I have a tendency to speak in what is sometimes called ex cathedra. Have you noticed? Do you know what ex cathedra means? It means out of the cathedral. Can you hear me if I talk like this? I have a tendency to speak ex-cathedra. How's that? Is that okay? Which means out of the cathedral. This was first pointed out to me some time ago.

[01:01]

I was in a panel discussion with somebody during a workshop and he said it was like being at a press conference with God because I speak ex cathedra. You don't understand what ex cathedra means? It means to talk out of the cathedral. It means it's like your voice is coming out of a cathedral. In other words, it sounds like God, right? It's just a style of talking, which, for whatever reason, I happen to have slipped into. But that doesn't mean that what I say is truth. But when someone says what he feels or thinks in a certain tone, people may think, oh, I guess this is the truth. so I better get with the program but you don't have to get with the program so what I tell you is just what I'm saying that's all it is nothing more and nothing less you have to deal with it you can run away if you want to but I'll still be here talking

[02:30]

So listen to the following sentence. Buddhist psychology is grounded in the experience of suffering. That's not true, that's just what I said. But I mean it. And I can prove it. There's other kinds of psychology which I used to study which are not necessarily grounded in suffering. In other words, the psychologists who are doing the psychology don't necessarily feel like the first thing to do when you go into the laboratory is to check in with how you feel. To be aware of your body and to see if you're feeling any pain.

[03:36]

which is fine the reason for Buddhist psychology being grounded in the experience of pain is that what Buddhist psychology is about is liberating beings from the experience of pain is to make human and other beings free even in the situation of experiencing pain and that sense to bring great joy to living beings I could say quite a bit about the other forms of psychology too but I'm not going to I'm just going to talk about Buddhist psychology from my body and mind and although I may speak enthusiastically what I'm saying is not the truth

[04:41]

meaning of Buddhist psychology is not in my words. However, the meaning comes forth and meets us when we bring our energy forward. So lo and behold, lo and behold here is the world of suffering and lo and behold in this exactly same time and place is the Dharma gate of repose and bliss now Somebody said that, as you may have heard, Buddhist psychology is grounded in the, what?

[05:51]

What? Not suffering, experience of suffering. A little bit different. Also, it's grounded in suffering, but it's grounded in the experience of suffering. Just suffering is different. To actually experience the suffering, that's the grounding of it. It's developed or raised up out of the experience, the Buddhist psychology, the practice and study of Buddhist psychology is raised up out of this experience of suffering by the practice of what? Zazen, but what particular aspect of Zazen? Mindfulness. We already got the mindfulness though. Mindfulness, acceptance, and what I'm trying to get you to say, which is okay if you haven't said so far, is compassion. All right? Compassion. So it's developed or also it's grounded and developed through compassion too.

[07:04]

In the Heart Sutra, which is chanted in Zen temples, and at this temple we chant, we start out by saying, the first word we say is, Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva. And the word Avalokiteshvara can be interpreted a number of ways. One way I would interpret it is ava, means to look down from up above, to regard from a good vantage place. Lokita. Lokita. The kita of the loka. The cries of the world. Ishvara. Ishvara. self-existence. So one way to hear the name of this bodhisattva of infinite compassion is that it is to regard from a very good vantage point the cries of the world self-existently.

[08:22]

Or you could say it's the self-existence or the self-existent one who regards from this excellent vantage point the suffering of the entire world. Or you could read it as regarding from an excellent vantage point the cries of the world, the suffering of the world, self-existently or through the study of self-existence. Or you could read it as to be aware of and compassionate with all beings through the perspective or through the practice of studying the self. Okay? These are various interpretations of Avalokiteshvara. There's a number of ways the Chinese Buddhists translated that Sanskrit word into Chinese.

[09:32]

The most common one, I think, is Kanaan. And con means to contemplate or regard or study. And own means the sound or the cries so kanan or also pronounced in Chinese this is a Japanese way of saying kanan the Chinese way of saying is guanyin guanyin guanyin to regard the cries of the world kanzeon the ze means world

[10:48]

So literally it's to regard the world's cries. Okay? That's one translation of Babalokiteshvara. And that's where I would suggest, that's where we start practicing Buddhist psychology. In this aspect of infinite compassion. Just simply regarding the cries of the world. Okay? That's the beginning. As I've been saying to you, first of all, you take up residence in your body. So you regard the first of the five aggregates. You regard the aggregate, the skanda of form. of color, of sound, of smell, of touch and of taste.

[11:51]

You regard that. You settle into your body and from your body you contemplate, you regard feelings. You listen to the cries, you listen to the literal sounds in the sense of the physical aggregate of experience. from experiencing your body as sound and color and smell and touch and taste. Then you contemplate the next aggregate of experience, the next of the five, the second one, the most gross of the mental aggregates, feeling. So basically... in the first two aggregates, the first two collections of experience among the five aggregates, we start with those two.

[12:55]

And in that sense we start to embody the practice of infinite compassion in the grosser way of physical experience and mental evaluations which come in three varieties positive negative and neutral which are called feelings or sensations okay in this way we develop compassion we manifest this Bodhisattva in our life and we're doing Buddhist psychology and we're studying whether we know it or not we're looking at the things which comprise the first two skandhas The next way that the Chinese translate Avalokiteshvara, the next or another way, is kanji zai. The kan's the same, contemplation and regard, but ji is self.

