Karma, as we've said repeatedly, is defined as intention or volition. and it has consequence, or it is volition or intention that has consequence. Further, I would suggest that intention is a pattern of relationship, a pattern of relationship. First of all, it's a pattern of relationship within cognition.

[01:10]

But the patterns of relationship within cognition also include how the knowing of the relationship of the cognizer or the cognition and the rest of the world. So it's both the pattern of different mental factors within consciousness that make a pattern of relationship, which is intention. But often the intention is often in relationship to the world. So in your mind you could have, for example, some sense of pain and some aversion towards the pain, or some discomfort and some aversion in relationship to the discomfort. And it could be aversion towards some material phenomena or a living being or the appearance of a living being. You could be seeing a living being, a person, feel some discomfort as arising in that seeing, feel some aversion towards it.

[02:24]

And this pattern starts to sketch out a relationship within your awareness, a relationship of your being and the other person, a relationship of where you maybe, it looks like a relationship of where there's some kind of like a pattern which might be seen as an intention to avoid the person. Does that make some sense? So it's within the mind, in a sense, this pattern, but in this example it's a pattern within the mind of a relationship between the feelings and emotions arising with the awareness of this other person. So it's a relationship with the other person too. Furthermore, I pointed out over and over again that cognition itself, the basic knowing, like the awareness of a color or a person,

[03:26]

the cognition itself arises from the interaction of the living body, or the lived body, which is the living sense organs, and the world, which we're sensitive to. That interaction is cognition. So the interaction is relational, of course. Cognition arises relationally. between a living body and a lived-in world or the part of the world we live in relationship to. Cognition arises relationally and then the pattern of relationship in the cognition besides the pattern of relation of its origination is the karma or intention. So intention is in a sense it's nothing you can grasp aside from relationship. It's really a relationship.

[04:30]

All cognitions arise with a pattern of relationship, which is an intention and that intention has consequence. It's a pattern of relationship that is a condition for other patterns of relationship, other intentions. It is part of the world in which the body is interacting and giving rise to further cognitions which have further patterns of relationship, which are further intentions, which have further consequences. The pattern of relationship is ungraspable except through all the things that are relating. So in a sense, karma is ungraspable, but it has consequence. It has conditions.

[05:43]

So it's caused and it has consequences, but it's hard to grasp it. Worlds, or maybe I'll say this like I said before, not everything that we experience is the result of karma. Sometimes people think everything that happens is a result of karma. The Buddha Dharma does not suggest that. Some things are karmic result, but not everything. There's other conditions for various experiences, like we mentioned, various physical setups, the change of season. other people's activity in relationship to us. There's eight different factors that the Buddha mentioned. One of them is maturation of karma. So our various experiences are somewhat due.

[06:47]

Our karma is one factor in our moment-to-moment experience. And our moment-to-moment experience has a pattern of relationship which again is the karma of the moment. So karma is a condition for our karma. But karma is not the main reason for every aspect of the pattern of our relationship. However, karma is the main thing that's pointed to as the condition or the contributing factor to worlds. Worlds represent the consequences of karma. Worlds arise depending on intention. But all the different elements in the world are not just due to karma. But intention, being a pattern of relationship, and not just an intention, but all of our intentions working together, all these patterns of relationship create worlds.

[07:55]

The world we're living in is not the same as each of our individual feelings at the moment or our individual emotions. Not every emotion, feeling, physical condition and so on that we're experiencing is the result of past karma. But the world we live in is the result of all of our karma. all of our relationships. And another thing about the karmic relationships is that they are a relationship between past, present, and future. In particular, karma is present intention. But present intention is really nothing more than the relationship between past and future. So again, present intention is difficult to grasp because the fullness of present intention is not really realized until its consequence manifests.

[09:00]

If you intend to avoid somebody before they are avoided and before the consequences of the impulse to avoid them, or the intention to avoid them is manifested, what that intention is has not really been realized. So in some sense, because karma is relational and part of the relation is the relationship between present and future and also past and present and and past and future because karma is the link is the relationship between past and future in the present you could say but again it's so it's that but it's not just that it's the link but the meaning of the link also depends on the future so it's really almost nothing you can grasp in and of itself So a key thing here is that karma is responsible for suffering and ignorance.

[10:12]

But another way to say it is ignorance as to the nature of karma perpetuates karma, which perpetuates ignorance and suffering. But as we study karma and find out its nature, which is really ungraspable, and yet even though it's ungraspable, can be understood. Or put it another way, if you grasp the nature of karma, you don't yet understand it. Because you can't actually grasp a relationship. Like when you're dancing, you can realize the dance, but you can't grasp it. If you're a solitary dancer, you can't grasp it. You can be totally one with it. If you're dancing with a partner, you can't grasp it. But you and your partner can enact it.

