I don't know if you heard about this, but all sentient beings, all living beings, is the mind of Buddha. Did you know that, about that? And the mind of Buddha, of course, is all sentient beings. And I don't know if I could say that all sentient beings want to know Buddha's mind. I don't know, consciously, I don't know if they all do. Maybe deep down all living beings want to know Buddha's mind. But it's pretty clear that Buddha wants to know all living beings' mind. Hi. Would you tell us your name? Renee. Renee. We have two Renee's. Renee too here. Okay.

[01:01]

So, do you understand? Buddhas want to know the minds of sentient beings. So, the Buddhas want to know if we're getting the teaching of the Buddhas. And you know, one of the main teachings of the Buddha is refrain from all evil. So now, in order that Buddha can know If you understand that teaching, we're going to have a little test and Buddha will be listening. So, what are the causes of evil? Ignorance. Ignorance. Any particular type of ignorance? Any particular things that are ignorant? Self-clinging is ignored. Ill will.

[02:04]

Ill will is ignored. Possessiveness is ignored. Impermanence is ignored. Fear and anger are ignored. Pain is ignored. Dharma is ignored. The Dharma is ignored. Teaching is ignored. So those are some causes for the creation of evil. So what can we do to... Antidote those causes. Study ourselves. Study ourselves. Don't cling to anything.

[03:06]

Don't cling to anything. What amazing. Study this ourselves. Awareness to detail. Awareness to details. See that people and goodness are one thing. See that evil and goodness are one thing? Are they one thing? Are they one thing? Well, check it out. Look at him. And also you could turn around all the things you said you were ignoring. You could look at ill... Turn back and look at ill will, look at possessiveness, look at pain. look at self-clinging, turn back and face these difficult-to-look-at things. All right? In other words, study the causes and conditions of evil. Now, as we talked about last week in some detail,

[04:17]

what, you know, in whatever terms, but what is, what is, we talked about the causes of, the causes of evil, just now. And then we talked about some antidotes to evil. But what is refraining from evil? What do you mean? What else? Taking a backward step. Taking a backward step, that's right. And what is taking a backward step vis-à-vis evil? Repentance. Repentance, yes. And what happens in repentance when you've got evil and you practice repentance and a backward step? Then what are you actually experiencing? Remorse.

[05:19]

Purification. Yes. Well, you don't experience purification. Purification happens. If you see this, if you look and see this is purification, that's not purification. Purification is to be released from your evil. To say that that's purification wouldn't be advised. Forgiveness. Forgiveness. Forgiveness? Well, purification and forgiveness are things that happen to you when you practice repentance. But you don't see your purification and you don't forgive yourself. You get forgiven. Actually, forgiving yourself is to pay attention to what you did. That's all you have to do. You experience the consequences of evil.

[06:20]

Or maybe you re-experience the evil. Part of repentance is to experience the consequences of evil or re-experience the evil. Remorse means to, you know, remorse means to chew again. Re-mulch. It means re-mulch. Re-chew it. Re-munch it. That's remorse. But I guess what I'm pointing at is also the causes and conditions of evil are refraining from evil. Okay? Remember that? Causes and conditions of evil are refraining from evil. Refraining from evil is not doing something. Refraining from evil is not stopping yourself from doing something. Stopping yourself from doing something is evil.

[07:22]

Still, you think you're a person who can do something, you know, like stop yourself from doing something. But refraining from evil is the causes and conditions of evil. The backward step, when you come, the usual way of proceeding is I... do this, I do that. I don't do this, I don't do that. That's the ordinary forward step. This is the way of karma and bondage. The backward step is not like that. The backward step is to learn the place that has nothing to do with action. Like we say, although it's not fabricated, it's not without speech. Although it has nothing to do with action. it can still talk. So, refraining from evil is not an action. It is finding a place where evil is not committed.

[08:34]

It is finding a place where evil can't take effect. In refraining from evil, The individual does not destroy evil and evil doesn't invade the individual. Destroying evil would be evil. Why? Hmm? Why? Do you mean how? No, why? I don't answer why questions. Maybe somebody else can tell you But if you look at evil, you'll notice that evil has exactly the same structure as destroying evil. Taking this backward step is not doing something good either. Taking the backward step is not doing something good, but taking the backward step is doing in the sense of doing which is good.

[09:56]

The way you usually do things is you do things. Doing good is a new kind of doing. So like we also said, precisely this person at this time is avoiding evil. Now when I say that, the usual way of hearing it is, Martha is not doing evil. We don't mean it that way. We mean Martha, her being precisely that person, that is what avoiding evil is. It's not that she's not doing evil. Even if she was doing evil, you know, even if someone thought she was doing evil, even if she thought she was doing evil, the person who is doing evil, being precisely that person, the preciseness of being her is avoiding evil. And Martha being Martha is not doing something. The fact that you're you is not an action.

[10:59]

The fact that you're the way you are is avoiding evil so avoiding evil you see is what's really happening avoiding evil is the way not just the way you are but the fact that you are the way you are this is never there's never can be anything but that okay you never are not who you are And who you are varies from moment to moment, but you're always exactly that. The fact that you're always precisely that is avoiding evil. And that is, if there's any appearance of evil around you at that time, like if you think you're doing evil or somebody else thinks you're doing evil, or there's evil opportunities, all those causes and conditions themselves in themselves, are the avoiding of the evil. Which is the same as you, the fact that you are the way you are, is avoiding evil.

