homework is looking at death as an expression of denial - the unwillingness to face facts. Death is an example of the many ways we refuse to face life on its terms, the many ways we turn away and pretend life is other than what it is. But the dharma rests on facing facts without distortion, and unless we renew our commitment and trust to doing just that, our understanding will remain superficial.

Discernment must ultimately understand the nature of self completely. Awareness saw in the Third Foundation how the self was born from a feeling and elaborated on with thought forming the story and image of "I." Even though that process is now understood (wisdom), still, because of its tremendous momentum, there may be a residual belief in the self when it arises. Discernment wears down that residual belief by tracking the sense of self through all its manifestations until there is no longer the belief in self even though there is the occasional arising of self.

Struggling with the hindrances draws us back into form. Each hindrance has to be thoroughly understood so that when it arises we no longer invest reality into its appearance. Discernment is the only tool that can reveal the truth of its emptiness. In seeing the true nature of the hindrance, we see our own and the struggle ends. All other applications of practice reinvest thought into the form and make it more than what it is.

Applying discernment requires an honesty of intent. That honesty is the discernment at work. If you need skillful means to help balance the energy, use it. It can be helpful to back up to the First Foundation and see how the state of mind is affecting the body. Next, move to the Second Foundation and catch the feeling tone and the accompanying story. Moving onto the Third Foundation, settle to see just what this state is in essence. Finally, apply discerning questions that pick apart the solidity and truth of the state of mind such as, "Is there space for this too?" "Where is the "me" in this state?"

What is a skillful or unskillful state of mind? What do those terms mean--skillful for what purpose? Even to know something at this most basic level requires active discernment. The Buddha may have said certain states were skillful or unskillful, but that does nothing for your practice. You have to see its effect on you and know its impact directly.

Questions are the life's blood of the dharma. If we are willing to follow wherever the question takes us, then the question will take us out of our beliefs and opinions into something new and unexplored. Something will end in us and will not arise again in the same way.

The Kalama sutta fits very nicely into the discussion on freeing awareness completely from any inward or outward authority. In the most radical statement possible the Buddha severs all ties from any dependency, essentially saying that freedom is not possible if one leans in any direction whatsoever.

Accessing the Fourth Foundation is as easy as abiding in wonder. A question that is interesting to you but does not immediately resolve itself into an answer holds that wonder. When you hold a question without trying to immediately find the answer, you will feel the pull of form (needing to know the answer) in conflict with the formless (the wonder within the mystery of the question itself).

A quality of awareness is discernment, which can be active or passive. Passive discernment is seeing, "just this" without doing anything about it, while active discernment is uncovering what is hidden and unconscious. It uses an energetic and curious probing to broaden the expanse of awareness and welcome it beyond its egoic boundaries.

The Fourth Foundation of Mindfulness is the ability to discern what limits freedom and to see the value of open awareness when it is not limited. It encourages a complete examination and investigation of mind until there is existence without obstructions.

The personal evolves into the impersonal with time and exposure to awareness. The less "you" do about this process, the quicker it happens on its own. Simply say when a state of mind arises, "Is this about me?" In one way it is, in another way it is not. Be willing to see both tendencies and investigate each.

Arrogance is a remnant from the pain of the self that wants to be seen and heard as special and privileged. It is our spiritual work to watch not only the subtle grasping and aversive formations of self but its gross manifestations like arrogance as well. What is the pain behind this mental display, and what are the assumptions that move arrogance forward?

Boredom tries to convince you that you must wait for life to be interesting enough to live and that now is not worth paying attention to. Boredom has you bypass the present for the excitement of a future possibility. Ask yourself when boredom arises, "When is life better than now?"

Worry attempts to protect us from every contingency. It becomes a pattern and view of life where I am the guardian and protector of my security. Worry is actually a process of self-affirmation because we keep affirming our power over what life brings forth. If I let down my guard, life would be chaotic and out of control, and therefore I need to worry to have everything turn out as I wish. Worry and planning elevates us to the status of a god while we are actually being controlled by fear.

Judgment is seeing the world in quantifiable terms. There a holistic way of seeing that is not partial and comparative but becomes inaccessible when we believe in judgment. Let the presence of judgment remind you that your thinking and emoting is arising from an incomplete perception. Quiet yourself to the inward narrative and allow the whole mind, undivided by judgment, to arise.

While we may have guilt over an incident or a series of mishaps, shame is the accompanying attitude about oneself and can therefore be far more disruptive. Life becomes an uphill battle against our destructive inward narrative. Its variations go from feeling lesser and smaller than to being an obstacle and ultimately better off not existing. Confronting our conclusion around shame is taking on our emotional posture to life itself.

Anger is often unconsciously encouraged because it clears away the doubting mind. "I know why I feel this way, and I am right," says anger. Spiritually we can only approach and understand anger from humility, the opposite direction of righteousness. Anger usually arises as a component of grief where something you cared about was blocked or diverted away from you. If we can see anger as grief, humility is more easily accessed.

