Well, one thing is quality of consciousness, namely all the different qualities, the sum total of the qualities, OK? So, part of what I'd like to know is if you can see the qualities of your mind. Like, is there pain there? Is there anger? Is there lust? Is there confusion? Is there faith? Is there diligence? Is there honesty? Is there concentration? Is there flexibility? Is there rigidity? Is there hypocrisy? Is there deception? Just check out, is there dullness, is there restlessness, is there worry, is there ill will? What have you got going on? And then, when you get all the ingredients on it, then what's the shape? So, you might say, what's the shape? And then fill in the details of the landscape, or what are the details, and then what kind of landscape does that make? Either way, the shape... is the basis of the karma. Elements, it has various elements, and in relationship they make a shape.

[01:04]

So both the ingredients and the shape, qualities and the shape of a given consciousness. It's there, in a sense, it appears, or it doesn't appear. If anybody has some other kind of a mind, please tell us about it. But most people, most of us, we have a lot in common, and most of us seem to have a lot going on in every moment of experience, mentally, physically, and it has a shape, or not. And the shape is the thinking, is the volition, is the definition of the mental karma at that time. When you initially asked the question, and Biff and you were going back and forth, I was thinking more in terms of how can you report on this, what is for me, and I think for most people, a steady narrative of sometimes coherent, sometimes gibberish stuff that just kind of runs and runs and runs, of mental formations and the emotional formations, or was it what you were just describing as being the shape of the consciousness or the body?

[02:16]

the larger categories of ingredients was to create the honesty, happiness, and so on? I didn't quite understand your question. Could you make it a little shorter? Do you want to try another time to make it a little shorter? Okay. Do you want to now? No? No? When you said no, did you check your state of consciousness before you said it? Several times. What did you see? Did you think no would be wholesome? Initially, I felt kind of squelched. Since I didn't know, I felt like the question wasn't that germane anymore. It wasn't an emotional reaction to it. It wasn't an evaluation. I didn't really want to ask the question again. And you thought, no.

[03:20]

And you said no. And in between when I asked you and when you said no, you checked several times? Yeah. Fast. It was caffeinated tea, I'm just kidding. Ah! Maybe that's the trick, Linnea. Lots of caffeine. This is called introspection, and some scientists would say that introspection can't be scientific because you have to be able to get the thing out where it can be seen and measured. And that's part of this process, we can get out and it can be seen and measured, our body,

[04:31]

and our voice, our body posture and voice can be measured and seen by others, so it can be somewhat objective. But the funny thing about this kind of study is that it's partly subjective, which no one else can see, and yet I still think there's a science there that you can experiment with in the sense of that that kind of stuff precedes this verbal and physical action which can be objectively witnessed. And so I'm asking you if you have a sense now of how to look at the shape of your mind, how to observe your thinking. Sometimes I wonder if there's a danger of my kidney messing up or, you know, like how accurate I am. Don't wonder. Just say yes.

[05:34]

That's a danger of getting yourself. So what do you mean if you wonder if there's a danger? Well, then I feel confused. You feel confused if there's a danger of getting yourself? For instance, a knee-jerk kind of reaction. Okay, you're confused. So what do you do about the confusion? You can express the confusion. That's what you can do. You can talk about it. If you feel confused, you can tell someone else that you're confused. And if you're confused, usually people will not talk you out of it. So sometimes you might be confused. You tell people about it and they say, no, you're not confused. You say, oh, wow. But usually when you tell people you're confused, people will say, oh, you're confused, okay. In other words, that you can verify that you are confused. In other words, you're not confused about your confusion. Okay? So, there you go.

[06:35]

You can be clear about confusion. In other words, you can clearly observe if you're confused and you're right a lot of the times. A lot of the times when people think they're confused, they're right. As I said, very seldom do people tell me they're confused and I feel like, no, you're not. And they tell me about it. Yeah, that is confusion. However, their observation of it is not confusion, and they're being able to tell me about it, quite accurately sometimes, that ability is coming from the clarity of the observation of the confusion. So you can be both clear and confused simultaneously. Now if you're confused and you think it's clarity, then you have confusion on top of confusion. And that often also happens too, that people tell me how clear they are, when actually it's confusion. So they're confused and they think they're clear.

[07:41]

However, if they can get it out, we can discuss this clarity, and sometimes they can say, oh, I'm confused. So some people are confused and think they're clear, so that they're kidding themselves. Other people are confused and think they're confused. They're not kidding themselves. They're right. And in fact, a lot of unwholesome actions are contemplated in a state of confusion. Like, for example, we think, I love this person and I want to be cruel to them. So, I'm going to do this. Or, I love this person and I think it would be good to do this cruel thing to them because I love them. They don't, you know, say, a person might say, well, that's kind of confused, isn't it? The answer is, that's right, that is kind of confused. Think about it some more. I mean, study that thinking some more. Is it really good to do cruel things to people you love? Think about it. Now, if you think it does, you think it has enough confusion, that's clear, that makes sense.

[08:47]

You want to be kind, and so it will cause pain. That makes sense? Okay, so tell somebody about that. And the person will say, no, no, that's quite confused. If you hate someone, then it would make sense to be cruel to them. Those two would go together quite nicely. However, do you hate yourself too? Yes. Well, then that would also go well together. If you hate yourself, then doing cruel things to other people would go with hating yourself. This makes sense. But if we go a little further, do you really want to suffer? And I think if we go further, we find out that the person doesn't want to suffer, actually. They're just, you know, overwhelmed by ill will spreading all over their system, and they forget that actually the ill will comes from self-concern, and comes from wanting to be happy and protect yourself. And you work yourself back to the confusion, and then the person can see, oh, I'm confused. Actually, I do want to be happy, and I don't like pain,

[09:51]

And I do want to be free, and I'm feeling frustrated about that, so I'm angry and I'm lashing out. And yeah, so that anger and lashing out is kind of inconsistent with what I'm really about. Yeah, I see, I'm confused. Okay, and the things I was thinking of doing are based on that confusion. Oh, I see, okay, yeah. Hopefully this all happens in the realm of discussing and meditating rather than acting out. But sometimes it doesn't, of course. So this kind of introspective observation and also observation of how we wind up talking and how we wind up acting, this is This is part of what will make this study of karma grounded in experience.