[12:05]

It was Walter. Friend of yours. Also, Walter, go first. All right. Would taking a backward step And why doing, doing, not doing? Doing, not doing? Yep. I'd rather not get into doing, not doing, but it's kind of like that. Taking the backwards step is you being you rather than you doing things. However, you being you Although it is not, you being you is not fabricated. You being you is not doing something. But you being you is not without speech. When you're yourself, speech can come forth from you as you are.

[13:18]

And that speech is invariably kind speech. You can also act from that place. And it is invariably wholesome conduct and compassionate action. But the place you act from is not a place of doing. It is a place of settling yourself on yourself. It is a safe place of stepping backwards from the world of karma to the world of being just as you are. And if there are causes and conditions of evil around you, then you being settled on yourself, the conditions that cause evil are settled on themselves. And them being settled on themselves and them being what they are, evil is avoided. Evil is refrained from.

[14:22]

by them being themselves now if there's no conditions for evil you know in the vicinity like there's no like you know great pain great anger great jealousy or little jealousy or little pain and there's no kind of like squeamishness about facing your situation all these kinds of causes for evil if they're not there well then evil is there's no need to discuss refraining from evil at that time However, if you did discuss it, it wouldn't necessarily be the causes and conditions of evil, which would be the refraining from it. It would just be you being precisely what you are. So like Linda brought up an example, she kind of created an example. Now, what if you're like at a jewelry store and, you know, certain causes and conditions for theft come up? Okay. What would refrain from be like there? And again, it would be, first of all, you being precisely who you are in that jewelry store, and you feeling, you being with how you are.

[15:35]

Are you anxious? Well, probably. I mean, usually you are. Before you went in the jewelry store, you were probably anxious. Then seeing all these jewels, you might get more anxious. Or you might just continue to be anxious in a new way. So, being precisely this anxious person... is learning the backward step. Usually when people go in jewelry stores, they are not trying to learn the backward step. I mean, I say usually, I have not done a census, excuse me. It might be that someone who goes in a jewelry store is not interested in learning the backward step. Sometimes I go in and I forget. In other words, I go in the store and I don't remember that I should step by step as I enter the store, as I approach the jewels, I should be in touch with my anxiety. I should not turn away from my pain. And in my anxiety, many things can happen. Like I can say, hmm, I'd like to have that, or whatever.

[16:40]

That can be just part of the scene. The causes and conditions for evil are when I turn away from my pain, from my anxiety. As I start to turn away from it, causes and conditions from evil are manifesting. If you check out from your pain in the face of these gorgeous things, you might want to get them. Once you're off your place, once you've left yourself and denied your place, you're just a sitting duck for these colors, these lights and these colors. They can take you any place practically. If you can stay with your anxiety, you can meet these colorful things, these valuable things, these precious and beautiful things. You can meet them with balance and equanimity and uprightness and develop the proper relationship with these jewels, which I don't know what that is, but it won't be stealing.

[17:46]

And while you're there, the causes and conditions for evil may be manifesting, but by being intimate with the causes and conditions of evil, they will not take effect. Yes. Could you go over there just a little bit? I'm interested in the part when you go into the jewelry store and it seems to me that you have not to see those things as separate from yourself. And that's where anxiety will come up, it seems to me, because... You're saying that there's separate things if you grasp that, and if you didn't see... First of all, is that so? Do you understand? It is so. You also see the clerks and the other customers as separate from yourself. You see many things as separate from yourself. You're seeing things separate from yourself before you're entered. Therefore, you're anxious before you're entered. And if you continue that pattern of dualistic thinking, you're anxious. The key is... to feel your anxiety.

[18:59]

You're still seeing things as separate, but you're facing the consequences, you're facing your anxiety. By turning back to your anxiety, you have a chance to have the causes of your anxiety revealed to you in the jewelry store. You have a chance to wake up in the jewelry store and get, of course, a jewel much more valuable than any physical jewel. and stay in the jewelry store forever in great happiness or leave the jewelry store with your new jewel or even leave your jewel in the store for the people who work there and go find it out in the street again. But if in our anxiety that we have on the street we go into a jewelry store or some other place that has something to pay attention to other than our own suffering And if we're already turned away from our suffering, then we will see more opportunities to turn away from, to continue to turn away from our suffering, and then to act from this state of ignorance, this state of flight, this state of fleeing from our pain.

[20:17]

And when we act when we're fleeing, although it is possible to flee and be present with the fleeing, But if you're running away from yourself, what you do from there, that's the conditions for evil. Acting from ignorance of yourself. Acting from running away from yourself. But if you're present with yourself, you can do the appropriate thing in this door. Even though the temptation to run away from your own anxiety, the temptation to be distracted by these valuable and beautiful things, and beautiful people and all that, and the salesman talking to you, and many things going on with you, the potential, the opportunity to be distracted and act from distraction is there. But if you're intimate with those causes of evil, then you're intimate with the antidotes to evil, and the evil will not manifest. If you're able to do that with yourself and deal with the anxiety of the field situation, that if you begin to be able to do that fairly rigorously, how does that affect past anxiety that might have built up for so long and be so difficult to recognize?