[13:59]

And zai is existence. And this is the name of the bodhisattva that's in the Heart Sutra. But the other name is in the background. In other words, this bodhisattva has already been practicing settling herself into physical experience, the first skanda, into feeling the second skanda, and has also settled into the contemplation of the other skandhas, The skanda of perception, the skanda of mental formations, which includes many experiences, and the skanda of consciousness. And in the midst of being settled into the contemplation of all five of these elements of experience, this bodhisattva is contemplating self-existence.

[15:04]

or to turn it is doing self-existent contemplation contemplating self-existent and self-existent contemplation both of those are going on for this bodhisattva who has a penetrating vision into these aggregates of experience And this bodhisattva not only sees that the person lacks selfhood, but this bodhisattva even sees that the five aggregates lack selfhood. The study of the way the self exists brings the compassion to its completion and also raises up perfect wisdom now I'm going to say a few sentences

[16:35]

which you don't have to remember, but I'm gonna put a lot of emphasis on them because they're very important. So please pay attention. When we start to practice compassion, most of us regard the pain of our own pain as an object, something separate from ourself. Or we still feel that other beings are separate from ourself. We may truly feel compassion in regard to other beings, but we feel that they're separate from ourself when we first begin to practice compassion.

[17:38]

When we move into the contemplation of the existence of the self and see that the self of the person lacks self, lacks independence, we are freed of seeing other suffering beings as separate from our self. and the compassion moves to a higher stage of development where it does not have objects anymore. It is objectless compassion. We don't see other sentient beings for our suffering. And we don't see ourself as separate from our suffering. This is the highest non-dual compassion which is realized in conjunction with the vision of the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of the aggregates of experience.

[19:05]

So compassion is developed all the way along but in the middle of the process of practicing compassion as wisdom arises, as the wisdom of selflessness arises, the compassion changes from being dualistic to non-dualistic. It passes from having objects of concern to having an objectless concern with all beings. When we practice compassion towards our own pain or towards others' suffering, with a sense of separation as though they're objects, there is some energetic experience across that surface of separation.

[20:23]

Some energetic transaction, some energetic... consequence of that dualistic view which we call leakage or outflows or inflows or floods we're practicing compassion however we get inflated and deflated in the practice we're helping people practicing compassion with them. We're trying to help them and we are being helpful, but we get tired. Or we get puffed up. So we either puff up and explode or shrink down and expire. Usually, but not always, people catch themselves before they actually drop dead from this kind of compassion

[21:29]

and it's what's called burnout. And they go to a rest home. If you help one person a day in this way, this dualistic way, where you feel depleted or increased by the interaction, it's not such a problem. I mean, it's a problem, but you probably feel okay. If you help 10 that way, you start to feel a little shaken by the thing. Now, some people specialize in deflating transactions in their compassion with beings. So they generally get weaker the more people they see. And they can see, some of them can see, you know, between up to, you know, quite a large number. But when you get up into a very, very large number, almost everybody who has this approach will be wiped out I don't know what the number is.

[22:33]

Depends on various factors. But, you know, like 100 is probably too many. Some people specialize in the inflating side, and they get puffier and higher the more people they see. Until the end of the day, they're pretty much off the ground like a hot air balloon, which they get heady and sometimes you poke them and they pop and splatter all over the newspapers in some cult scandal. And some people switch back and forth and keep somewhat, their energy stays somewhat stable because they gain and lose about even, but then they experience a wipeout from the jangliness of jumping around between one style and the other. When we have a non-dual attitude towards it, we don't gain and lose in these interactions.

[23:45]

And then burnout doesn't happen. And I'd like to also say that the contemplation of the way the self exists and the self-existent contemplation are related in the sense that when the contemplation of the self is completed, in the sense that we understand that the self that we're contemplating is none other than the five skandhas, then the meditation itself becomes self-existent.

[24:58]

In other words, this meditation itself is not something separate from the self of the person. The meditation is autonomous. It's kind of independent. The meditation, unlike the illusory idea of the self, the meditation actually is nothing more than the person being nothing more than the experience that the person's having. Does that make sense? The meditation becomes self-existent when the meditation is nothing more than the person being nothing more than the experience of the moment that happens to be happening in the area of the person. That's what we call, in Zen, we call sitting upright in the self-fulfilling awareness.

[26:05]

Now, I want to move now into more detail on this awareness of our experience. Before I go into that detail, how are you doing? Yes. I can't remember exactly, but you said something. I think you said it before about Buddhism teaching about freedom from sovereign, something like that. Anyway, you had used to explain freedom from suffering. And that's a little ambiguous to me. And if you say, which one is next? On the one hand, there's freedom from suffering, which I think we'd sort of maybe most easily take it as being, if you're free from suffering, you would be suffering.

[27:50]

But another sense of it is not bound by suffering, not enslaved by suffering, might still have tremendous suffering, but it doesn't trip you up anymore. Okay, so the example of the Buddha, when the Buddha was... 80 years old or something like that, he got sick. He had been sick before that during his teaching career, but he got quite sick. He ate something that made him sick, either bad mushrooms or bad pork, and he got dysentery and things like that. At that time, my understanding would be that the Buddha was experiencing physical pain to such an extent that he actually felt like he might decide to die pretty soon.