[10:52]

And this skill is very important so that this isn't just theoretical. . So I noticed that I'm caught in something that you said earlier, and I keep going back to that point and bringing it into the present. And that was the example of the Eddie Murphy movie or whatever. It's like looking at something quickly and then closing your eyes. And a lot comes in. And seeing what you can remember. And seeing what you can remember, yeah. And seeing what you saw. Mm-hmm. And maybe it was something after that that Linnea asked. I thought if you looked at something, if I look at something a little longer than just a flash, then all this other stuff comes in behind it like

[12:00]

how I feel about it the story that I mean there's all in fact it seems like if you look quick and then not look it's almost clearer or maybe the mind keeps going and if you keep pace with it it's clearer and if you slow down then there's like the baggage that comes in and maybe that's the shape what I began to wonder is if that's kind of studying the shape of the mind is watching the baggage that arrives that's the word I'm using now but The stories that... Yeah, so if you have a small sensory, a brief sensory experience, you know, like just a, for example, just a pleasure, just a taste, and then maybe sense there's a pleasurable taste, and it's very brief, and a lot of those experiences there hasn't yet arisen the scenario of action.

[13:07]

So if you're receiving information, at the moment of receiving the information, that reception of information is not karma. If you then receive some more information, that also is not karma. But usually we don't just receive, [...] receive. Usually we receive, receive, and after a little while we say, wait a minute, I'm going to do something here. Sometimes because we've accumulated enough information so that some pattern is appearing and the habit of thinking comes back. Now that habit of thinking might or might not come up for us to see. It might lead to... It might arise without us observing it. But anyway, then a thinking moment can come up. And it's true that the likelihood of thinking increases for every moment that thinking doesn't happen, it's more likely that it will.

[14:10]

Because we don't usually go too long without thinking. We don't spend long stretches without thinking, usually. Unless the sensory experience is extremely intense. Then sometimes we stop thinking for quite a while sometimes. In states of extreme pain, we don't even have time to think what we should do in response. And what can happen sometimes is special cases, special moments of our life, there can be some pain, and just at the moment when we would ordinarily think, geez, this is a big pain, I should do something about it, just at that very moment, just before we have a chance to think, the pain gets turned up. And just then, of course, the more likely now we're going to think of thinking, just at the time we'd like to think, it gets turned up again. And that keeps happening for a while.

[15:12]

For example, perhaps childbirth is like that. A lot of women might ordinarily think during pain time like this, but since the pain is increasing, that pain just overwhelms them and they can't think. It just keeps going up and up. Then after it goes down, you might think, geez, what if this happens again, blah, blah. But anyway, it does sometimes happen that pain gets so intense or pleasure gets so intense that you actually can't The force of your life is such that you can't turn away from the sensation. And you just are there with it. And karma is not an issue for a while. That does sometimes happen. But still, the longer it happens, the more likely it is that karma is going to break back into the scene. Because we're built to not spend too much time without thinking. We are built to not spend too long without thinking.

[16:14]

That has certain adaptive value to us, to interject thinking into this process without waiting too long. Some people, it's like, well, you know, sometimes, especially when the stimulation is fairly neutral, sometimes the thinking can completely take over. For example, like some college professors, they're doing mathematics, And like the sensory input is like practically zilch. I mean, it's like they can hardly remember that they're in the classroom, that their feet are on the ground, or that students are looking at them. Their concentration is totally in the mental realm, and they're just purely thinking, and they're driving their thinking through these abstract realms with very little check on whether there's an earthquake going on or not. And in some of these cases, earthquakes do happen, and these people do not notice them. They're just, the thought, the thinking is totally, the thought karma is so powerful, which can accomplish amazing things.

[17:21]

Like Albert Einstein's, you know, thought experiments. He could just, like, just take off. He would start with some physical sensation and then just take that data and just think it right through with tremendous concentration. totally cut off from further input because the thought process has become so intense. So, anyway, these kinds of patterns can occur. So if you have a short burst of sensation, if it's short, then it's more likely that that could happen without being interfered with by thinking. If it happens another time, And another time, the more likely that, you say, baggage comes in, and then baggage then, as more baggage comes in, then you just get more of a shape, and then thinking becomes more vivid. Then it gets to be a point of a real impulse and so on, so you're not just receiving the data.

[18:24]

But there's another factor, and that is, that a little burst of information gives you a certain amount and you get another burst of information and another burst of information and you get more sensory experience sometimes without the baggage interference. So sometimes you can get a bigger picture with a few more bursts before the baggage comes in. So that some people, for whatever reason, if you give them a little piece of data, they will bring their baggage in really fast And they would understand better if you asked them about it before they had a chance to bring their baggage in. That's your example. Other people can concentrate on sensory events longer, and the longer you give them, the more information they get, and the better the picture they get. Because they somehow, they can concentrate on sensory fields without their baggage coming in. Maybe like painters or musicians. They can stay with it, the sensory thing, longer than most people without the baggage coming in. Other people... without the concentration of the sensory field, if you give them a short thing, they understand better than if you give them a long thing.

[19:31]

So there's different patterns. We can train ourselves in sensory things, in thinking things, and so on. There's all kinds of patterns. The point is, what's going on with you? Which kind of a creature are you today, or in general? Are you someone who can stay with sensory input without bringing thinking in for a long time and get a more and more vivid picture without interfering with your impulses to act? Or are you the type actually that you almost always strongly interject thinking, you know, you pepper your sensory input with lots of thinking? There's different styles, right? And some people just pepper their thinking with sensory input. You know, that's a thinker, right? Some people, they're sensation types, right? I mean, they're mostly sensation, and occasionally they think or feel. Other people are mostly feeling, and occasionally they think. Other people are mostly thinking, and occasionally they feel, and so on.

[20:37]

Different patterns. Which one are you? And how does your karma work in all this? This is to check out, because this thing is what's driving our life. So each of us has to look and check, not has to look, but this is about looking and checking, and that grave's been sitting there a long time. It's been only bothering me that you put it there and just abandoned it. Well, I didn't abandon it. I've been taking care of it. I feel desirous of it. What? I feel desirous of it. You do? Yeah. What kind of desire? Is that a wholesome desire? Yeah. What's awesome about it? I'm hungry. And you think it would be good for your health and promote your Dharma practice? I hope so. The hope is nice. Now that you've hoped, do you think that eating this bread would promote your Dharma practice? Check it out. Yes. Now wash your dumb practice, see if it's promoted.