[21:43]

It's such a jumble of causes and conditions. So what if you can let go of your old patterns, all that mess of anxiety, and start behaving that way? How's that going to affect all that? I'm of the opinion these days, Tia, and Maya, that the causes and conditions for anxiety are Let's not plan on them going away. Let's just kind of go, let's just be ready for anxiety to be a steady state, a fundamental characteristic of our existence. Because if you don't see yourself as separate from others, you don't have a self. So as long as you're in a state of being an individual entity, of being an individual person, you're going to be anxious. However, you can be free of that anxiety right while it's happening if you can somehow be upright with it.

[22:56]

So, if you can face your anxiety, and by face I don't mean just face, like look straight at it, I mean be intimate with it. I mean face it in a balanced way where you don't, you know, you don't turn away from it, but also you don't grasp it and say, this is it. You respect your anxiety. In other words, you look at it and say, oh, there's my anxiety, and then you say, I wonder what this anxiety is anyway. Be a little bit, you know, don't just go in the superficial first response to your anxiety. Listen to it. It's not a fixed thing. It arises from certain separations and fixities which are essential for an individual person. What we have a chance to do here is not so much get rid of anxiety, but to hear what it has to say.

[24:11]

If you can settle and be quiet with your anxiety, you will be able to hear something It will tell you a secret about life. Other things can also tell you the secret of life. Other things can reveal the universe to you too. Okay? And we should listen to them also. But if we don't listen to our anxieties, and don't hear the revelation of the pain, that closeness also means every other dharma, every other thing, every bird, every person, every river, every mountain, every sky, they also close their eyes. We also close our eyes to them. We have to open our eyes, open our hearts to that which we tend not to open to.

[25:16]

We must particularly focus on what we have abandoned, If we go back to what we have abandoned, we will understand what we think we haven't abandoned. Certain things we haven't abandoned, like money or power or whatever, but we don't, since we've abandoned certain things, we still don't understand what power and certain other things are. We see them, we are interested in them, but we don't see them because we've closed our eyes. If we open our eyes to what we shut our eyes to, our eyes will open on everything. But of course, we have a hard time opening our eyes to what we've closed our eyes to. Opening our eyes to what we've closed our eyes to is called learning the backward step. It's called reversing our habits and trying something new.

[26:16]

Something animal-like here. So, learning the backward step is not that, you know, usually our tendency is to move, like animals usually move away from pain. So, learning the backward step is not that you don't move away from pain, in the sense of you move towards pain, okay? Usually we run away from pain. So, learning the backward step is not to run towards pain. That's like touching. That's like sticking your head in it. The backward step is to just not run away. Okay? And not running away, though, is not to run towards. Not running away is to be just settled and present with the pain, with the anxiety. And in that position of uprightness and listening, we hear the secret. And then we listen also to the anxiety of all living beings and all things. All things have anxiety. We listen to the anxiety of everything. And then the full story of the joy of things we can hear, too.

[27:23]

we don't just hear the joy, we have the open hearing of the joy. The joy also has a secret. And no one... I can't tell you what the secret is, but you can hear it if you... if you listen. Yes? The way you were using the words avoid and refrain, it seems like they're interchangeable. Sometimes you say avoid and sometimes refrain from. Yeah. But... I find that when I hear the word avoid, I have more difficulty with that as a term. Uh-huh. But refrain, I actually don't know what the root of refrain is. Do something again, I guess. Probably. So somehow that seems, the avoid seems like averting or getting. Yeah. Ignoring. It seems like more ignoring. Yeah. Where the refrain, well, refrain. It's more upright. Yeah, I agree. However, when somebody says a void, you should still listen to it and see what it really is saying.

[28:30]

Because when I say a void, I don't mean a void. Unless I'm making a mistake. But the mistake is not that I'm using the word a void. The mistake is that I don't understand what I'm saying. When I use the word avoid, I don't mean avoid like go away from. I mean it in the sense of true avoidance is not going away from something. If you go away from it, you're still subject to it. What I mean by avoid is not that kind of avoid. I mean avoid like the thing is still there, but we're not enslaved by it anymore. That's what I mean by avoid. Now, if I say avoid... and I mean it in this dualistic way, then that's a mistake in my understanding of the word avoid, which I can do, I can make that mistake. But it's not, I didn't make a mistake to use the word avoid because if I can use the word avoid in the right way, then it's an opportunity for you to see if you can hear what it's actually saying.

[29:36]

So I don't want to always use the words where you don't have to listen. I use certain words, you can kind of like, they like force you to think right, you know? So I can program you into that. But occasionally I have to throw out words that are tempting for you to misunderstand them to see if you can be still and not lean into that tendency and hear what they're really saying. But I also can fall in that pit too. But it isn't the word that's causing the problem. It's my lack of balance with the word. It's my grabbing the word or avoiding the word. It's my falling into the habit with it. And void is a word that's more tempting than refrain for most people. But some people have this history with refrain, so it means, you know, my grandfather said refrain, and then you know what happened or something like that, you know. So we have these different histories, and I share this history of being from Minnesota in the same background of a boy. I guess a refrain in a song is... Yeah. What is it?

[30:37]

The refrain is over again. Say it over again. Well, it's not just say it over again. It's the part of the song that you say over again. It's the part of the song that's reiterated. So it's a section of the song. It's kind of like a rhythmical element, right? So, yeah, we should study that word refrain. Una. If we open our eyes to the to our own anxiety? How does it follow then that we open our eyes to the anxiety of the world? Oh. Did you just realize? I did so. Okay. I missed them. Can you, can you elucidate what happened to you? Um, Well, it just struck me that seeing myself as separate from the world, that would make me ask the question.