[11:15]

You can intention it. Your dance together is the intention called the dance, is the karma of dance. Not studying karma, we tend to think that it and its consequences can be grasped. Not studying karma, even if we hear about that it's a relationship, a pattern of relationships, not studying the pattern of relationship, we think that we can grasp a pattern of relationship that we could separate ourselves from the pattern of relationship which we're totally implicated to and grasping. But we, the cognizing being, the being who is not exactly cognizing but the being who lives cognition, who is the life of cognition and cognition is the life of the person, this person can think that she's separate from her relationships.

[12:26]

And that would be something that we could think, or actually that would be another intention, that another pattern of relationship would be that you could have a, there could be a pattern of relationship of being outside the relationship, which is a pattern of inconsistency and contradiction. But such patterns can arise. Unexamined, these patterns give rise to suffering. Examined and understood, the problem of karma can be resolved. So that's kind of a overview of some difficult points now that we're coming to the close of the class. Yes, kid? I'm not sure what you mean by grasp. Does that mean understand? No, I mean grasp in the sense of get a hold of. like as in a grasper and a grasped something, a grasper and somebody that grasps something, so that you could grasp your relationship with someone.

[13:39]

It means you could imagine that you could grasp your relationship. Fix it? Well, you're not going to get into that yet, but just that you'd be in relationship with someone and you could think that you could get outside the relationship and grasp the relationship. That imagination, in a sense, is another pattern of relationship. But it's an erroneous pattern of relationship that there would be a pattern such that you would see that you're outside something that you're in, and that you could grasp something that you're involved in. That would be a certain pattern, and that pattern of relationship would have consequence, and it would also probably have antecedents, and also that itself, that pattern of relationship which we could call grasping, that itself, the pattern of relationship which we call grasping, that also cannot be grasped.

[14:51]

But it could be understood, and you could understand that the pattern of grasping is no more graspable than the pattern of grasping imagines it's able to grasp. Grasping is dualistic. Is it another word for attachment? Yeah, attachment, yeah. Attachment is based on the idea that something can grasp something else. but everything's relational. And karma is, in one sense, it's the part of our cognition which is representing relationship. That's what intention is. And it has consequence. And the more it's studied, the more the consequences become advantageous to further study and better understanding.

[15:56]

The less the patterns are studied, generally speaking, they tend to go towards disadvantages. But at disadvantages or unskillful patterns, patterns which are conducive to harm, and obstructing awakening to the nature of the process, those can be, what do you call it, one can leap beyond them into more skillful patterns. And usually the leaping occurs with awareness. But I'm emphasizing at the end here how ungraspable the whole process is. and how the more you realize how ungraspable it is, actually, it doesn't undermine your ability to be more skillful. So some might think, well, then why, you know, maybe you couldn't be skillful. But actually, the more you realize the relational quality of your cognitions, the more skillful you will be.

[17:02]

And the more skillful you are, the more you realize the relational quality until you realize how thoroughly relational and how thoroughly ungraspable relationships are and how you're nothing in addition to these ungraspable relationships. Let's see, so we have Charlie, Jerry, Kristen and Lynn. What's the relationship between karma and free will? Before I answer that question, I want to say that it's possible to be free even if there's no free will. The next thing I would say is maybe the way to be free even if there wasn't free will, but anyway, by studying will or intention,

[18:10]

one will attain freedom. And in freedom, the will that arises, you could call free will. You know, will, you could say free will, you could say free intention. Intention and will can be used synonymously. free will, free volition, free intention. What's the relationship between karma and free will is what's the relationship between will and free will? Okay? So if you have will that's free, what would that be? Well, I don't think it would be will that has no conditioning. Because there isn't... Will without conditioning is what a lot of people imagine. could be. And imagining will without conditioning puts you into a grasping relationship, a grasping, yeah, puts you into a grasping relationship.

[19:17]

In other words, where you're in a relationship that's misconstrued, where you're in a relationship where you think you can be outside the relationship. So, I may be getting a little off here now, but anyway, back to intention, which is relationship, If you don't study that intention or that will, then you enter into a mechanical process of causation that's not free, that's suffering. If you study the process of will and understand how relational it is and how ungraspable it is, you realize freedom. from the suffering that comes from not understanding the process. Once you're free, now the will which arises is this relational, interdependent will, which always was, but now you understand it. So you actually, in a sense, find free will.