[21:47]

That's pretty good to me. That's great. Yeah. Great. This is an example of you see what that, you know, wasn't that a nice moment for all of us to eat crepes like that? Now I kind of like that, to eat crepes with that kind of presence, concentration and determination. And also careful consideration of whether eating promotes dharma practice. Problems with that? We have lunch coming up in just a minute. So here you have the opportunity to carefully consider whether every bite you take is for understanding. So when you eat your lunch, check your motivation. See if you can, between each, every bite you take, or every spoon or forkful you take, before you take it, check out your motivation. Is this actually a wholesome thing to do?

[22:48]

What do you think? It's for you to look and see. Is it good to eat without checking that? What do you think? Consider it. Is eating without considering whether the eating is for the welfare of all beings and increases your understanding of what's happening. Is eating that way helpful to all beings or not? What do you think? How do you see it? What's the shape of your mind as you eat? First of all, before you reach, in your mind, what's going on there, check it out. And also check out, if you are able to get from the room to the lunchroom and remember this assignment, How long can you remember it? During the meal. And so, in order to promote this meditation, I wondered how you'd feel about having a silent meal, silent lunch. Does anybody have a problem with that? I'll put it this way.

[23:51]

Those who would like a silent lunch, eat in a small room. How's that? And you can just concentrate on the thinking that you're involved in while you're eating. And see if you can notice. Think, shove. Think, shove. Think, what kind of, is it wholesome thought? Is this gonna be a wholesome intention here? And if so, I would say experiment with if wholesome, act. If wholesome, if wholesome thought, then wholesome arm movement. And biting, is it chewing? intended for welfare, for enlightenment? Is that the kind of thing? Or what? Or have you forgotten about the assignment and just drifting off into whatever? So please, check it out during this lunch meal. See if you can observe the quality of your consciousness while you're eating.

[24:55]

Or while you're actually sitting there Maybe you should not get too much to eat. Maybe you should just have two trips up to the thing, because you might not be able to finish your lunch if you take too much, because you might... I don't know, just think about it. Don't take too much, because you might not be able to finish today. I would offer to eat all the leftovers, but do not get too much. Did someone have their hand raised? I did. Yes. I was remembering when you said that receiving data is non-karmic. And that seemed to explain that there's this phenomenon that happens sometimes after, like a koan class. where I'll leave the class and I'll feel, this is what I'm going to ask about, I'll feel extremely buoyant and light. Like I go up to the hill and I can barely feel the stairs at all.

[25:59]

It's like, like just total lightness. And I kind of wondered about that because it's usually late and it's nine o'clock and I would, sometimes I really drag up those hills, really an effort to get those legs. So, um, if there is this sort of long period or, you know, an hour or so of non-karmic, you know, just receiving non-karmic activity, would, is that phenomena connected? I've often wondered. Is there a buoyant lightness energy of how that manifests? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, maybe so. Maybe if you spend some time where you're really, for whatever reason, very receptive and just receiving, and in some sense there's a break, a little hiatus in karma, then it might be possible that certain activities could occur, like walking, which temporarily don't slip back into the karmic mode.

[27:14]

And it's where the walking happens without you doing it for a little while. And you experience the lightness of a life of action that isn't done by you. It's possible that you got a little break from karma even while you're walking. I think that can happen. And at the end of a class, you know, you don't even have to, except for me maybe, nobody has to decide even to end the class. It just ends. And you don't even decide to leave. You just sort of, you know, the body naturally starts moving with the rest of the herd. And to some extent, you know, for me doing classes and things like this, If I think about, you know, can I teach the class, can I teach the dharma, I somewhat abhor going into the room.

[28:22]

But when I realize that the event just occurs when we all get together, not by me, but we each play our role, then it's quite light and delightful for me. And it's a little... It's an event that occurs, but I'm not responsible for it, and everybody makes it happen, and it's... So it is this thing that happens from this different point of view. So let's say you notice, you know, I notice maybe I'm the kind that has more sensory experiences with an occasion. So is that, are there certain modes, better ways to realize? Let's say your teeth, if you're a particular type.

[29:26]

Well, it's kind of a complicated question, but my first response was that whatever type or whatever kind of inclination you have, it seems like the main thing, the first thing that comes to my mind is to say that the main thing is to observe what your patterns are. That's the first thing that helps to realize emptiness, or, in other words, to realize how dependent color is. The main thing is the meditation of what's happening. whatever your experience pattern is. The next thing is that I would say that part of what happens as you observe is you might notice your pattern is somewhat imbalanced or has a certain tendency. And that tendency might encourage you, you might feel some encouragement to open up other dimensions that you don't usually pay attention to. because you might be limiting yourself by your habits.

[30:35]

And opening up these other dimensions might be part of what would help you understand how things are happening and become free of the pattern. But the main thing, anyways, is the observation of what you're doing or not doing. To observe the karma, to see if you can see karma, Another suggestion or experiment I would suggest to you is that when we sort of end this session, that everybody just sit here for a little while and observe the impulse to leave the room, observe the impulse to leave the room, observe the impulse to leave the room. Just watch that impulse. Again, see what kind of impulse that is. Is it just kind of like social habit that usually when a session ends, I mean, you leave because if you sit there, someone might say to you, what are you doing sitting there?

[31:53]

Are you okay? In this case anyway, I'm asking you not to rush out of the room unless you really want to. But if you do rush out of the room right away to look and see What's that about? Because I'm kind of like saying, can we, at least for this moment, put a moratorium on the normal way of ending a session? The normal way of ending a session is it ends and people leave the room, especially if there's a meal following. That's the usual way. But let's just put a moratorium on the usual way and not worry about the fact that they want us to come and eat eventually. and they don't want us to come in there at 1 o'clock for our meal. Just forget about that for a while, okay? I'll take responsibility for causing trouble. I don't think you'll stay here for too long. Just sit here. Don't worry about it.