[28:51]

However, his presence, his compassion, his wisdom, his teaching of Dharma was, as far as I can tell, totally unimpeded by the severe physical pain and illness he was experiencing. In other words, he was just kind of the same person he was as usual, except he was having this new physical difficulty over and above his usual back pains. Now, I thought you might be happy to know that all Buddhas have back pain. and knee pain. I'm just kidding, they don't. Just some. And the founder of our school, Shakyamuni Buddha, had back problems.

[29:54]

So he was free of his suffering in a sense that his extreme joy of expounding Dharma for the welfare of others was unimpeded by his physical illness. An enlightened person like him, you wouldn't be able to scare him or scare her or manipulate him or her by threats of pain. It wouldn't be like you would say to one of these people, well, if you don't be mean to that person, we're going to smash your head with this baseball bat. You couldn't coerce them into doing something cruel by threatening them with pain. They wouldn't be afraid of pain. He couldn't manipulate them with threat of pain. Or threat of pleasure. Now, there's certain kinds of suffering, however, they would not feel at all.

[31:01]

Completely free of. And that would be the suffering which arises from the, you know, adherence to the philosophical belief of that we are separate beings. They would no longer adhere to that opinion. Their perceptual equipment could still operate so that they could tell, you know, if you present them with a bowl of, for example, oatmeal, good thing to offer these people, present them with a bowl of oatmeal and a spoon, they would be able to tell where to put the spoon, in the bowl, and they would be able to tell which mouth to put it in. If the food was intended for them, they would be able to guide, unless they had some kind of neurological problem with their arms, they would be able to guide the spoon up into their mouth, and they could tell it was their mouth as opposed to yours. Now, if you wished to be fed by the Buddha, you would, of course, request to be fed.

[32:07]

You do the feeding request process. ritual, which is, please feed me. The Buddha would then put the spoon of oatmeal in your mouth and then remove it after you captured the oatmeal. This is the normal thing for a generous person to do. The Buddha would do that, and they would be able to tell who had which bite. However, they would not actually think that this little show that went on was like ultimate reality. They wouldn't believe it was true that he was separate from you, even though he could tell when you say, put it now in my mouth. Now your mouth.

[33:08]

You could tell which one, back and forth. You could test them that way. Now my mouth again. They would be able to do this just as well as anybody else. If you ask Buddha for some of his blood... like a pint or a quart or a gallon, and if it was needed for you, the Buddha would give you her blood with no problem if it was helpful. There's no belief in separate life. And the suffering which arises from belief in separate life would be completely non-arising. And that suffering is a suffering of eternal suffering, endless suffering, which never ends as long as we believe in our separate existences.

[34:10]

The Buddha would not even see it that way anymore. While being able to see all the different people and remember their names, they happen to have a good memory for names. Okay? So complete freedom and end of suffering, end of suffering, extinction of a certain kind of suffering, but not extinction like snuffing it out or cutting it off, but rather it just doesn't even come up anymore. And the other kind of suffering can't push you around anymore or oppress you. So complete freedom from suffering and actually the non-arising of the suffering due to gripping the aggregates of experience as a self. Okay? Yes? Do you mean lack of separation in the extent of sacrificing your life for the sake of something you don't know?

[35:11]

See no difference between them? No separation? You can see the difference, you know, like you can tell... The Buddha would be able to tell your body was there, and the truck was coming over there, and he could tell that he needed to put his body between your body and the truck. He could tell the truck's not you, and the truck might hurt you, and your body's in danger, and his body can get between you and the truck and move you out of the way, including that if it hurt him, you know, that would be, you know, okay. He wouldn't like... The primary thing would be to help you. But helping you means not just to save your life, but to teach you Buddhism. That's the most important thing. Your life's going to come to an end, but while you're alive, the Buddha's primarily concerned with showing you Buddhism. And Buddhism is that the enlightened person cares about your education more than anything else. All the enlightened person is is concern for your enlightenment.

[36:13]

That's all they are. There's nothing more than that. You say, well, what about the five skandhas? Well, it's the five skandhas that are nothing more than concern for the welfare of others. And plus five skandhas, which are like five magical skandhas, five arch skandhas, which totally, constantly manifest in such a way as to teach dharma to people. And the way it manifests itself when a being is in danger is it teaches the being about concern for their welfare. But it doesn't lose track of the ability to perceive differences among people. It just doesn't believe in the reality of them. It knows that they're just perceptual differences. But it also knows, the way it knows that they're just perceptual differences is that the enlightened mind studies the process of perception and knows all the stuff that goes into the perception. It's completely one with the awareness of the experience and nothing more.

[37:14]

And because it's nothing more, then the The natural oneness of life, the natural Buddha nature manifests itself. And there's no ignorance to mask or obscure the natural function of compassion. Okay, does that make sense at all? Any question? You have somewhat of a question? I thought of that too. The Buddha is very valuable, right? Some people might say, yeah, but should we have the Buddha sacrificing her life to save an ordinary Zen student? And then we got one ordinary Zen student who, you know, has received this big favor from Buddha and no more, and then we got a dead Buddha.