[31:53]

Opening your eyes to one thing does not necessarily mean you're going to open your eyes to everything, but particularly when you open your eyes to what you... betrayed and abandoned. That's a pivotal kind of blinding activity. And the deeper, the more fundamental the denial and the rejection, the more likely that lots of other eyes will open. And pain is a very deep and basic thing we deny. And self is a very basic thing we deny. because self is at the root of our personality. And we're talking mostly about personality problems here. But it's even deeper than even our personality, even before our personality manifests, just our existence.

[33:08]

Our existence before there's a personality has this anxiety in it. So this basic anxiety of our being in dynamic with non-being is unavoidable ingredient in life for us humans, human beings. Wouldn't you have to come to the point of seeing that? Seeing what? You can't do this. You can't act on something that you don't see. Because that would create evil. You'd have to see. See what? See what the ego is. Yes, and what else?

[34:12]

Yeah, see, what is evil? When I go into a jewelry store and I want to hide some jewels and I do it blindly by just taking them, that's evil. Yeah, I agree. But if I go in and I... I go in with the intention to steal. Yes. and suddenly I see the pain that it has caused me and I refrain from taking the cure. That's seeing something that I didn't see before. You saw some pain that you didn't see before? What? You saw some pain that you didn't see before? I felt pain that I didn't see before.

[35:16]

Yeah, and you might also have seen your motivation, which you didn't see before. I mentioned the other day that in Buddhism, if you do something unwholesome, it's more unwholesome if you do it unconsciously than if you do it consciously. To become conscious of unwholesomeness doesn't make the unwholesomeness better, but is a better state of mind than to be unconscious of it. And it's the opposite of good. To do good consciously isn't as good as to do good unconsciously. In other words, to do good and not be thinking you're doing good is a better good than to be doing good and saying you're doing good. But if you're going to do something bad, it's better to say, here I am doing something bad, because... Because once you see that, once you're conscious of it, you have a chance of waking up and becoming free of that.

[36:17]

Because if you can see the causes, either I'm doing a bad thing or I see the causes of this bad thing coming together, if you can see them and finally get so intimate that you're not even seeing them, but you're just completely unified and intimate with the causes, So there isn't even like you outside looking at the causes and conditions of evil, but there is just, because you are one of the causes and conditions of evil, because we're talking about for ourself, we're not talking about looking at the causes and conditions of other people's evil. Looking at the causes and conditions of other people's evil is one of the key ingredients in creating evil. That was a major, what do you call it, a separate comment, another agenda, which I saw some faces twisting and turning when I said that. But if you want to, I can come back to that later.

[37:20]

But anyway, in terms of what Walter's saying, if you're approaching a situation and you're conscious of your motivation, you have a chance of waking up to even more of the causes and conditions of evil, because your motivation to do this dealing is one of the causes, It's not the only cause. If the thing's not there, that's a different situation than the thing is there. So if you're out in the middle of the desert and you're thinking of robbing a jewelry store, it's different than if you think of it in the jewelry store. It's a different situation. So it doesn't mean you can't commit an evil act in the desert vis-a-vis the jewelry store. You can't. but it's different than individual restoration. So you look at the causes and conditions, and you are also one of the causes and conditions which we all often overlook. It's very important to remember yourself because you have to be included in the causal situation so that there's intimacy, no duality.

[38:21]

You plus all the conditions are the causes and conditions, and that mass of reality is the avoidance of you. I missed a couple classes and you covered this because I seem to be caught in a kind of a way of looking at the word evil and wondering if there's a difference between a harmful act and an evil act. In other words, if the person steals the jewels in a traditional or conditional way, I don't see that as an evil act. I see it as a harmful act. What would be harmful in the way you're seeing it? What's harmful about that? Huh? What's harmful about stealing? In this particular case, especially.

[39:37]

Well, you don't know that for sure. Well, but you guess you still don't know that. Like, you know the story of Les Miserables, right? The escaped convict comes in and the priest puts him up for the night and then he steals the priest's stuff. Is the stealing of the stuff what caused the priest pain? Or was it the suffering of the man that caused the priest pain? When the police caught the guy and brought him back, the priest said, he didn't steal this stuff, I gave it to him. And I think when that guy stole that stuff, it hurt the priest, but I think the priest was hurting for this guy before he stole this stuff. You could have that scenario too. But when they brought the guy back, he said, no, I gave him those silver plates. And the police said, okay. And then the escape convict said, you didn't give me that stuff. What did you say that for? He said, yes, I did. And here, take these silver candlesticks too.

[40:41]

And the guy broke down. So did that guy do harm when he stole those silver plates? Did he do harm? His stealing of those silver plates actually gave the police a chance to catch him, which is good for them. They carved him. They got to bring him back and have the experience of the priest telling them that he gave this thug these plates, which is also very edifying for the police. So they went away with a whole nice experience. He gave the priest a chance to do this great act of generosity and started to wake this guy up. And then when he gave him the other candlesticks, the guy woke up and was totally converted for life. which i think can happen was it bad that he stole the stuff was that the evil thing you could say so i'm not going to argue with you but i'm not sure if that was bad to me actually the whole thing's imaginary but that story uh if it happened you i wouldn't be so sure that his stealing was that bad that it hurt i don't think it necessarily hurt the priest hurt the police did it hurt him

[41:46]

In a way you could say it hurt him mostly because it hardened his heart more because the priest was the one person that took care of him and took him in and he struck back at the person who was kind to him. So he was the main person that was hurt. But still, what was the evil? What is evil? I think the evil, the fundamental evil is he turned away from himself and who he was. And that was what got him in the position in the first place. That's what got him into prison. That's what got him... He was a very kind person for a while and then he got harder and harder and turned more and more away from himself because he was actually a good person but he kept turning more and more away from his pain and more and more into hate. Until finally he was totally... There was nothing left of him. He was just hate. And the priest woke him up again. Got him to go back and look again. By being so generous, he went back and looked. The evil is ignorance.