[32:54]

You don't have to leave right away. At least, I say, socially speaking, we'll all permit you to stay if you want. Is that right? Everybody okay with somebody staying for a while? No one will tease you if you stay for 10, 15 minutes. What if you leave right away? Yeah. People might tease you if you leave right away. It's a loaded experiment. Let's say it's okay to leave right away. The first person to leave will not be considered the weakest, will not be considered the least concentrated, will not be considered the most impatient or mindless one. Huh? But one of them. But one of them? No, we'll consider none of those. Or you might be considered that, but we'll try not to judge you for being the first one. What? Yes. Yeah. The first one's going to be the real Bodhisattva.

[33:57]

The first one's going to be the real Bodhisattva. So just let yourself stay as long as you want and meditate on the impulse to leave and what that's about. So my main suggestion is please tune in and seek to get a sense of your impulse. And is that karma, and is it something you're doing, and what is the quality of that impulse? And then see if you can stay with the impulse, stay with observing your impulse to see how you get yourself to wherever you're going, to the bathroom, to the dining room, for a walk, wherever you go. See if you can keep in touch with the fact whether you are continually impulsing yourself along, or being driven along by impulses, and what kind of impulses are these, and see if you can carry it through lunch.

[35:06]

And then, if you actually are able to do it in lunch, see if you can carry it through the break after lunch. And then see if you can carry it. See how that impulse gets you into the meditation hall after lunch at 2.30. And then see what happens with these impulses when you sit in meditation at 2.30. Watch the impulses. Watch the thinking. Study it. See if you can stay in touch with it. See how long you go before you lose it. And then if you lose it, see if you can recover it again and meditate on it again and see how long you stay with it before you lose it. So check it out. And if you don't want to do this, this assignment which I'm giving you, if you don't want to do it and you're resisting it, then what is your impulse there? Some of you want to do it and will forget, and some of you don't like the assignment and will resist it. And what's that impulse there?

[36:11]

What's the mental concomitance of resisting this assignment? What's the shape of not wanting to meditate on this or not liking this assignment? What's that? And can you stay with that? And so on. Okay? Any questions about the assignments? Well, I just want to tell you something about myself, if you don't mind. I had the impulse to say what I said before I set the aid. And I thought, when I saw the impulse to speak the words I spoke to you, I thought those were good impulses. And I spoke them. So I'm doing an experiment.

[37:14]

I've been doing this myself while I've been talking to you about doing this assignment. I was happy to see my mind create this thought of this exercise. I thought it would be good for you, so I let it come onto my speech. Now I will be watching to see if it was good for you, if it was helpful. So I'd like feedback from you to help me see whether that was actually a wholesome, beneficial thought, and whether it was good that I spoke. I'm having fun doing this meditation. So in just a couple of minutes, I'm going to adjourn, right? And then the next phase of our study will begin. So far we've been talking about trying to get a feeling for what karma is.

[39:05]

Any more questions about what karma is? You have what? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I think, you know, whether it was an individual or humanity or whatever kind of crap about it.

[40:18]

But now I think that that needs to be invested in ourselves. So is this just an individual chance that we're doing in terms of what we're thinking? Well, it depends on how you understand this teaching of Greenberg, but the usual way it's been understood by most Buddhists in history is that you're confessing karma over eons. And that first of all, you're not confessing other people's karma. And you're not responsible for other people's karma.

[41:22]

Although, of course, you live with other people. And that's part of the context in which calm is arising. You're not, strictly speaking, responsible for what other people do. I have a question. When we talk about the original faith, it was not . It was . I'm hesitating to answer because I feel like It's hard enough for a book to concentrate on life.

[42:32]

on what we're studying right now. If I get into that at this point, it might be too much. Just, you know, for people to comprehend, especially since I think what I would say would be somewhat theoretical, historical, and philosophical, and not everybody could, you know, stay with it. I wouldn't want to talk about it later, but I did want to talk about it. Try not to really look at what karma is, how it arises, what happens with it, that kind of thing. Because I think we've all heard a lot of theories. So far, very few people are actually meditating on karma and how it works, which is really the liberating process. that I'll be able to talk to you about later if you want to.

[43:53]

So the slang, the way karma is used in slang, it actually has an effect on you. You say, he has good karma. That means, you know, He's rich and healthy. Or people like him. So that's not the proper way of using the term in Buddhism to say you've got good karma. Even though some Buddhists and some Zen teachers didn't say so-and-so has good karma. What they mean is you are a manifestation of the results of good karma. So human life is a result of good karma. and being able to hear Dharma is the result of good karma. But it's not good karma itself. It's the fruit of good karma. Being healthy is not karma. Being sick is not karma.

[44:58]

If you see karma as a process, there's no karma. That's the thing about karma, in that people think it's an entity. And that's what makes karma. You see the process, if you see how karma is a process, karma evaporates. I'm not saying karma is an entity, I'm saying that what we mean by karma is an entity. Karma is the act that you think you do, or the act that you are unconsciously involved in and denying you're doing, or whatever. But when you think that you do a good thing, a good action, and you think you do a bad action, When you think somebody else does a great thing or does a bad thing, that way of thinking is not a process of judgment.

[46:04]

It is talking about an entity that does a discrete entity-like act. That's karma. If you see the process there, then you start to see the dependent core rising, then you don't see the person isolated, then you don't see the action belonging to them, karma evaporates you. But we don't usually think that way. We don't usually think that just about sort of somebody got in your car with you. You don't think that sort of somebody's driving the car. You literally think you're driving the car when you think you're driving the car. And you literally feel, you know, Proud of yourself if you drive well, ashamed of yourself if you drive bad, and stuff like that. Or proud of yourself if you drive badly when you think you couldn't drive badly, whatever. That's what calm is about. Calm is a very clunky and deluded, delusion-based story.

[47:12]

So you can say that karma is a process rather than an entity, OK? You can also say you're a process rather than an entity. But if you talk about you being a process rather than an entity, you stop losing the . I'm not clear about, in the handout, under two actions, it says volitional action and action after having been willed. Right. So these are two ways of looking at karma. One way of looking at karma is twofold, mainly. No, that's the other one. And you could have this one. That pile right there is in correspondence. Maybe we should pass this to Charlie. So you can look at karma twofold or threefold.