[20:17]

But you find free everything else, too. Like what? Free what else? A free suffering. Free suffering is called freedom from suffering. Or suffering freely. Pardon? Because there's no phenomena that are unconditioned. Everything arises depending on things. There's no things that exist that aren't dependent. Now there's some things which only don't arise. Like ungraspability doesn't really arise. The fact that things can't be grasped doesn't arise, but things that arise can't be grasped because things that arise are nothing more than the conditions which support them. You're not something in addition to the conditions upon which your existence depends.

[21:18]

However, you are a person and people who are nothing more than the conditions that create them. can imagine there's something more than the conditions that create them. That's one of the abilities we have. It's called, you know, imagination. And our imagination can imagine things that don't exist, like a person who's something in addition to the conditions he depends on. But a person who, something that's in addition to the conditions that he depends on is pretty much the same as somebody who doesn't depend on anything. In other words, a person, an independent person. We can imagine an independent person. We have that ability. Most humans have that ability. And I think also non-humans can also imagine that, like dogs and so on. I think they can. So are you basically saying there is no free will? No, I'm saying that there could be free will if what you mean by free will is this will or this intention, which is your pattern of relationship that's understood.

[22:36]

But if you don't understand it, you get caught by it. Like I just got this image of this story I often tell about the tar baby. It's a movie called The Song of the South. Somebody told me that what tar babies are is actually, they're like tar paper that they use to catch flies in the South. Those are called tar babies. But in the movie that I saw when I was a kid, it was some tar shaped in the form of a baby to try to catch a rabbit. So if you understand what the tar, you know, and then if you come, you walk by the tar baby and, you know that story? Do you know that story? So you walk by the tar baby and if you stick your hand in it, then you get stuck in the tar. So if you see will and you think you can grasp it, if you see intention and think you can grasp it, or that, you know, it could be yours to be free with or something like that, then you usually get stuck in it.

[23:41]

If you think it's a substantial piece of tar, then it's usually not free will. Then it's mechanical and cyclic and, you know, pretty much bondage. Karma is usually karmic bondage and karmic obstruction is what we talk about, like you'd like to be nice to people but you can't because of karmic accumulations, because of past intentions you can't freely feel a certain way. You like some people, don't like others, and it's because of patterns of relationship that you don't understand yet. So you're pretty much trapped. So then people say there's no free will. But if you understand the process, then you become liberated from the process. So in that sense, then now will would be free again, would be free. because you would understand that it's ungraspable and if you can't grasp it, it can't grasp you.

[24:43]

But I don't think we're going to get a free will which is like, you know, your own little machine that you can run. That kind of will is the will that people who are caught by will usually are working with. Sometimes they think it's working very badly, this machine, this will machine, but they do think that they're driving it somewhat, you know, more or less skillfully. So that's part of what karma is about, is drive the will machine more skillfully. But still, driving the karma machine skillfully, still you're stuck in the karma machinery. But the more skillful karma, when you pay more attention to driving your karma machine, as you become more aware of it, you start to see that it's actually ungraspable and then it doesn't grasp you and you don't grasp it. So there still could be karma or intention or will and you're no longer caught by it and it's not caught by you. So in that sense you could say it was free now or that the karma was liberated.

[25:49]

So you could say liberated will rather than the will is free. That kind of sounds like a free ice cream cone as long as you don't take the ice cream cone. It's free as long as you don't try to test it or see that it's free. Yeah, it's kind of like that. And you can also eat it. You don't want to eat it? I do. You're just saying if I try to, I'll get stuck in it. No, no. I'm just saying if you try to grasp it while you're eating it. All right, the metaphor is overgrown. Okay. Did you say the metaphor is overgrown? Yeah. Okay, good. Shall we move on to the next person then? Yes, please. Okay. What I was going to ask, I think, connects to this. There's two phrases you mentioned.

[26:50]

One was the problem of karma, and the other was the maturation of karma. I want to check my understanding. Is it true that the problem of karma is that if we are not aware of our intention and their consequences, karma becomes kind of a prison that we're trapped by and subject to? Whereas if we are, the more we are aware, the more karma is a freedom that... and that the maturation of karma means that as we grow in awareness of the consequences of our intentions, we are more in harmony with the intentions of everyone, and karma no longer is a prison. But it's not that we command karma, but it's almost as if we're in harmony with it, and we are karma. Am I on the right track, or could you comment on that? Well, as Charlie said, I think those kind of got overgrown there.