[38:15]

Wouldn't it better to maybe have like a live Buddha and sorry about... So if we were in charge of choosing this thing, we might, you know, we're very sorry to make this decision, but we're deciding... We're sorry we have to choose, but we choose keeping Buddha around and you have to go. We wish it wasn't that way, but if we have to choose, we choose a healthy Buddha over a healthy regular Zen student. That's what we would choose, or I don't know, maybe the Zen Center board of directors would choose. Or, you know, the World Buddhist Consul would choose, or, you know, I don't know who would choose, but they might make decisions like that. But Buddhas, being rather stupid, would not choose that. They would make this dumb mistake and choose the other person, the ordinary Zen student, over and above. What?

[39:18]

Nothing. You know, five skandhas? That's it. Five skandhas. over saving a living being's life? No problem. No problem. So that's why we don't want Buddhists in such decision-making situations, right? It's okay for them to decide it in other cases, but we don't want Buddhists to get bumped off. But the way enlightenment works, ladies and gentlemen, is not the way we ordinarily think. So although the Buddha might die in that process, the Buddha Dharma flares up. into its true manifestation, which is the welfare of others before oneself. If the Buddha, realizing how important she is, would put her welfare, her continued existence, ahead of the existence of another, Buddhism would take a little dip Maybe not get totally extinguished, but take a little dip.

[40:21]

Maybe more of a dip than usual, because if the Buddha did that, then what kind of a Buddha do we have here anyway? But fortunately, Buddhas don't make that mistake. They make the mistake of putting others first. Always. Because that's what Buddha is. That's what happiness is. That's what freedom is. That's it. And that doesn't... We don't have a dead Buddha then. We have... the real Buddha. The real Buddha is when that person gets helped by someone who understands the oneness of herself in that person and demonstrates it moment by moment. Then we have the living real Buddha rather than just the personal human manifestation of Buddha. So that's not a loss. It's not a gain. It's just a life of infinite wisdom and compassion, which fortunately people aren't in charge of, so it just shines away and does all kinds of amazing things which only a retard would do.

[41:37]

Yes? Speaking for the sentient beings, yes. And therefore, it has to deal with the compassion that can always be communicated at one time. Uh-huh. And I was listening to what you were saying about giving and not only... Question? Rather than just ramble on indefinitely? Yeah. Did you say how a sentient being who's trying to practice Buddhist psychology would deal with, for example, donating some of her blood?

[42:56]

Seeing the other person as one So how does Buddhist psychology look at personal limits that people have? Well, Buddhist psychology Part of what Buddhist psychology would be aware of would be personal limits. Part of the object of study in Buddhist psychology is the limits of a person, are the limits of a personality, are the limits of a persona, of a face. in order well, how to put it the more you can be aware of your limits as a person the more you can be aware of them and be more and more limited the more and more limited you are

[44:38]

the bigger and bigger you are. Getting smaller and smaller, you get bigger and bigger. The more clearly you are aware of the sharpness of your limits, the closer you get to becoming completely free of your limits. So any way you have of tuning in to the limits of your experience, and there's two ways to hear that. One is, tune in to the limit of your experience of tuning in, or tune in to the limits of your experience. Both of those. Tune in to the limits of your ability to tune in to your experience, and also tune in to the limits of your experience. The more thoroughly you do that, the closer you are to becoming free your limited face your limited person so if you're asking us a related question of how do you deal with your limits like how do you deal with for example that someone asked you for something or many people ask you for something and you have limits in terms of how much you can give

[46:02]

I would say, just temporarily, I would say that I would talk to you in practical terms about that, about how you would negotiate with what you see to be your limited resources. And in short, you should not give even a slight bit more of yourself or of your resources. I would recommend you don't give more than you really want to give, more than you really feel the joy of giving. Because if you give without really wanting to, without really feeling joy about it, it doesn't count as giving. Not only that, but it might backfire because if you give any more than you really want to give, after you give it, and the gift doesn't count for you, you don't get any benefit from it if you didn't want to give it, you might, in addition to that, resent the gift, and then not only not get credit for the gift in terms of developing you spiritually because it wasn't a gift, but then you get angry and really blow yourself into big trouble.

[47:20]

So when working with your limits, you should, in terms of giving of yourself, practice giving means to practice in such a way as to overcome your stinginess and don't call giving while being stingy as giving. Call giving which actually is not at all stingy giving. And it's better to give a penny with no stinginess than to give $100 with stinginess. A penny given with great joy is truly giving, although it's nothing and almost everybody would be willing to do it, at least in America. I guess so, because you see pennies all over the street. People don't even lean over and pick them up. Most people don't. But if you give a penny with great joy, really happy to give it, especially to somebody who wanted it, because almost no one liked that, but anyway, that is giving, that is working with your limits in the sense that you're not happy about giving a dime.

[48:24]

So you recognize my limit. If it's a dime, I'm not happy about giving it. I'm only happy giving a penny, so I give a penny with joy. I don't give a dime yet because I'm not wanting to, and if I gave it, it wouldn't be giving, so I'll just work with the penny. And by working with the penny, you can generate the joy of giving a penny, and then you can get the joy of giving a dime, and the joy of giving a dollar, and the joy of giving... and joy of giving all your money, and joy of giving all your body, gradually you can work up to giving absolutely everything away with total joy and no resentment. That's how you work with your limits, in terms of transcending them by that kind of practice. But all the way along, every step of the way, you can study your limits, become aware of them, and be clearly accepting your limits, and by settling into the smallness of yourself, every time you settle into the smallness of yourself, The willingness to settle into limits is big, is huge. The mind which is willing to be limited is a huge mind.