[42:49]

It's not stealing things. Stealing things is not necessarily harmful. And the most, the evil is primarily harmful to the individual committing it. And secondarily and importantly, potentially harmful to those relationship to him but the evil is mostly hurts the person who does it because there are many people that you can do something very bad for yourself and it will not be harmful to them even though they'll feel pain if they're compassionate they'll feel pain for you but the pain they feel for you does not hurt them it helps them because it gives them another chance to practice compassion They're in the world to feel pain at what you do to hurt yourself. You don't hurt a compassionate person by hurting yourself. You don't harm them. You hurt them. But they are built to hurt when you hurt yourself. You don't do damage to them. You promote their Buddhahood. Now, if someone's another thief...

[43:50]

and you steal, then, you know, you might kind of set an example for them to steal too. And then you've set a bad example. Then you maybe hurt them because you encourage them to go away from being compassionate and be like you, who's denying herself. So fundamentally, evil is ignorance, is to turn away from what's happening. is to turn away from the basic anxiety of our existence. The basic anxiety of our existence is the way we respond to the reality of the nature of our existence. And the nature of our existence is impermanence, is incredible energy and dynamism and mutuality, and that you, poor little thing you are, are creating all beings, And all beings are creating you. This is our existence which we cannot stand to face. But we must. Because when we don't, we aren't left alone. We experience anxiety.

[44:52]

We can't just turn away from the reality of our radiance. When we turn away from it, we get punished. And the punishment is anxiety. We get choked. We get tormented when we turn away. We can't face it. And we get punished when we turn away. by anxiety, get punished more, and so on. It just gets worse and worse. We have to turn around, look at the pain, face the anxiety, and finally face the radiance of our existence. And there, evil is refrained from. But if we turn away from that place, If we veer away from that place, which we do constantly because our meditation practice is not deep enough for us to situate ourselves in the face of this awesome anxiety. The saints of many traditions have said human beings can only stand to face that for a flash. They did face it for a flash.

[45:56]

And Buddhism would say the same, you can only face it for a flash, but you can face it for a flash after flash. It's possible. By many years of practice, you can face it flash after flash. Finally, the Buddhas have been able to face it flash after flash. Finally, after many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years of practice, they can face it. Almost consistently. But it is difficult. Turning away from it is the fundamental evil. Facing the causes and conditions of that turning away, of that ignorance... is refrained from evil. And that is to be precisely who you are. When you're precisely who you are, you are a person who is faced with non-being. And that non-being gives you your existence. And your being gives non-being meaning. Because non-being, before there's being, it's nothing.

[47:00]

It has no... There isn't really non-being before there's being. Being gives meaning to non-being. And non-being challenges being. So we commit evil when we turn away from our basic nature. That's fundamentally it. And then once we're off-center... once we're wandering away from our home, we fall into all kinds of trouble. Like, you know how Japanese people, when they're traveling, Japanese businessmen, when they're outside of Japan, they think they can do whatever they want. Because these people aren't Japanese, you know? They wouldn't do certain, they don't, when they're in Hong Kong or Singapore, they do things which they would never do in Japan. Because they're home. When you're home, there's certain things which you just don't do.

[48:08]

And if you do do them, there's consciousness of it. The kids, you know, unless it's a dysfunctional family where you do it and everybody pretends like you're not doing it. You know, no, Dad, you're not doing that. No. Like, you know the definition of a bachelor? It's somebody... who thinks he's perfect. Is that a joke? I thought it was a joke, and usually it isn't, but this group is in shock, apparently. I laughed, actually. Good, you're still awake. And they don't say what the definition of a spinster is. They don't say it in a society way. They don't say the definition of a spinster is someone who thinks she's perfect. because spinsters are harassed by society so much that it's hard for them to think of that. Unless they become school teachers.

[49:11]

Or nuns. Then they can pick on the kids and feel, you know, all powerful. But basically, we don't usually criticize bachelors for being bachelors, but we often criticize women who have never been married. But if you get married, unless you've, you know, what do you call it, smashed your wife into smithereens, she probably will make you aware of some problems you have. Free of charge. Yeah, free of charge, except that's a high price to pay. So... Yeah, but women don't seem to need to get married to get that information. Unmarried women don't seem to be walking around thinking that they're perfect. I haven't found that so much.

[50:16]

But bachelors are more likely to just think, hey, I've got it together, you know. And I think the society kind of goes along with it. Well, the statistics show that men who are not married are more unhappy than men who are not married. Right. They live shorter lives, too. So much for perfection. Yeah, right. So much for perfection. There you go, folks. To get married and find out you're a jerk is a healthy thing. Like I said before... To become aware of your faults is an increase in awakening. The most... We provide that service for each other here also. That's sort of like being married. Yeah, we provide that service for each other here at Green Gulch. But not as much as we should, because we're scared.