[48:19]

Looking at karma twofold is that karma is volition. That is definition. And volition is what we're talking about, the landscape, the watershed. You notice I said landscape, but it's not the landscape. It's the watershed aspect of the landscape. It's the watershed of the landscape of a consciousness. That's the volition. And that's karma. That's the karma that's of your mind. Then the other kind of karma is karma after that. There's an original volition, and then another kind of karma is karma which is based on that volition. And that could be more thought, or it could be physical postures, or it could be vocalizations based on that work.

[49:26]

Or the other way to do it would be to say commas threefold, and you just get the thinking, the voice, and the body. The voice and the body are the second category action after having been willed. Is it possible to have intention or realization without believing in itself? Yes. Would that be karma? I don't think you can have karma when you don't When you don't believe in isolated individuals, isolated independent self, I don't think we have karma then. So it would still be a volitional action? Or just be like, you know, if you just took half of an enlightened person's head off and looked inside their consciousness, you might see sort of the shape of their mind.

[50:34]

Like there would be an inclination of the dispositions of the consciousness going somewhere, right? But it doesn't go anywhere. It's just a kind of like shape of the mind. It's a shape of the mind. But such a mind does not apprehend that as a reality. But it's a shape. And that shape can have something to do with what happens in terms of body and speech. But the self is not interjected. Actually, they're not based by this independent self. So then it doesn't become common. It doesn't accumulate habits around that. But still, the mind might still have a shape. What would the shape be? The shape would be what we call, the volition would be what we call, the thinking would be what we call, right thinking, right intention, right volition, which means the shape of the mind, if you look at the shape of such a person's mind, it would look like it was going in a non-cleaning way.

[51:55]

Look at your mind and say, oh, look real non-cleaning here. The tendency of this mind is towards non-cleaning. So if there was a picture in their mind of them going into a store or working in a kitchen or decorating a Christmas tree or meeting an old friend, whatever the picture was in their mind, it would look like a little kind of story about detachment. It would look like loving kindness. It would look like gentleness and non-harm. That's what it would look like. But it wouldn't have this person who's doing it. So it would look like kind of a nice person. It would look like a story of the action of a nice person, except the person wouldn't be there driving it. It would just be, you know, bodies, you know, bodies interacting in a certain way, or minds interacting in a certain way.

[53:07]

It wouldn't be kind. Therefore, these beneficent actions could occur without accumulating bondage. Whereas if a person does these good things, loving-kindness, gentleness, and detachment, does them with the self there, They're wholesome actions, but they're still accumulating karma because they're one more example of something done which is celebrating delusion. Another act, another event celebrating the belief in individual self, which makes that belief a little stronger. And in a way, you know, good karma can strengthen the self habit too. Because actually, in kind of successfully celebrating, saying, see, see, here I'm getting by with being a self. I'm being a nice self, and everybody's letting me be a nice self. Things are going quite well. It's not so bad to have a self and believe in it.

[54:09]

See? The other way, say, well, I'm not getting by very well at having a self, but I'm going to take revenge on all these people who are giving me a hard time for being myself. That's an unskillful way of believing in self and acting out. Ever hear of that one? Those are two ways. They're both, though, reinforcing and making another example of self does, independent self does things. Yes? I have always tended to think of taking responsibility for actions being the basis of some sense of self. Would you say it again, please? Yeah. I'm a little unclear on how to say it. Well, say it the same way. Okay. I've always thought... You know how to do that. You did that once already.

[55:13]

I have always thought of taking responsibility as being related to a self that's taking responsibility for action. So... Yeah, that's right. That's taking responsibility if there is no self. Well, if there's no self, then you wouldn't have to take responsibility in the first place. Well, I guess that's the question. When you're taking responsibility, you take responsibility for what you think you did. And since you think you did it, you think there is a self. If you really... It's not only you think there is a self, but you think there is an existing self. And you do things on that basis. You literally think, one literally thinks, and you might be one of those ones, one literally thinks that one is actually existing as an independent person, and one actually acts like that, under some circumstances, when pushed. Other times you can

[56:14]

Sometimes act as though you didn't think you were a self-independent self. Like sometimes you give your possessions away to people as though you didn't even think they belonged to you. So at that time, you still might think, I gave them away. But you wouldn't necessarily look like you really believed it. But inside, you might feel that way. So in that case, someone said, who's responsible for giving this gift? You say, Taiyo, did you give that gift? You might say, well, yeah. Now, if you didn't believe in itself, you still might say yeah, because you know what they mean. Conventionally speaking, did you give it? Not necessarily, because you might be making up a hypothetical example for the sake of the other people in the class. But you wouldn't feel responsible for things that happened that you didn't think you did.

[57:25]

And when you think somebody else does something, you don't think you did it. Now sometimes, as you know, children sometimes feel responsible when their parents are having problems. You know that one? You've heard that story? They think there's something wrong with them that their parents are getting divorced. But they think that they did something to make their parents get divorced. They don't think they're responsible for what their parents are doing. They think they did something that makes their parents do that. And they don't know what it is exactly. Maybe it's that they want nice to their mother, so now their parents are getting divorced. Or maybe if the mother has another kid, they might think it's because they're not nice kids and their mother doesn't love them. Children think that kind of stuff. I guess sometimes they think that, right? But if you didn't think you were responsible for something, then you wouldn't think you did it. And if you actually understood that all things come together to create events, you wouldn't feel responsible for it.

[58:34]

But you wouldn't be afraid to say, if someone asked you, you know, did you lift that cup up? You might say, well, what do you mean? And it wouldn't be that you're trying to avoid responsibility for lifting the cup up. It would be that you would be actually interested in trying to find out what they're talking about. And you might say, do you mean, did I think in terms of me personally being the causal agent in this event occurring? You could say, actually, I don't see it that way. You might say it. But I'm not going to deny that, you know, the cup and my hand were in contact or something like that. Yes? You know, I'm wondering about any experiment about going to lunch, and finding that one was the appropriate time to go to lunch, when it was the appropriate time to get up.