[49:25]

Petty minds don't like to be limited. Petty minds want lots of room. They want to expand their territory. They want unlimited resources. Petty minds want that. Huge minds don't want anything because they already got it all, and they're perfectly willing to be squished into very tiny, cramped, petty quarters, which are readily available to each and every, if I may speak for myself, petty, selfish, stingy, miserly, stupid, deluded, arrogant, and so on, cramped, quartered being. The more thoroughly I'm willing to be what I am, it becomes the same as only caring about the welfare of others.

[50:32]

Does that kind of relate to your question? I think you were next, weren't you, Miss? What was the last sentence? Kind of a jump? That was kind of a jump. Let's keep that last sentence away for a little while and just enjoy that you were right there. Okay? You happy now? Okay, now, what does this have to do with helping all beings? It has to do with the fact that if you're willing to take the trouble of being you, There's nothing harder.

[51:40]

Nothing harder than that for us. And you're perfectly willing to be with whatever else is involved in your relationship with others. That's one thing it does. It gives you the courage. The courage to be small is the courage to be small in relationship to all other beings and to all the small things they need. Also, when you can be as small as you are, you will be completely liberated from being as small as you are, and in that liberation you will naturally, spontaneously be free of your limits by which you do not understand that the welfare of others is your happiness, because the welfare of others is exactly Nothing but your life. Because you're just five skandas and nothing more. And the five skandas are just given to each being by all other beings. So the enlightened being is nothing more than the five skandas, which means the enlightened being is nothing, absolutely nothing in addition to all beings.

[52:45]

Not just all beings, but to the support of all beings. Does that fill it in a little bit? Yes? Yes? Yes. [...] better off than I thought about it a little bit. At some extent, what I say to my spiritual outlook, that seems like a good trigger. And it seems very much in keeping with the spirit of what is compassion, as we explained it in the lecture.

[53:51]

I think the giver is willing to part with something, even if it is his spiritual outlook, in the interest of feeding some Yes, but to part with something, to even part with my spiritual evolution to help someone, okay? Right? Yeah. Is even a higher spiritual evolution. All right? But if I do... So I'll do your example, okay? So giving $100 to someone, and you also added in there that they'd be better off, how would you know that? That's a little trick in there. I'll play it out that you would know. I'll play it out that you would know is helpful. So you see that it's helpful. And not only do you see it's helpful, and then also it's possible. Would it be possible that you would want to help, that you would give the money to the person for some reason other than that you wanted to give it?

[54:57]

What would be the reason to give it other than you wanted to give it? Maybe because people will think you get famous as a very generous person. You're a Buddhist, right? And a lot of people are watching, and you impulsively make this big donation to this person. You don't want that one? Okay, go ahead. Right, so what are you giving it for? What are you... Yes? Right, okay. So at that time you're giving it, you're not resenting it, right? Okay, so why would you resent it later? Right, a little bit later, right? Okay, and I'm saying... I'm saying, isn't that too bad? Because when you were about to give it to the person, how come you couldn't have noticed that you would regret it later?

[56:04]

In other words, helping that person, when you first talked about it, the way you wrote the scenario, helping the person in the first place wasn't to your spiritual disadvantage, was it? No. What was to the spiritual disadvantage in this story, do you think I would say? okay you say honesty as good but also the mindfulness okay now why you know not why just put the mindfulness in there and I'm saying that makes it better for all concerned Now let's say you put the mindfulness in there and you realize, I think that I shouldn't give this much because I'm going to resent it. And you say, well, how about giving more even though you see you resent it and don't worry about your spiritual development if that would be helping the person.

[57:13]

But if you see it's helping the person, then how could you imagine a mind? See, we're resolving this, now we're getting into it, right? This is like getting into it. So you notice, if I give this, Later I'll regret it and that will be to my disadvantage if I regret it. Is it really going to help this person? Am I in the position now where I think this is really going to help them and I'm really going to regret it? It's really going to help them and I'm really going to regret it. And just stay there for a while. Now what about you say they need the money fast? You don't have time for you to contemplate this. What are you going to do? Got a problem there because you notice you might resent it. What I'm saying is get in there and meditate more on how it's going to be beneficial to the person and on the joy you're going to feel of the benefit.

[58:16]

If you get enough into the joy, the resentment will shrivel up. I'm just saying, to give before you have dealt with your resentment, you can say, okay, this is not good for your spiritual development, but who cares if it's really going to be helpful to the person. Forget about it. But such a thought is already starting to deal with this resentment. And also, I wouldn't underestimate this resentment thing. This resentment thing might turn this whole situation of his benefit to a harm. You might even harm the person. We've got to deal with this stingy guy here. We've got to seduce him. And how do you seduce this stingy guy? Not by ignoring him, but by being generous with him too. And his spiritual development is not the spiritual development we're talking about.