[51:20]

And we're scared because we're turning away from... We don't want to face our anxiety. If we would face our anxiety, we'd provide that service much more. but not by going around criticizing each other. That wouldn't be the way. We would provide the service by showing people how aware we are of our own faults. And they would say, you know, they would say, geez, you know, I don't think you're that bad. I wonder why you think you have all these problems. I don't have any. And then we think, gee, it's funny that she has all these problems. She's so self-critical and she sees all these failings and makes all these mistakes and I don't make any. You might even say it to her. You might say, gee, it's really funny that you have all these problems and I don't have any. And she might say, yeah, it is funny. Then you might think, well, maybe I do have some problems. I wonder what they might be. Maybe there's something like, but gee, the problems you have.

[52:24]

Maybe I'm also turning away from my suffering like you tell me you are. Maybe I'm also ignoring my basic anxiety like you tell me about. So in this way, if you're doing your work, other people find out about it. They can if they want to, although it's amazing how... It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing how many things I overlook. I am incredibly gifted at ignoring things. When you were giving the example of the jewelry store, I was having a hard time imagining anxiety in that situation, and then I immediately tripped over to people and that's where my anxiety comes from yeah i think so i agree i'm just saying if you weren't aware of your anxiety in relationship to people when you're on the street as you're walking around the street you know i picture union square you know near tiffany's

[53:42]

or some other places, if you're not aware of your anxiety in relationship to the people on the street, and you're checked off in that anxiety, then you've got, the conditions for evil are right there, already. You don't have to go in a jewelry store to get in trouble. But wherever you go, your ignorance and your betrayal of yourself will go with you, unless you turn around and pay attention. I was thinking of right here. Yeah, right here. Right. In the Fear and Fearlessness workshop, the first one I did, I tried to do various scary things, but I realized just before it was too late that the scariest thing for people is to be themselves. So then in this second workshop, I just asked people to be themselves. And that turned out to be really scary and anxiety-producing, so it was great.

[54:47]

And they had the courage to try to be themselves and they found out what it's like. And it was a very successful experiment in that, so. Any other questions about this practice of avoiding evil, Martha? No, thank you. Yes, Linda. I would like to go back to that point about if you unconsciously... Can we do that? Yeah. If you do something unconsciously, it's... Oh, there was another point that I looked at, is that you don't go around looking at other people's evil. That's not the practice. You don't look at the causes and conditions of other people's evil. Now, in fact, we do.

[55:49]

But actually we don't look at the causes and conditions so much, we just look at their evil. And looking at other people's evil is a cause and condition for evil. That you look at them and think that they have evil and that they're separate from you, and don't understand that you're seeing a reflection of yourself. then that's, again, turning away from something. Most of us will not lose our ability to notice other people's faults. This will not be a major problem. If we run into anybody who can't do that, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. And we may have to give them a remedial course in noticing other people's faults. But it may not be necessary to do it right away. Matter of fact, if we find somebody like that, maybe we should study with them for a while first. And kind of figure out how they manage not to notice these things. How do you not notice this person such of this? Now sometimes people don't notice things because they're in a state of denial of their own stuff.

[56:56]

So they're just like so depressed that they don't notice anything. That's a little different. But basically somebody who's alert and basically just... Anyway. It's not focusing on other people's problems, other people's evil. It's focusing on our own. And so, the usual way is when we say, fear no evil, it's like fear no evil out there. Fear no evil means don't be afraid to look at your own evil. It won't hurt you to look at your own evil. Again, most people think, looking at your own evil, you might get too close to it and get infected by it. It's some kind of feeling like, my evil, ew. You're evil. That's interesting. Yeah, look at that. Evil, evil, evil. That's okay. You don't get affected by that by noticing it. But your own, you might sink into it. It might take over. It might get all evil. And I would say that would be good if you realized how completely covered you are by evil.

[58:00]

And the more you realize you're covered by evil, the more awake you're getting. And when you're completely intimate with evil, you will refrain from it. The only way you can do evil is when it's separate from you. When evil isn't separate from you, you won't deny yourself anymore. You won't turn away from pain. So we have to become evil, anxious, suffering beings. The Buddha was evil, was a person who became an evil, anxious, suffering being. The Buddha wasn't, we aren't evil, anxious, suffering beings, it's just that we are beings who are exposed to constantly evil, anxiety and suffering. If you become that, if you're completely absorbed in that, you will be spontaneously, irrevocably liberated from it.

[59:06]

And then all that stuff will be the evil and the anxiety and the pain will be fuel for your creative expression of compassion. Would you say that the acknowledgement of my own evil is the doorways to Yes. And even a little bit better than just acknowledging it, acknowledging it and examining it. A fundamental principle in the path of the Bodhisattva is that all beings are protected by examination of our own faults. our own mistakes. It's not that all beings are protected by examining their mistakes.

[60:11]

All beings are not protected by you fixing them up. Matter of fact, if I, the evil one, go around trying to fix you people up, I'll do a lot of damage. You people better get away from me. But if I turn around and look at my own mistakes, you're fairly safe. I'm pretty busy. Can't do much harm. You're protected. You're protected. But you're not just protected from me. If I set that example, you're also protected from yourself. If I really get into it, if I really study it. So it's not just acknowledge and examine. But again, examine isn't necessarily like stick your head in your faults and bang yourself over the head with your faults. It's examine, you know, like a really good scientist, or a really good artist, or a really good musician. Examine with awareness, softness, flexibility, courage, you know.