The mind finds endless reasons to energetically split itself in two. "Shoulds," denials, rationalizations, resentments, and countless other states are energetic divisions, where the mind is trying to have what it wants while hiding from its assumed reality. Doubt is perhaps the most common expression of this pattern. Doubt reaches for what it wants with half a heart because it fears the repercussions of being a failure.

Fear divides the mind by convincing us that the present is in the crosshairs of an approaching disaster. We therefore need to harness the power of our thinking and take flight physically and mentally away from now. If presence is maintained, fear has no way to access the moment except by projecting into the future.

Aversion and desire work together to entrap the mind within its own projections and divide the whole into parts. The opposite of what I desire is feared and visa versa. Because the mind is a single whole, when we pit what we like against what we do not, repetitive aversive and desiring images noisily dance through the mind in opposition to the contentment of the abiding wholeness.

Desire forms the sense of self by fracturing the mind into what it wants compared to what it has. In moving with what it wants, it has to dismiss or resist reality (what it has) and form its own imaginative response. The sense of self is part of that fantasy buildup and has a central role in keeping it going.

As we study the Third Foundation of the Satipatthana Sutta we ask what is the mind and how does it seem to create a sense of self having the experience of an external world?

Mindfulness of the body gave us stability of focus and mindfulness of feelings gave us the mechanism for how we project ourselves onto the world. Now we are sufficiently prepared to look at the mind itself.

This talk explores how ethical conduct fits into a continuum of practice as we move from the isolated state of projection through the relaxation of sila to the inevitable release of faith.

Equanimity does not empower feelings to drive thoughts. It holds a feeling as a feeling and does not extend the feeling into a narrative on why this feeling is important. It does not add anything to the moment, allowing the moment to bloom on its own.

Feelings move quickly into a narrative that captures our attention and promotes further images, all with their own feelings and further story. The sense of "I" arises, and we are surrounded by feelings and reactions to feelings, giving us a sense of ourselves in time and space. We call this life.

Neutral feelings pervade our life when we try to maintain a high level of intensity for our life's purpose and meaning. Busyness is an indication of this dependency, but as soon as the energy decreases below an established threshold, our mind wonders, and we become dull, listless, and uninterested. Awareness has not waned in the slightest, but we have been conditioned to stop paying attention.

Once a moment is avoided, a world view of division and separation springs forth, accompanied by a compelling narrative that justifies the aversion. Now we are in full armor with the world as our adversary, tying us to a ceaseless argument with it.

Once pleasure becomes a determined pursuit, the world divides itself into a pleasure/pain polarity. We now pursue pleasure, both to sustain a pleasant feeling and to avoid the discontent of pain.<br />

The Second Foundation of Feelings is most easily held within the First Foundation of Body. The body gives clues to the mind's feelings. Postures such as physically leaning toward, away, or wandering in confusion show that the body is moving in alignment to a conditioned reference.

Feelings are the first conditioned reference we offer the moment. Through our feelings we are prepared to turn away, ignore, or grasp the experience at hand. Feelings set up our attitudes, personal story, and character to carry us forward in a predisposed way.

Sincerity is the hallmark of awakening.

The journey from the assurance of a method to the wonder of inquiry is the path from the mind to the heart.

In whatever direction we look, the message we receive is wonder.

Each of us finds a dharma continuum that resonates, but we must beware false nirvanas.

How do the mind and body relate and does this tell us something regarding our identification with the processes involved? How does "mine and yours" become established within this relationship of mind/body?

The spiritual journey can be understood as moving from the constricting and confining environment of noise to the free expanse of stillness.

The Dharma demands a paradigm shift, not a modification of our narrative.

To access the central teaching of the Buddha, all components of the mind, body, and effort must be in alignment.

As we explore the body from this sutta, we realize the inevitability of loss and begin to see death everywhere. Death takes us through various stages of realization, altering our life and changing it forever. We learn to live consciously with all beginnings and endings.

The Buddha seems to be encouraging an exploration of the themes of death and the body in this passage of the Satipatthana Sutta. Though all of us know we are going to die, few of us realize that fact as a living truth. This passage is meant to release us from our denial that fixates on permanency and continuity.

We start with an aversive or attractive response to the body or body part, and quickly an emotional attitude arises that fixates upon the appearance; a story is formed, an opinion is held, and our body is made into something it never was. To love the whole of the body requires an intentional reversal of stepping out of those perceptual fixations and embracing the pleasant and unpleasant components in totality.

Once we have accepted the fact that we cannot control the dharma, our practice opens up to the full catastrophe of living. We open first by backing away from our egoic demands and then by infusing our actions with the wisdom of the body.

Movement integrates our insights into living reality rather than theoretical assumptions. When the insights become part of the living tissue of our body, a natural spontaneity arises.

We continually misrepresent the body by forcing it to be governed, controlled, and defined by the mind. When we set the body free from imposed boundaries we find a natural and intelligent life energy that knows its way.