Good Evening Everbody. Tonight is the 5th lesson of the meditation class So, we have one month break. I'm sorry! What I want to talk about tonight is meditation technique. People who is concern with meditation always interested in technique. There is a reason for that, because we don't want to waste time. It is important to be clear about technique At the beginning of Platform Sutra, the Six patriach Said tha t is by using your own mind that you can obtain your true self. He said this in the very first paragraph. That is very good news. That means You already have all the equipments. Buddha said that everybody originally has Buddha nature but But they don?t know it. That means they suffer from ignorant, we don't know what we really are. So one of our job of meditation is to find out what we really are. But there are strange twist to it. We already are IT. So, the Sixth patriarch said. There are actually There are actually no different between a Buddha and a regular person. A sage and a regular person. The only difference is that A sage knows what they are and A regular person usually doesn?t, kind of stuck in between.. So the question is how do we wake up from who we really are So everybody here had a dream I read recently that Every time we wake up naturally, anybody who wake up naturally, You waking up from a dream So may be on Saturdays or like tomorrow morning is Sunday. If you do not have to wake up for work, just wake up naturally, perhaps Just before you wake up from ... your dream usually our mind is designed that you can't remember those dreams very well. you forget about it .... and it goes very fast ... ponch. you don't know when you are in your dream. you experience it as real Right! Everybody experiences that I'm not telling you anything new. In fact, even Buddha is not telling anybody anything new. So when you wake up. For just a second, you have this feeling that is real. So may be you are frighten why are you frighten because before you are not experience it as a dream In our everyday's life, we are not experience it as a dream. Even though the Buddha said our life is a dream but we don't experience it as a dream. Now, for sleeping dream, when we wake up we have this idea. Oh! That is a dream So even though your heart is beating very fast Or you think that was such a wonderfull cake I was eating and then I woke up May be you are about to have taste some sweetness. Uh wait. That was a dream Or may be you want to kill somebody .. Pon! and then you wake up Everybody has that kind of wisdom Because you experience directly... Everybody.. Why would you wake up? How do you wake up? You don't know Nobody knows. You just wake up. In English a dream is spontaneous It happens naturally That the way is usual So meditation is kind of like that You have the intention to wake up from the dream and what pushing you to wake up from the dream So, in Buddhism, it is the suffering. So, Buddha is led to seek enlightenment because of human suffering So we also directly experience that Like the .. children.. shooting incident in United State, a kid that ran into others kid and killed 28.. of them in a school. When you hear this news, so inside you have a feeling. so, when we read about suffering in the newspaper .. we see that in friend and family1 we also feel inside us1 that is a bad feeling1 so today I was taking MRT from Bugis 1 then across the street there was this old man that is a little bit crazy1 then inside I have a feeling. Oh, that's too bad. 1 and that feeling of pain is your direct experience of suffering 1 it is not a abstract, philosophical concept.1 if you watch it closely, it happens all the time.1 something happens then you have a bad feeling.1 somebody says something to you, you have a bad feeling.1 you say something to yourself, you have a bad feeling.1 So that's the kind of suffering that Buddha saw, old person, dead person and sick person and inside have a feeling, Oh! that is me. I'm like that.1 so, that is the direct experience of what human's suffering feels like1 it is not a feeling but direct experience.1 I mean, excuse me. I used the wrong word. It has a feeling, it is a direct experience and it is not a abstract view.1 so meditation techniques, just like waking up from a dream, are designed to give you a direct experience.1 so no matter what kind of Buddhism's practice, you may be practising Tibetan Buddhism or Theravada Buddhism or here we are in a zen class.1 no matter what is the technique that is taught, is pointing at the direct experience that you have.1 I practised for a long time as a competitive swimmer.1 If you ever go to a swimming pool and you see people bouncing up and down and jump into water.1 so when you look at them, it is really fun.1 or it is real dangerous. If I do that, that will really impress my friends.1 or if I do that, I probably died.1 and you can talk to other people who are divers.1 all that it is kind of abstract1 but if you go over to the platform, climb the stair and then jump, you get a direct experience. then you know. Oh! that's what is like!1 especially if you could jump backward and do a flip or something like that. It is very interesting, because it is nothing like what we think.1 actually if you screw out, it is not so plesant. But if you do it right then it is very interesting. 1 so diving culture has a ways to teach people how to do complicated stuff, right?1 in United State, we are always amazed by these mainland chinese divers that can do ... all kind of strange things.1 they have ways to traning people so that they can do that.1 they have ways to traning people so that they can do that.1 so we also have techniques to train you1 and strangely these techniques also from China1 So, first thing to understand is that, none of these techniques are secret.1 what I'm going to tell you that anybody can know.1 because it is not about wha the techniques is, which you may think is a secret. but how you use it and what it does. 1 What kind of techniques did the Buddha use?1 as most of you know, he uses a very simple technique, Breath in and Breath out and Pay Attention to That.1 That is pretty simple. 1 Right, nobody has any trouble understanding that. Right? 1 Right? It's not complicated. You all understand what I say.1 but behind this technique, there is some interesting things.1 so, breath in and breath out and pay attention to breath going in and out.1 so the meaning behind this is keeping a JUST NOW Mind.1 so all true techniques that point to you waking up to your original true self are based on keeping a Just Now Mind.1 all these complicated techniques are all based on keeping a Just Now Mind1 So in our school of Zen, we call it Don't Know Mind.1 My teacher Zen Master Seungh Sahn wrote a book called Only Don't Know.1 So the Sixth patriach said that, learning about Buddhism is a waste of time if you don't understand your true self.1 So what that mean is that finding your true self is more important than studying Buddhism.1 In fact in previous week I talk about what more important than understanding Buddhism is attaining Buddhism.2 If you read the Sixth Patriach's Platform Sutra, you will see many times he said2 party dot2 awaiting his cv2 b2 queens that means2 nests2 reading2 boxes2 this is the clintons2 this inconsistency2 machine2 association2 as well2 descends2 soccer has2 univision2 automatic2 these days2 jim disrude2 talked to the jeans2 wimbledons2 tissues with oxygen2 buckingham palace2 generalizes2 everybody here2 you2 witnesses2 and he said2 such2 shouldn't be2 or something2 that she believes that2 anyway3 must uses them3 vs3 inspection3 inspec3 heaps3 himself was3 mason3 t_v_ yukio3 magician3 has fallen3 currently3 specialists3 what was needed3 and resonated3 disney's