[59:21]

Spiritual development is not the stingy guy or the person being helped. Spiritual development is the development of understanding all this stuff is one. This stingy guy, the way to relieve him from stinginess is to be generous with him. And how do you be generous with him? Give him joy. Once he's joyful, there will be no resentment. But if you rush over and sort of say, well, you just shut up, we're going to give to this guy, he's going to take revenge on the situation, and he might take revenge on the very person that you were trying to help. This guy is a powerful negative force if not dealt with gently and wisely. Practicing giving is a good way to take care of him because The joy of giving can completely relax this guy and make him perfectly happy and unafraid of giving everything away. But he's got to realize that he's going to get joy back for giving everything away. It turns out you do.

[60:24]

But if he's going away unsatisfied, he can cause more trouble than the good of the giving, potentially. We don't know. He's an unknown category unless we deal with him. But to forget about your own personal... spiritual development is a tremendous gift. And it's a joy almost greater than any other gift you can give is to give away your whole spiritual evolution. The joy of giving that away is like, again, tremendous. And the joy of giving away your spiritual evolution is very close to being very small. The fact, the willingness to be a petty little psychological being with all the fears and selfishness that you have, giving that away is like actually, for the moment, tossing your spiritual evolution out the window and not worrying about that, but just being honest about who you are. So being concerned with the welfare of others, forgetting about your own spiritual development, and being a small, petty person are basically the same in the same little game area.

[61:35]

Okay? You're welcome, and thank you for hanging in there with me, as difficult as that sometimes is. Okay. Can I temporarily ask you not to use the word okay and talk more in terms of is it beneficial? Let's talk in terms of harm and benefit. Is it beneficial? Okay, so Judy said, is it beneficial

[62:38]

If you feel like you want to give something in the moment to say, I want to give, okay? That's definitely, that's not a problem at all. You didn't give anything yet. You just said you want to give. Okay, that's okay. I think, usually, that's, I mean, that's good, beneficial probably. It makes you happy, especially if you feel happy saying it. If you say, I want to give, and you feel lousy right away, I think we got a problem here. Okay. In the moment, you just, you say you want to give, okay? Can that be beneficial? I would say yes. What's the next phase of the question? In the dialogue you just had, it was, hmm, will I feel resentment later? And I'm saying, instead of worrying about whether I'm going to feel resentment later or not, even though I might be a stingy person, I might feel stingy later, to just go on, oh, I'm going to give, give, feel the joy, and maybe two hours later, Okay, so the question is, is it beneficial to be in a situation where you feel like you want to give and then to give and then later to regret it and feel resentful?

[63:52]

Are you asking if that's... It's perfectly fine to give without thinking about whether you feel resentment. It's perfectly fine to give without thinking that. Yes. Because, in fact, that's all that's going on. You can't do anything but that. Okay? No problem. If resentment comes up later, though, we've got a problem. No, no, no. Sometimes someone asks you for something, and you give it like that, and it's all over, and there's nothing more to it. And it's beneficial, and you feel very happy, no problem. And then sometimes in those cases you feel regret later, then you've got a problem. The regret is a harmful experience usually. That's why I think it is good if you're going to give, if you feel the impulse to give, to try to be as present as you can with the giving and enjoy it as fully as possible.

[65:04]

Because then if any kind of resentment happens later, the joy will protect you. The joy of giving will protect you from the resentment. Yes? If you're just five aggregates, isn't everybody else also five aggregates? Yes, that's right. That's all they are. And now that, but they're not even other than you. Oh, because five aggregates that are just five aggregates, she said, why does it matter if one five aggregates would give up its life for another five aggregates, right?

[66:10]

Because five aggregates that are just five aggregates and nothing more than five aggregates, okay, naturally give up that life if it helps another five aggregates. Pardon? It helps, did I say helps? It helps them because it conveys love. It conveys enlightenment. It conveys liberation from five aggregates as being held. The five aggregates that are nothing more than five aggregates naturally want to share the joy of being nothing more than five aggregates with other five aggregates. Okay? When they have a five aggregates and they're nothing more than five aggregates, that five aggregates is dying to convey the joy of just being five aggregates without adding anything to it.

[67:15]

It's dying to help and share the joy. The joy is like bursting to shine, to spread. Especially, it wants to spread into the area of other five aggregates which are making more of five aggregates than five aggregates. It's strongly attracted to go into those dark areas where the five aggregates are being overlaid with some metaphysical self. It wants to go there. However, it has skill, so it restrains itself from going too far if the other five aggregates aren't ready for the invasion of the body snatchers. But the nature of five aggregates doesn't want to do anything with those five aggregates necessarily except by neural programming, you know, reproduction and so on. But the fact of five aggregates not being more than five aggregates, that's Buddha.

[68:16]

And that wants to help all other five aggregates realize the same happiness and freedom and love. And one of the ways to do it is to take this five aggregates and say, here, feed on me, or whatever. It's just one of the opportunities that five aggregates that are no more than five aggregates can offer other five aggregates. Does that make sense now? Thank you for your question. Does anybody have any questions about this one? Because this is, I think, a very good question and wonderful response. Yes? LAUGHTER Actually, this is about this point. Okay. Okay, this is the question. It's a confession of confusion, and maybe others are sharing this. I hope I'm not alone in it. You're not. I'm with you. Could be. I'm having a lot of trouble grasping what you just said, because I'm new to this kind of psychology, and all my life I've been used to be a socialist.

