Or have no passions. That's the way of the saints. No passions. That's a very high quality situation, but anyway. We are not admitted by curbing or governing our passions or having no passions, but because we have cultivated our understanding of them. Blake. Thank you. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passions, but are realities of insight from which all the passions emanate, uncurbed in their eternal glory, in their magnificent clouds. But these magnificent clouds, they're magnificent clouds when they come from not going forward or backwards, not being outside of patience.

[01:09]

No matter where you go, you're never outside of patience. Then these passions make magnificent, august, solemn, dignified, blooming clouds. Yes? No. I'll try to find it for you. Blake? We are not admitted to heaven. We are admitted to heaven not because we have curbed or governed our passions or have no passions but because we have cultivated our understandings. The treasures of heaven are not negations of passion but realities of of insight from which all passions emanate, uncurbed in their eternal glory. Jim said to me one time about somebody, maybe Moses, coming to meet God after he died, or somebody like that.

[02:20]

Oh no, not Moses, some other guy. I forgot who it was. Was coming to heaven and, was it Moses? Okay, anyway, somebody's coming to heaven and they say, well, you can't come in. Let's say they say you can't come in, okay? They say, well, why not? They say, it's not because you weren't enough like Moses. It's that you weren't enough like yourself. So again, there you are, moment by moment. I don't know what you are, but there you are. If you go a little forward, a little backwards, get a little real, get a little unreal. Well, a little's OK. But if you go really forward or you go really backwards, or you really grab a hold of the real, or you grab the unreal, you're not being yourself. You're not real. You're not unreal. You're not going forward. You're not going backwards. If you grab both of them at the same time, that's OK.

[03:21]

If you do that, then you're not being yourself. And then your actions are violating this precept. And this stuff isn't magnificent bright clouds anymore. It's just misery. Because it's birth and death, because you're grabbing emptiness or form. Attaching to emptiness doesn't work either. Attaching to form doesn't work either. What's that guy? Regina? I can call you the stupid one? Well, not quite yet. I don't think you're ready for it yet. No, no, you don't think you understand what I'm talking about. Now am I ready?

[04:28]

Do you love being stupid? Hmm? When you love it, I'll start calling you that. Charlie loves being evil. Look how happy he is. Look at that evil guy. But go ahead. You can't? Okay. Huh? Did I? I'm sorry if I called you stupid. Did I? Oh. I mean, then you're stupid. Who's stupid? That's what I want to find out. idea of contriving of a self.

[05:42]

And every day I make a confession. I thought my specialty was criticizing other things, and actually my specialty is to manipulate and control things. And in doing that I'm thinking, well, what does this mean? And it's again, this precept really means that we do this all the time, and so I don't want to deal with I'm resisting equating this to, in fact, I'm supposedly angry all the time with the definition I have of being angry. This is where I'm stuck. This precept is not about being angry or not being angry. This precept is about manipulating. This precept is saying, give that up. That's just what I'm saying. And it's also saying, of course we wouldn't have this precept if we weren't totally into this. Just like the other one. The other one is, the previous one is, you're constantly creating self and other. Why are you creating self and other?

[06:49]

Because, again, when there's objective knowledge, there is the mental function of separating the mind and body into two parts. And then there is the intellectual function of the mental consciousness function of saying, that part's external. And as soon as that arises, somebody, not somebody, but there is a sense of identity. Somebody's the coordinator of this. Somebody's in charge. Somebody's controlling this operation. There's an identity of that. That's what happens. Now that identity then thinks that it's in control. It's not. It's not manipulating this. This is maybe manipulated by the universe. Reality is creating all these nice workings. Exactly.

[07:55]

There's something about the process. I think it all works out perfectly because because if If you just had consciousness, we did have consciousness once, but there is consciousness, direct experience of living beings. It doesn't have any knowledge, though. So now, which is fine, it's just that everything's in the dark and there's no conscious awareness. Want conscious awareness? Well, then you have to cut, you have to bifurcate this oneness. But that's not enough. Then you have to say, part of this oneness is outside the other part. in order to know it. Now that should be enough, actually, because now you've got knowledge. But it's not. It's not enough. And for two reasons it's not enough. One reason it's not enough, if you have a person like that, what are they looking for if they don't have that? They're looking for, who am I?