[59:48]

And also the impulses, various impulses, right? Impulses. There were various impulses. Right. And one thing I saw a lot of, I think, was karmic activity, and seeing it was involved with looking for signs. I was waiting to find the impulse, and I looked out the window, and I saw a person at the bottom of the box, and that sign, maybe someone else was going to lunch out there, and it was a general movement of people, and three adults were going to the dining room, but not seeing real force. You're looking for the sign? Yeah. Yeah, I would think there would be, there would be, look for omens. Talk to some people, they look for omens. as a way to figure out what's appropriate action. Well, when I thought about the bell, the oomph on the bell would be appropriate on the oomph on the cell. But that's not an oomph. That's part of, that's kind of different. I mean, that's different from looking outside and seeing the, because I sort of knew about that.

[60:52]

I mean, that seemed to be part of the schedule. But it didn't work. Because then suddenly it sounded like people, someone was practicing. And I was hearing these roll downs. I got confused. I thought, oh, that's too weak to be the oompa. And then finally I decided that's the oompa. And then I got up, went outside, and then I heard the oompa when I got out there. And it felt very karmic, the whole process. You know, I heard that sound too before the oompa. It was kind of a funny sound. Yeah, it was various kind of phantom sounds occurring. But then when the rumpong went, it was quite clear. The rumpong was a little later than usual, wasn't it? According to the squat. But anyway, you were talking about looking for omens, and...

[61:54]

If I might say, you know, that that's kind of a superstitious approach to karma, is to, you know, be trying to figure out what's, you know, what would be a wholesome act, and look for, look for omens which are going to cue you about what's wholesome. I think, actually, what I suggest is that you look for what you think is wholesome, for what you think is beneficial. Not that that's right, but that you do have a sense of that, and work with your own sense. And that's not superstitious, that's just your sense. It's not right or wrong. But superstition is like looking for some signal which would be right beyond your understanding. That would be the right thing because Jesus told you so, or because of the schedule or something. A Zen monk could make the schedule into a superstitious thing. You could think, oh, if I follow the schedule, that will be good karma, rather than it might be good karma to follow the schedule.

[63:02]

Well, like the schedule's out there, and that's the sign that the omen or the indication of you doing the right thing is when the schedule sounds off. And that's it. It's out there. Rather than, it's probably a healthy thing you do for me to follow the schedule. my actions would be healthy if I just sort of like did that experiment of not spending a lot of time trying to figure out the way around, but just decide to do the schedule thing. This seems fairly wholesome. Slightly different twist. Anyway, work with what you think is right as the experiment because you have a sense of that. And you have a sense of your of how to get along with people and how to get along with yourself, try that one, because you've got that one with you. And you don't have to wait around for omens then, because you have an ongoing sense of what might be wholesome. And you have an ongoing sense of not knowing what is wholesome, too.

[64:09]

You have an ongoing sense of what's unwholesome. I'd want to say one other thing. There's a difference between wholesome karma And obviously, and like right action. OK? Or you might say the Zen action. There's a difference. But now, please go on. I'll talk about that later. Equality. I'm wondering about how karmic action and non-karmic action, how they match, or if the moment is completely karmic or non-karmic, or is there a gray area between karmic and non-karmic, that it can switch?

[65:22]

No, it doesn't fluctuate. I don't think fluctuates that word. I think that if you don't understand karma, and your lack of understanding of karma will block your realization of non-karma. Non-karma is always going on. Non-karma is the actual nature of karma. And the actual nature of karma doesn't start when karma starts and end when karma ends.

[66:26]

Karma and non-karma are simultaneous? Karma and non-karma are always simultaneous. And non-karma, of course, can happen when there's no karma. But when there is karma, non-karma is there. However, if you don't understand karma, you can't understand non-karma. If you don't understand karma and you think of non-karma, you're just imagining non-karma. You don't understand it. You're just thinking, oh, non-karma. That's cool. But if you understand karma, you will actually realize and correctly understand what you mean by non-karma, action beyond karma. So they don't really fluctuate. But if you have karma and you don't understand it, then it will seem like non-karma or non-karmic action is not there.

[67:36]

And if you understood your karma, then non-karma would be real. So in that sense, you might think they're fluctuating. But that fluctuation is not an actual fluctuation. That's due to your understanding. Just like, you know, you look at me, and you look away, and you look back at me, you think I fluctuate. I'm not fluctuating. Your vision of me is going off and on. Just like, yeah, my children think, if I stop thinking of my mother, she'll evaporate. So if she dies, it's my fault. Because I stopped, I stopped concentrating on her, so she disappeared. That's not quite right. I said, when you understand karma, I don't know what I said, but anyway,

[68:45]

Understanding karma is freedom from karma. Freedom from karma could be called non-karma. Understanding thinking is non-thinking. But non-thinking isn't something that needs thinking to happen. Because the nature of non-thinking is the same nature as the nature of non-karma. They're all basically interdependence. It's like when you understand anything, all liberated dharmas are manifest. You said not understanding karma. Pardon? What you said was not understanding karma blocks the understanding of non-karma. Yeah. Not understanding karma blocks the understanding of freedom from karma. So we must understand karma in order to be free of karma.

[69:50]

But freedom of karma doesn't start when we realize it. It's there before and after our realization. It's just waiting for us to come and realize it. Dhamma doesn't die when we don't realize it. Even though it wants us to realize it, it's there all the time. So if we study our delusion, we will understand the workings of delusion. We will understand dhamma. You understand the workings of karma. Karma, in order to be involved in karma, you kind of have to not see the Dharma.

[70:53]

It's pretty hard to actually get involved in karma the way you understand dharma. That's one of the drawbacks of understanding dharma, is you have trouble practicing with your karma anymore. That's kind of the problem that we have with practicing dharma, is we have to give up the world of delusion. It's kind of like this. The belief in self is essential for the workings of karma. In other words, karma is based on that delusion. Well, that's a good question. Someone who heard me say the answer to that question earlier in this workshop or any other time in the history of the universe, please tell Beverly.