[69:22]

we've got some kind of indestructible essence that Western traditions usually are usually in the soul, and so it seems, it just seems very strange to imagine that what's going on is, you know, aggregations of... Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful question. Wonderful question. What holds them together? What holds them together is... What holds them together is pure mental fabrication. That's all that holds them together. What holds the five aggregates together, she said. I'm saying what holds them together is metaphysical unity. They actually don't, there's just five of them, and they do not have like a coach, an association.

[70:23]

a unified purpose, a soul, or a self. All that stuff that's laid on top of them is metaphysics. There's no evidence for it. Anything you say that would hold them together, if you tell me whatever it is, I will be able to account for that as one of the five aggregates. There's nothing that we experience that isn't accounted for these five aggregates. There's not a sixth. There's no other thing. Anything you say would go in these five categories. So any kind of unifying thing would just be one of the five or two of the five. There's no unifying thing to the field of experience of a living being. Now, the wonderful part about the question is she brought up this thing about soul or essence. The essence, or the soul in this case, is not really an essence, but the The process of these five things, and these five things don't come up by themselves. You don't, like, just have the form thing come up by itself.

[71:25]

Actually, you do. But for a living being, you don't have, like, just a form thing, except for a dead living being, which is not a living being. When a living being is alive, it isn't just form, it isn't just body, it's consciousness. It isn't just consciousness, it's feeling. It isn't just feeling, it's perception. It isn't just perception, it's all those aggregates, all that complex assemblage of other kinds of emotions and stuff. That's what a human living being is and that's what other living beings are too. Now, what is the essence or what is the light in all that? The way all those things, all those aggregates, the way that none of them ever come up by themselves, and the way they all help each other, the way they all mutually support and co-create each other, that is the light of wisdom and compassion. All five aggregates in their interdependence are radiant wisdom and compassion.

[72:27]

All sentient beings fully possess this wisdom and compassion, which is none other than how the elements of our experience mutually co-create and interdependently support each other. And not only that, not only do all the elements of our own experience do this together, but we do this, this little package of five skandhas does it with all other packages of five skandhas, supports and co-creates them, and they also support and co-create it. That's the next level of brilliance of wisdom and compassion, and why the wisdom and compassion isn't just for the self, or for this five aggregates, but spreads to all of the five aggregates which share the same light. But it's not an essence because it totally transcends the five aggregates, not in a sense that it's bigger, but that it is the reality of their mutual interdependent cooperation and harmony. and liberation. That's Buddhist replacement for the soul, which is totally ungraspable, totally unstoppable.

[73:36]

And all we can do is try to put a little package over that to unify that field and turn the light off and create suffering. And that's the part, if we study this process of five aggregates, we gradually realize that all the different ways we try to cover this are just one of the five aggregates. And we know that none of the five aggregates, actually ourself, none of the five aggregates include the others. They're actually just parts of our living experience. Okay? How are you doing? Scott? I wanted to say that based on your question and her question, that I felt that there was something missing from the discussion for your answer, which seems like there's this danger of discussing whether it's the new psychology, whether it's description of bringing that aggregate, there seems like there's all this danger in which

[74:52]

It's kind of reductionist, my honest, danger of saying, well, yeah, we're just dirt, and we're just these five things, and that means that we're not fortunate enough to be there. It's just kind of things, the chemical, the rising end. Uh-huh. Yeah. We're concerned that we're sensing that reductionist view of it, that some people take something. Well, I can see that when you tell me that there's a danger there, that what you mean is that you could imagine your mind slipping into that way of seeing it? Yeah. Yeah. So there's a danger that your mind will slip into that. So please be careful not to slip into that. My actual experience, though, is, ladies and gentlemen, I have never observed anybody who's actually done this meditation who slipped into that. If you hear about it and don't practice it, you might think it would do that. But when people actually do this meditation, they get very vivid and... It's a very gutsy meditation when you actually look at yourself in terms of these things, these five.

[76:06]

It's not reductionist, it's extremely complex. It's much more complex than any other analysis of psychological experience that's been put forth on the planet. It's much more complex than any psychological analysis system other than Buddhist. The Buddhist one hasn't evolved in terms of its complexity and richness for 2,500 years. Now, Western psychology has some things to offer, but to actually get in there and see things this way is not reductionistic. But if you think about it, you can reduce it into whatever you want. You should be careful not to do that, but actually go right ahead and do it, but then when you do it, try to see how that sapayaskanda is manifesting in a certain way, and then you will have saved yourself from that pit. As a matter of fact, you will have saved yourself from that pit because there would be no you to get in trouble anymore. There would just be the five aggregates, and the self isn't destroyed.