[61:18]

Compassion. Compassion. Kindness. Examine with skill. Yes? Could you say, do you have any thoughts on skill, my being, anything? What I say, doing what I just said, is not doing anything? Yes. Yes. It just clearly... Inquiry during zazen is your... that's... What I'm talking about is not... you don't do this in zazen, this is zazen. This is zazen. Zazen is to be upright. When you're upright, you naturally... this stuff is revealed to you. You didn't used to say inquiry, you used to say don't do anything. This kind of inquiry, this kind of examination is not doing anything. It's just being honest. Being honest isn't like some extra thing you do. Lying is an extra thing. You know, what's this? A horse. Huh? A what? A horse. Yeah, that's extra, I'd say. Okay? That was extra.

[62:22]

Just, you're sitting, things are revealed to you. As they are, that's not doing anything. That's just clearly observing. So even observing with the lack of mind of... It's just a, yes, question. Yeah, okay, this is good. I'm not actively questioning, but... It turns out that when you're upright with things, you naturally go deeper with them. If you lean into them to go deeper... You go deeper in the way you lean, but you don't go deeper in all the other ways from which you just turned away. So when you're upright, you investigate, like let's say some mistake comes up to you. If you're upright with it, then suddenly it comes to you from this angle too. It comes from here. It comes from inside. That deepens and furthers and expands the investigation. But if something comes up, some mistake or some difficulty or whatever, and then you kind of like go over towards it and start getting into it and taking it apart, that's kind of investigation, but then all this other information is coming in you're turning away from.

[63:38]

Let's say that to me is more like an analysis. Yeah, analysis, yeah. You didn't say that when you were just down and we were talking. You were saying, you know, it's... Yeah. Okay. So to examine what I'm hearing, what I'm imagining, let's not say analysis because it's way too much. Again, like what I said to Linda, you can say analysis too. I could say analyze your mistakes, but it has to be analyzed in this upright fashion. Then there's not a kind of discursive discussion that happens. That's the... This uprightness is not to be discursive, but when you're upright, discursive thinking can manifest. It isn't like when you're upright, this huge van, this mobile analysis equipment isn't going to drive up and sit down in front of you and open up and all these computers come in.

[64:42]

It's not like that's not going to happen. It's going to happen. If you just sit there, everything is going to come and do its thing in front of your face. Analysis is going to happen, investigation, science, art, politics, everything is going to manifest in front of you. The whole world is going to come and present itself. Your job is to not be fooled. Your job is to be honest about what's happening. But being honest about what's happening is not something in addition to just sort of like hearing the sound of a truck. smelling the gas, watching the computer being unfolded. That, just being that way is investigation, is analysis, but it's an analysis which isn't like you doing it or leaning into it. It's an analysis which is all things coming to you and presenting an analysis. All things coming to them in their analyzed presentation. sound, smell, touch, pain.

[65:43]

In fact, things have been analyzed for you by the universe and are presented to you in their constituent elements. Our job is to not be biased and say, oh, I can learn about this. But it's like not exactly a path of mind. Like Mrs. Ugroshi said, a very basic mind. Yes. It seems like it's an open mind. Did he say that? Were you showing me where I said that? Show me where I said it. I'd like to see it. Okay, so it's like readiness, yeah. It's an investigation which is readiness. And when you're ready, it isn't that you're ready for something coming in your front. It isn't that you're ready for something from the back. It isn't that you're ready for something inside. It isn't that you're ready for raccoons. It isn't that you're ready for evil. It isn't that you're ready for your mistakes. You're just ready. And mistakes come. You know, joy comes. Mistakes come and they start unfolding and getting analyzed in front of your face.

[66:46]

Or other examples of the same mistake appear to you. Or you start to notice how you're downplaying the mistake. All this stuff is revealed to you. Are you saying receptive? Pardon? Is that receptive? Being receptive? Being ready is being receptive. Just being ready and being upright, you are receptive. But receptive isn't the only part of it because it isn't just passive. When you're upright, you naturally also penetrate things. Your mind penetrates them. But it isn't that you penetrate them by doing something. Your mind penetrates because the things come in and they go... The things come up to you and go... They go deeper and deeper. They unfold. They show you more and more. Every thing, they just go like this. But it isn't that you get in there and turn the pages because if you turn the pages, you'll turn them according to your habits. You'll just go into a rut. Huh? Yeah, you'll commit evil.

[67:49]

But being upright, you drop your habits and get revelation. So like, again, I've told you this many times. Thoreau said, all you need to do in Walden is to sit long enough in an attractive spot in the forest and all the inhabitants will exhibit themselves to you in turn. And he didn't say in their turn. I don't think he said in their turn, but it will be in their turn. If you sit down there and you're sitting there and raccoons come, you might say, okay, now we're going to study raccoons. But the raccoon goes away. So you don't get to say, well, stay here, I'm going to study raccoons. You're going to be taught about raccoons by the fact that they come and they stay as long as they want to when they go. You're being taught by raccoons. They're being revealed to you. You may say, okay, today raccoons, no. Today raccoons, no. Snakes today, or bears. But they will all come. If you sit long enough, they will all come. All things will come. And also all aspects of all things will come. So, but it's important.