[72:26]

Um, if the Patrick Orton kind of was available to stay without Patrick Orton, I can't believe it. So we're going to have to check to see if it's possible to construct it because it's too mighty and I don't think it's a good idea. Did that make sense? Yeah, that makes good sense. I could know it one time. What I'm correcting was the story about the person with the ten thousand fingers. One thousand. One thousand fingers. And, um, We're actually 999 at this point in the story. Well, so you could perhaps agree with that and not let, you know, I mean, being sterile and to not unfold the most of it. And you didn't.

[73:30]

I mean, it was turned around by . Yes. This person, you know, this Aguli Mala. Aguli Mala means, Mala means rosary. Aguli is finger. He had a rosary of fingers, right, around his neck. So this person, Aguli, what do they call it, Aguli Mala, This person had tremendous wholesome karma in his background. He had already done a lot of good karma. Tremendous good. First of all, all humans have good karma in the background, supposedly. Bad karma, too, but a lot of good karma. He had a lot of good karma, but he also ran into some real difficult situations and freaked out.

[74:34]

with the Guli Mala guy. But he had tremendous good karma because he had a mother who asked the Buddha to go protect him. And the Buddha actually gave him personal attention to help him. That's called the result of good karma. So he had a lot of good karma. And the Buddha came and taught him. We all have a lot of good karma. to the human, and we all have enough good karma to have some people that brought us to dharma. Now, even though some of us have quite a bit of not good karma, even so, we're still exposed to dharma. And if we have enough good karma so that we're not exposed to listen, even though we've done these these actions based on greed and hate and delusion, we still might hear the Dharma and change our attitude.

[75:38]

Now, aside from hearing Dharma in this workshop, if you look at your karma, if you look at your karma, that meditation could be an opportunity for you to see the Dharma and receive the Dharma as you're watching your karma. And you can see the Dharma in the very situation which the Dharma's liberating. Right there. And again, if you have trouble seeing or meditating on your karma, if you have trouble watching your karma, You're seeing it clearly. To whatever extent you can see your karma, try to do good karma. And that will help your vision of your karma get clearer.

[76:43]

And if your vision of your karma gets clearer, you'll see a way to do more good karma. And then it'll get clearer. And the more clear it gets, the more you'll see how good it is to do good karma, and how But a waste of time leads to bad karma. You also see your bad karma more clearly. Seeing your bad karma more clearly, seeing your good karma more clearly, doing more good karma, you see more clearly, seeing more clearly, you do more good karma, seeing more clearly, until finally you start to see so clearly that you see actually at the basis of the whole thing, you're dependent core rising, and then you forget the whole situation. So if you've done, if we've done unwholesome things, and we see the Dharma in our karma, seeing the Dharma will liberate us from the results of these unwholesome things. Again, we're working on the results section, but I'm not getting into it yet.

[77:49]

So we're still talking about the nature of karma, and maybe pretty soon we can start shifting over into how karma happens. So we're talking about what karma is, then we're talking about how karma happens, and then talk about how karma fruits. Judy? Well, I'm frustrated that the place that I've had to believe by to be able to observe my karma the easiest is a place that I'm more difficult to believe by. I feel that being where I am now, whether it's called active in life, and I'm catching myself, but I'm saying, when I'm engaged, if I'm here, if I'm active, I can see myself. I can see my karma there. And when I sit in satsang, I don't see my karma.

[78:59]

Maybe you need to sit longer. If you sit longer, you'll start to see your karma more easily. Because the kind of karma you see in Zazen is more subtle than the karma you see in daily life. If you, like, walk across the street, that's a pretty gross thing, pretty easy to see. And if you walk partway across the street and stop in the middle of the street where the car's coming, it's pretty easy to see that you want to get yourself out of the way of the car. Not that difficult to see. But if you're sitting in meditation and you're comfortable, you don't have much impulses at that time. Yourself is, you know, unthreatening, comfortable, doesn't see a big need to change. But if you sit a long time, the impulse to move might get stronger. And then you can see this gradually as this impulse starts to develop.

[79:59]

You can see the beginnings of the impulse. And watch the impulse to move come up. But it's rather subtle. There are impulses in Zazen to do things. For example, there's the impulse to stay on your cushion. It's maybe too subtle for you to see since you're just staying on your cushion and you don't see much effect of it. But when you stay in the cushion, that's the result of you having the impulse to stay there. Can you see the impulse to stay in your seat? Can you? It's not that easy to see. Not that many people, you know, I shouldn't say not that many people, but a lot of people sit through a period of Zazen and they don't notice that they have an impulse. They have like innumerable impulses to stay in their seat. We're trying to get the impulses to sit straight, impulses to... Yeah, the impulses to sit up, [...] to stay there, to sit up, to stay up. Innumerable impulses to fulfill that posture and to stay at that place. But they're pretty subtle. But they're there.

[81:01]

And if they're hard to see, subtle things are harder to see than gross things. And I get those being impulses That is what I'm supposed to be doing in thought time, so I don't even question that it's an impulse. You don't have to question that it's an impulse. You don't have to question it is an impulse. You just need to observe it, become aware of it. So now, the next period of meditation, every moment If you're sitting there, it could be, not necessarily, but there could be many impulses to sit there and to sit up and to stay awake and maintain aspects of the posture. There could be many, many impulses to do that, plus you act on them. Maybe. So there it is. The next period, now from having difficulty to observe it, you might now have an easy time to observe it. But it's hard to be that concentrated

[82:05]

To be that present, you're actually watching yourself live your life in a karmic way on that cushion. And to watch the cause and effect. To watch how the fact that you're sitting on that cushion has something to do with the fact that you sit there, you decide to sit there again. The fact that the period's 40 minutes long has something to do with the fact that you stayed there for 40 minutes. Various conditions are contributing to this. Various concerns are contributing to this decision to stay on that cushion, to sit that way. the landscape of your mind, it keeps being shaped towards continuing to sit during that whole period. Not every moment, because when you're listening to the birds at that moment, that's not the impulse to sit there. That's not the impulse to leave either. That's just hearing the birds. When you see the wall or the floor, that's not the impulse to stay there. That's not the impulse to sit up. That's just experience. But that experience is part of what reminds you that you're in a zendo, and that it's enjoyable to sit there because the birds are so lovely when you're concentrating on staying on your cushion.