[77:07]

It's just the trouble for the self is not there anymore. The self is still available. It's just the self is a happy self, is a free self, because the self is no longer trying to do this ridiculous thing of trying to be something other, on top of what your life is. The self is just one of the five skandhas. The self is just a form. It's just a color or a sound or a smell or a taste or a touch. Or it's a feeling or it's a perception or it's a concept or it's an emotion or it's a consciousness. It's one of those. That's all there is. That's the only way you can have a sense of a self is one of those. It's the only way. Any sense you give me of yourself will be one of those things. When you see it that way, the self is liberated from belief in its selfhood. Yes, Jackie. soul well it's not so much my definition of soul but rather i think what is meant in the west as soul if if what's meant by the soul is not like a thing but is the is the way everything is interdependent with each other and how things all support each other and how if the soul is how the universe acts through us and how we enliven and save the universe

[78:44]

if that's what you mean by soul, as our light by which we illuminate the universe and the universe is illuminated in us, if that's what you mean by soul, I don't know if that's what it is, but that kind of, in Buddhism, that's the interdependence of our experience. So I'm not exactly qualified to define soul, but if that's what's meant by soul, as our, in some sense, our innate, but not inherent goodness, and the wisdom which harmonizes with all things, then the dependent core rising of the five aggregates would be sort of a similar function as the soul. Did you follow that? I did, but I guess I was thinking more of the soul as being this energy. For example, when people pass, it's this non-physical energy that gives us That's close to what I'm saying, but the way I'm talking is not that the soul's energy, but that the way you and I, when we meet, mutually create each other.

[80:04]

The way we mutually create each other, the way we mutually support each other, that interdependence is not really an energy. It's just that it's more like, it is our interdependence. And our energy is interdependent too. And the way my energy creates yours and yours creates mine and ours creates everybody else's and everybody else creates ours, that's the interdependence of Buddhism. And that's what can be realized when we settle into the smallness of our self and feel how the smallness of ourself is not the smallest of another, and how the smallest of other defines our own smallness, and our smallness makes the smallest of the other, the more we're willing to be small, the more we realize that our smallness creates the whole universe, and the whole universe creates our smallness. I say that, but you can't actually experience that unless you're willing to be small. And the more you're small, the bigger you are.

[81:07]

The more you're small, the more you realize how that smallness is your only gift to the whole universe and a sufficient gift to the whole universe, a divine gift to the whole universe. And the whole universe gives you the smallness. Yes? several occasions about the analytical process of meditating and observing and watching this process. My understanding of zazen is that it is not to be analytical. And when we start analyzing, we're to drive these analysis away and return to breeding. So I'm missing something between the two. Well, I'm not talking about an analysis which is a form of karma.

[82:15]

Like you do this thing called analysis to your experience. I'm not talking about that. Okay? That's not Zazen and I'm not recommending that. Are you okay so far? But what I would suggest to you is that your experience when you're sitting Zazen or following your breathing you are doing analysis for example you analyze your breath out from the sounds in the street you're doing that spontaneously unless When you say follow your breath, you mean be aware of everything in your entire field of experience, including the sounds in the street, the color of the wall, the feeling of your butt on the cushion, the sound of the bell, your feelings of greed, hate, and delusion, your feelings of positive and negative sensation, your sense of consciousness, all your perceptions, your sense of history of the universe, and on and on and on.

[83:17]

If all that's breath, then meditating on breath would not involve any analysis because then breath would be just a short term for meditating on everything, okay? However, when you get into everything and noticing the differences between all the everythings, as manifestations of your breath, your mind would naturally analyze. Your mind naturally analyzes and your consciousness is aware of the difference between anger and pain, between pain and pleasure, between concept of Abraham Lincoln and the concept of a door. Your mind is constantly analyzing and responding in this way to what's happening. Zazen is not to try to think that way. That's the way you're already thinking. Zazen is to notice the way you're already thinking. It's not an additional kind of thinking. It's just to be aware of what you're already doing. And what you're already doing is analyzing. That's how you got in this room. You analyzed the door from the wall and your body from other bodies, and you moved your body into this room by a process of analysis of your sense field, mental and physical.

[84:23]

And that presence with that, being present with yourself as you move in and out of this room and being aware of in detail of everything that's happening to you, that's Zazen. So Zazen is actually just being present and not trying to analyze at all, just being present with this analyzing being naturally opens you up to the awareness of the process of analysis which is going on all the time. And you'll notice that whatever you're experiencing, can be placed in these five aggregates. Or you can put it in, you can not even put them in five aggregates, but put them in 75 categories. Have each, have no groups, but just individual phenomenon. That's also okay. There is no observer of the analytical process. There is only consciousness. There's not an observer. That's why people do think there's an observer or a self.

[85:26]

If you actually come and tell me about this observer, I will point out to you that it's either a consciousness. There's not like a consciousness, perception, greed, hate and delusion, faith and concentration and all that stuff and feelings and body and then an observer. There's not an observer on top of all that. There's just this thinking process. And that's it. There's not an observer, there's not a self in addition. There is a sense of self, but if you tell me about it, we'll find out it's one of these categories. People can have a sense of self which actually is a smell, or a physical touch, or a taste, or a memory, or a feeling. They have a feeling and they feel, that's my feeling, not yours. That's my smell, not yours. That's my face, not yours. It's my anger, not yours. That anger is me. Take that anger away, I lost myself. People have these kind of associations, but there's not actually a self in addition to these five. There can also be a sense of a self or a concept of a self, but it's a concept that's not a self.

[86:29]

So we naturally do this if you're practicing zazen, you naturally open the gate into the workshop of your analytical work and also into your creation of a self and also into your confusion and unclarity about this self. You start to contemplate, you notice the self, and you notice that it's actually nothing but five skandhas. But you don't have to do five skandhas meditation like I'm going to look for five skandhas. You already are looking at them. May our intention be.

[87:09]

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