[68:53]

One of the things that will come is your mistakes. You will see your mistakes. And if you sit long enough, you will see all aspects of your mistakes, and you will investigate through your uprightness, not through your, you know, oh, I'll go deeper there, and this is not so important. The part that's not so important is, of course, where you really should go. But you shouldn't say, well, I'll study what I don't think is important then. That won't work either. You just sit there, and in fact, what isn't important will come, and somehow you'll realize, oh my God, there was a treasure of information in what I had abandoned. Generally speaking, it's what you've abandoned. But you don't have to stick your head in what you've abandoned. You just be upright, and little by little, the abandoned one will come back and say, well, can I show you now? And very gently you say, almost, don't even say yes. Because if you say yes, it might jump away. Just inside, just pray, you know, please reveal yourself to me.

[69:54]

Don't run away again. I'm ready for you. I don't know what direction you're going to come or what you're going to say. Just be very still when it comes. And even if it asks you if it can come, be very careful to answer. Maybe you shouldn't say anything. And that's the same way with the way your faults come to you. If your faults come, don't grab them and say, this is a fault! Or, this isn't so bad. Or, this is really terrible. Like I told you that story, you know, about when I did that thing with my wife and I said, this is the stupidest thing I ever did. And she said, you give yourself a compliment even when you confess. So, some evil comes, right? You say, oh, this is terrible. But really, what that means is, The other things I've done aren't so bad. Because this is terrible. Actually, you did this, but this is nothing compared to the other things you did. So you don't have to say this is terrible. Just there it is. Okay, wow. Maybe wow is okay. Because you can say wow to other stuff too.

[70:56]

That's not really a comparative statement necessarily. Wow, I am evil is okay, but now, not wow, this is the worst thing I've ever done. Probably not. What is it? Not. Yes? I have a question. There's a point, and I don't remember the exact context, but you were talking about denial of self. I wondered exactly what you meant by that. Is it denial of the true self? Well, the first denial that comes up is, you know, you have something to say, and somebody who has some influence on you says, don't be that way. Otherwise... I'm not going to love you or I'm going to, you know, something's going to happen if you keep being the way you are. And you say, okay, well, I'll drop it then. And that's not so bad if you just say, okay, I'll drop it because I want this person to give me a dollar, okay?

[71:58]

But the problem is that it's hard to keep remembering that you dropped yourself and put yourself aside for the dollar. without it popping up again. So it's better if you just completely hide it. Then you've denied it. I mean, it wasn't just temporary for expedience. Where you still feel, that's really still me. I just gave in for a second. It's sometimes okay to do that if you really don't lose consciousness. But it's hard for us to do that because on some level we really feel bad about doing that because we really love ourselves and we know that to put ourselves down or pretend we're not that way or be the slightest bit dishonest about what we're saying isn't worth anything. Nothing's worth it except if it would help someone else. But in that case, the strange thing is that when you do it for that reason, you don't deny yourself. When you do it for that reason, you don't forget yourself. I mean, you don't hide yourself. You can remember that because it is really that self that wanted to help this person and therefore is willing to do anything, like pretend that you've forgotten yourself or denied yourself.

[73:02]

That way you remember it. But when you do it for yourself... you deny yourself. Because yourself is so wonderful, you don't have to do anything for it. That's how you really feel about it. And if for some petty thing, like avoiding a little pain, or getting some approval if you do it for that reason, like, it just simply doesn't work, you know. Because you want approval of yourself, so then you be a different way, so they'll approve that. Right? It doesn't work. It's... I mean, you just have hurt yourself, and you've hurt them too. That's what I mean by self-denial, self-rejection, self-betrayal. It's evil. That's not all that it takes to make evil, but that is a crucial factor in creating evil, that kind of thing. Because it hurts everybody.

[74:04]

And it hurts. It hurts you deeply. And it misleads others. It's lying. And it's abusing the three treasures. It's killing. It's taking what's not given. It's bad stuff to do that. It's fundamentally, deeply evil. Harmful to everybody. And you have to stay upright in order to not do that. Just being defensive won't be good enough. You have to be upright and feel the pain and the anxiety of somebody saying, would you please be different than you are? Would you please not cry? Would you please get it together? Would you please be not like you? And if you do, I'll reward you. Because when you're yourself, it reminds me that I have abandoned myself and I can't stand to see that.

[75:05]

So don't be yourself. So then I won't be reminded that I'm not being myself. You're reminding me of this terrible evil I did to myself. Stop doing that. And, you know, I'll reward you or punish you or one or the other or both, you know, in some way, whatever we'll do. So you'll give it up. So you'll lie. Okay? And we sometimes say, okay. And then we forget we did it. And then it's a long, tough road. But fortunately, you know, it doesn't work. So something else fights back. And we know there's something wrong in Denmark, but we don't know what it is. And gradually we work our way back to uprightness and do the thing which we couldn't do before. But now we're adults. We're strong adults. enough to face and we can recover, if you excuse the expression. So, we showed the Buddha our mind.

[76:14]

Buddha got to see our study of the Buddha's teaching. The Buddha is happy that we studied the Buddha's teaching tonight. and expressed our understanding and worked on our understanding. Very nice of us to study Buddha's teaching, isn't it? Kind of repays Buddha's kindness to giving us the teaching. Thank you very much. Thank you. I don't know if you can see it.

[76:55]

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