[08:57]

Why do they do that? Because everybody around them has an I. Some identity has to be, there has to be identity, a human being has to have identity. You're not a human being without identity. Now with identity comes, and where does the identity come? It comes right at the point of who, you know, how did this get cut? And how did this idea of this being outside happen? This got organized, this got orchestrated. And there's some identification. or some possession there. That's the self. That's the ego. Okay? Now because of that, all these afflictions come. Because of these afflictions, there's misery. Because there's misery, the consciousness then not only has created knowledge, but goes back, has to go back and understand the process itself. Otherwise, the consciousness is stuck, unintegrated in the realm of

[10:04]

conscious knowledge and it's not coordinated with the rest of reality but because it has to go back and solve the problem of conscious bondage it also achieves integration with reality outside itself which created itself and if it wasn't for that pain you wouldn't have to do that work just like you wouldn't have this pain in the first place if you just stayed in the dark but human evolution has caused the dawning of objective knowledge. But that would be fine too. We could just sit there and we would vaguely sense that we lost something. What did we lose? The realm of direct experience with reality, which is going on all the time. We wouldn't even know we missed it except vaguely. You know, like when you're in the ocean, the little circle of water, you say, this doesn't work. But if it didn't hurt, You just let it go at that. So how do we make it hurt?

[11:05]

Make a self, which tries to control this immensely complex universe, which is manifesting now in the miracle of objective knowledge. It doesn't work. Therefore, you have to get down there. And there's these four afflictions there, which are characteristic of how it doesn't work and why it doesn't work. So the being is forced to go in there and find out and realize... Somebody's in there trying to control. But you're not. You can never be in control. But there you are sitting at the switchboard playing like you're running it. That's breaking this precept. And you break this precept whether you're angry or not angry if you're sitting at that control board with the illusion that you're doing something. If you're not doing that, then even being angry in the apparent sense is compassion. If you are sitting at that board and you're not being angry, you're violating this precept, even though you're not angry.

[12:08]

And why aren't you angry? You're not angry. What are you not angry at? You're not angry at yourself, first of all, and second of all, others who are sitting at the control board pretending like they're and believing that they're in control. You're not angry at that. You think you're in control. You think you're manipulating. You contrive things for yourself. You think you're in control of your consciousness. You think you're in control of your anger. You think you're in control of your lust. In other words, you don't get angry at yourself for spending your time trying to curb and govern yourself. You don't get angry at yourself for doing what keeps you out of happiness. You don't get angry at yourself for that. Okay? That not getting angry at yourself for hurting yourself, that not getting angry, that not anger, is violating this precept. Getting angry at yourself for hurting yourself. Getting angry at yourself for keeping yourself from being yourself.

[13:11]

Getting angry at yourself for not sitting on your spot. Getting angry at yourself for running away from yourself. Getting angry at yourself for grasping extreme views. That is not violating this precept. That is... abiding by this precept. Buddhas get angry at themselves when they get off their Buddha. Buddhas get angry at themselves when they flinch from being themselves. Buddhas get angry at themselves when they try to curb their passions. Buddhas do not get angry at themselves or others when their passion is uncurbed in its total radiance. They don't get angry then. And they should not get angry at them because then they and all beings are capable of patience. Then the whole earth is patient. Patient with what? Patient with themselves. Letting themselves be themselves. Not trying to control.

[14:14]

Ordinary people get angry based on trying to control themselves or others. So whatever they do, if they... So what they generally get angry at is what they shouldn't get angry at. And they don't get angry at what they should get angry at. What they should be angry at is that they're into manipulating themselves and pushing themselves all over the map. They should be... It's a total insult to themselves that they should be really angry themselves. You just totally insulted yourself then. You should be angry at yourself for that. That's not violating this precept. That's correct rage. That's Buddha's anger at you not letting yourself be you. Buddha would let you be you, or as Stuart says, Buddha thinks it's okay, but I have higher standards. Not only do I have higher standards, but I'm going to move myself over to this other place, which is not me.