[83:15]

So you say, this is a good deal. I want to keep sitting here. I want to finish this period and hear that bird chirp about six more times. It's worth it. It's worth it to hear that bird chirp, just to sit here and just stay here moment after moment. And also, I know that when I finish this period, I'm going to feel really good. I don't feel so good now, but I know I'll regret just staying here and sitting up straight. So I intend to stay here and sit up straight. And I do it again. And I'm doing it again. And I'm doing it again. And I'm acting on it. I'm acting on it. I'm acting on it. I'm acting on it more and more fully. I'm acting on it more and more fully. I'm really doing this karma really good. So if you're going to do karma, It's recommended that you do it completely and thoroughly. And the more thoroughly you do karma, the closer you get to being free. At the limit of doing karma, you doing karma, that's the place you realize you're not doing it and it's not happening.

[84:21]

Ask karma. It's an event, but not a karmic event. Karmic activity is always kind of a holding back. Is that right? Yeah. Right. Karmic activity is always a holding back. And what are we holding back for? You get the answer to this one, though. What karmic? Wrong answer. What's the answer? Preserve our sense of self. Preserve our sense of self, right. We're holding back because if we gave everything to the karma of whatever it is, we might forget something. And we're not sure that that would be okay. And it's actually not that easy to hold back. Did I say it's not that easy to hold back? Not that hard to hold back.

[85:25]

Easy to hold back. I won't really. you know that's not why necessarily that could be you could say what you said you saw okay that's you thought okay yeah i knew i knew thought that um i was hurting you know that i was going to It could have been, yeah.

[86:28]

And if I had done them in full action and completely immersed in them, You asked a multi-pronged question. Do you want me to answer them all at once or separately? The first point that came up there was, if you are sitting in the meditation hall, like a formal situation like that, and you have the impulse, and let's say you're deciding to sit still, and you think that's a wholesome thing to sit still, but then in the process of that effort, you feel like you might be hurting yourself.

[87:46]

So then you think, oh, maybe I should move anyway, because it's not good to hurt myself. You might think, Then to move because you think it might be good for your health, in some sense, I would say, my view might be, well, that's a wholesome act. Or if you move and say, still, even though for a second there you're moving because you thought it would be good for your health and a skillful thing to do, if you then say to yourself, it's a bad thing that I moved, then that thought that bad counts. It counts against you because you thought it was bad. Now, I might think, oh, good, if I could read your mind, and I'd say, oh, she thinks maybe that this is harmful, so probably she should move. She should go with that. She shouldn't be sitting in a way that she thinks is harmful. So she thinks it's harmful. I'm glad that she moved. And then if she said, after she moved, she told herself, oh, that was bad karma, then I would say, that's too bad she did that, because in fact, now that she said it's bad karma, it is to some extent.

[88:59]

That isn't the same bad karma as if you did something, for example, that I also thought was bad. It would be different. If you did something which would harm you physically, plus you would also call it bad. When you call something bad, when you call yourself unskillful, that has an effect on you. Especially if you call yourself bad because of your misinterpretation of some rule that you think people are going to punish you for or something like that. That counts. That's a factor in your judgment. It's a kind of unskilled thing to say to yourself after you just made a pretty good effort to do, you're trying to do something good, and then you sort of laugh because you called it bad. When maybe it wasn't necessary. You could have done the first experiment again, but that would have taken effect. Now, your second question was, is it good to maybe do bad karma wholeheartedly? Let's see.

[90:02]

Which is worse, do bad karma half-heartedly or half-heartedly? It is worse karma to do, in some sense, it's worse karma to do bad karma wholeheartedly. It's bad or bad karma to do bad karma wholeheartedly, and that's cute. If you kill something and then you say you're happy you did it, it makes it more of a killing than to kill something and be sorry. But before you talk about how you feel about it, let's talk about taking complete responsibility for the act. But the funny thing is that when you take complete responsibility for a bad act, in some ways, the only way you can do that is to be somewhat conscious. And to be conscious why you do it, when you're actually willing to do a cruel thing, to be conscious why you do that makes it not only a better thing, but it makes it a better opportunity for learning.

[91:07]

The act is still bad, but the good karma that you have in your background is helping you be aware that you're doing a bad thing. So you could learn. It's possible that you might be enlightened if you were doing a bad act. because of all the good karma you've built up in your meditation practice, to be aware that you're doing a bad thing. And like you could say, that was a bad thing. Or like this example that Beverly is bringing up, Paguli Mala did all this bad stuff. Buddha comes to teach him. The Buddha comes to teach him, but he wants to kill the Buddha because he needs one more murder to complete his contract. He's going to try to kill the Buddha. And he starts running after the Buddha. And although he runs after the Buddha and the Buddha is walking slowly, he doesn't gain on the Buddha.

[92:10]

Then he runs faster and he still doesn't gain on the Buddha. And he says to Buddha, how come I can't catch you? And the Buddha said, because I'm not moving. And he understands. He was trying to do a bad thing wholeheartedly. But he was also somewhat aware of what he was doing. And he was aware that he was being unsuccessful and that something funny was happening. And so he asked a question. Started having a conversation with his And the victim told him that he understood, and he dropped his murderous career at that point. So I would say that awareness in conjunction with an unwholesome act is a good thing, awareness. If you do some harmful thing unconsciously, in other words, you're not intending to, it doesn't really count as an unconscious thing.

[93:19]

If you accidentally step on an ant and you're really unconscious, it's not from an unconscious motive to step on it, but really you don't know about it. It's not karmic. Now, if you know, if someone tells you that whole driveway is covered with ants and you still walk through it, then it's kind of like involuntary manslaughter, right? You didn't need to do it, but you also didn't care enough not to walk through that area. But you're walking along, and you kind of look at the driveway, and you think, well, it doesn't seem to be covered with ants. It seems fairly safe. And you walk through, but an ant does come across, and you step on it. And you really didn't know it was there, so you couldn't even avoid it. That killing of that death of the ant would not be considered murder. So that wouldn't be considered murder anyway. But if you knew that the ant was there, and stepped on it, and weren't even aware that you didn't care, you did step on it, but with very little awareness, can you believe it?

[94:31]

We do that? We kill things without anybody being aware we're doing it? Like this? I mean, we are somewhat aware of doing it. Bite this and squash it.

[94:42]

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