[15:20]

I have a higher standard than me being like this. And if he catches himself promoting himself to somebody better than himself, if he's Buddha, he should get angry at himself. Stuart, stop that. That's compassion. That's patience. That's patience with what you are and anger at pushing yourself away from that. Sounds like the original wrath of God. right on well it sounds like originally that's the meaning of the wrath of God that you violate that level yeah so it is just this as Bodhidharma said this precept is not contriving with yourself We have a self. We got one. We got a little one and a big one.

[16:22]

To not use that little one to contrive. To not use a little one to plan how to be angry or not angry. How to be lustful or not lustful. How to be confused or not confused. To drop that egocentric activity and embrace it all. Make an altar to contrivance. Make an altar to... Dualistic thinking. Make an alter to creating subject-object. All these things which we can't stop doing. Yes? When we say get angry at ourselves, just say, do it. Do it. Stop doing that. When we think of getting angry at ourselves, we think of getting angry like maybe we just get really enraged. But just say, stop doing that. Just the awareness. It's over. That fact. That's all the anger is. No, that's all the anger is sometimes. No, sometimes it's like that.

[17:23]

Sometimes it's like stop. Sometimes it's like stop. See, when you use the word joy and anger, these words have different meanings. I know. That come up to us. I know. Us getting angry or feeling joy. Right. No, I think we have to develop some flexibility, you know, and use them in different ways. Sometimes the anger that's appropriate is like supercharged flames. Sometimes that's what I need from you in order to wake me up. Sometimes you have to become a fiery demon ten feet tall and just be flaming down at me for me to sort of, oh, I get it, thanks. And other times all you got to do is say, hey, Reb, knock it off. Stop that. That's sometimes enough. It can be all those ranges. The point is, it's compassion. Compassion comes in infinite varieties, bright clouds, magnificent clouds of compassion. And if I myself think that I have sat on my seat, I'm pretty sure of it, then I can go talk to somebody else and we can discuss it and clarify it.

[18:38]

Yeah? What I'm really seeing here, feeling it, I really need to expand my idea of what anger is. Yeah, we all do. Just going like this, That could be showing your anger in a way. Exactly. That's right. Exactly. Like somebody, you can see a friend of yours, you know, you can see a friend of yours just wiggling a little bit. You know? Just see a friend of yours sitting there and just going, just like that. And you can go back to them like this. Just mimic them. That can be anger. They say, You don't have to move. You can sit there. Or what are you moving for? That can be anger, if you want to. Point is, where are you coming from? If you're coming from a dualistic place, it's violating its precept. If you're not, I like the word apropos.

[19:44]

It's appropriate. It's an appropriate response. And it can be just touching their knee. It can be mimicking them. It can be knock it off. It can be, oh, please. It can be, do you really mean that? It can be... You yourself are no longer trying to manipulate yourself or control yourself. This is not coming by some plan. It's just, they call it forth. Again, I told that story about Suzuki Roshi. He's walking into the Zendo at Sokoji, and this guy comes running in behind him and bumps into him, and he goes... Now, whether it was just like, you know, a mechanical response, You know, like he knocked him forward and his elbows went back. I don't know. It could have been just that. But see, that's the same thing. A mechanical response. Or whether he said, okay. I don't know. But some people saw it and they said, my God. Little guy, give me that guy elbow in the stomach for running in there without paying attention.

[20:44]

It's just, it's not planned. It's like nobody's home, you know. And yet when nobody's home, the wind bell just swings. and comes back and slaps you in the face. And then it's bye-bye, swinging back the other way. See you later. It's not like, I gotcha, and you know, did I do right or wrong? Quang, quang, quang. Yes, Charles? When you're coming from a non-dual place, you can practice precept literally. You can also play the piano. Or you hate to do it. You can do anything, Charlie. The point is, are you in your place? Are you not going forward or backwards? Are you not grabbing the emptiness, nor the pinnacle arising?

[21:51]

Are you worshiping Mars, paying your respects, being luminously aware of it? Are you appreciating your uncurbed passion as it is? Then you can literally follow precepts. You can literally follow Japanese lessons. You can literally follow children down the street. You can literally litter up the whole world. You can do it because you hate it. You can do it because you love it. In other words, you are, my friend, free. The Buddha said in a very, what's called, double standard way, you know, these precepts are not for me. I don't follow these precepts.

[22:35]

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