[27:56]

If you could take little pieces of it, maybe I could respond to little parts of it. Well, the one piece is that, is it true that if we're not aware of our intentions, karma becomes an imprisoning force, whereas if we are, the more we are aware... Yes, stop. See, little part. So if we're not aware of our intentions... then usually then our intentions seem to produce a state of feeling in bondage and obstruction and frustration. Yes. And so that kind of karma is responsible for suffering and bondage and ignorance. In fact, we're ignoring our intentions. We're not aware of something that's right there to be aware of. And that leads to, then again, also can lead to less and less skillful intentions can arise and less skillful intentions arise and they're not observed so we don't notice the consequence.

[29:05]

the unfortunate consequence plus they suddenly become conditions for further unskillfulness and further unfortunate consequences which are, and one of the unfortunate consequences is a tendency to not, just like in this case, a tendency to not look at the intention tends to develop every time we don't look at an intention. On the other hand, if you look at an intention that tends to go with more skillful that's a more skillful intention, because the skillful intentions require attention. Or if it's not skillful, if you're paying attention to an unskillful, you see the consequences, and then there's transformation of being aware of the intention and its consequence that tends to produce more skillful intentions and better consequences. But still, that's still driving the karmic machine. But the more you study that, the more you start to see the relationship that the intention basically is, the more you see the relationship that also leads to more skillfulness which has the consequence of being able to look more and more deeply at the pattern of relationship and more and more realize how ungraspable the process and therefore how ungraspable karmic hindrances and karmic obstruction and how ungraspable suffering is and how ungraspable bondage is.

[30:36]

And also then that starts to open the door to seeing the interdependence of your cognition and the rest of the world, because your body interacting with the world is how your cognition is born. So then you start to see the nature of your cognition, and then you start to see the interdependent nature of your intention too, that your intentions arise also interdependently with all beings. And you start to see all beings' intentions create worlds, So you see how the worlds are created by your intention together with other people's intention, and you start to see other people's intention related to your intention. In other words, you start to develop what we call the vision of a Buddha who can see people's intentions and how they're working together and how everybody's sort of working on this thing together. The Buddha can see that and therefore can show people that. Is that the maturation of karma? I don't think that's a little bit beyond maturation of karma.

[31:43]

Maturation of karma is more like maturing as the advantages up to the point of being able to see. Once you can see, that's no longer maturation of karma. That's more like just clear vision, where you can see that world's other results are the maturation of karma. But you're not any longer in the world. When you see how worlds are made, you see how they're made rather than see them. So by maturation you meant the results of karma? The karma maturation? Yeah, results. Results. Yeah. But enlightenment isn't exactly a karmic maturation. It's something that happens when one understands karma. Buddha understands karma, but Buddha's not a karmic result. Buddha is a name for understanding karma.

[32:44]

So enlightenment pops you out of intention and karma to a realm beyond it? Enlightenment pops you out of the realm of karma to a realm beyond it? Yeah. It's called the realm of enlightenment. It's not a world anymore. However, you can visit... Call it a state if you want to, I guess. But anyway, you can visit worlds when you're enlightened. It's like what they call a monopoly. You can go to jail, but you're just visiting. But you care for all the beings who live in worlds. It's just that you're not confined by that vision, which is a result of karma. But you can see how the worlds are created by karma, and you can show people that. And you're not afraid to enter worlds worlds that you don't find confining. And you're happy to go there to show other people that they're not confining if they would study them. And worlds and intentions are related.

[33:48]

Enclosing worlds are related to enclosing cognitions, are related to enclosing intentions, because intentions create enclosures called worlds. And intentions are cognitively enclosed. But cognitions are not actually enclosed because cognitions arise interdependently. So as you understand cognitions and intention, the enclosure is no longer obstruction. It never was, but it can look like that. And the way it looks when it looks like that is a world. And sometimes the world looks terrible, of course. But the key is study the world and particularly study the intentions in the world and study the relationship between intention and the arising of worlds with the indication from the Buddha that worlds arise through intention.

[35:02]

and worlds arise through the intentions of sentient beings, and then there's other worlds called, you know, and I considered bringing what's called the Flower Adornment Scripture, where it has one of the chapters is the formation of the worlds, and it talks in there about not only the formation of worlds due to the karma of sentient beings, as a consequence of karma sentient beings. It also talks about the worlds that arise through the practice of the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. There's those worlds, too. They create different worlds. Those are called Buddha lands or Buddha worlds. And they're different. But, you know, I didn't want to distract you with this discussion. But there's other worlds, too, that aren't confining. that are created by the vows of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which includes the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas vowing to enter into the worlds created by sentient beings, the sort of mundane worlds, the worldly worlds, the worlds where there's birth and death and suffering.

[36:17]

But we're not trying to trash worlds. We're trying to understand them. And again, key to understanding them is intention, because worlds are consequences of intention. And intentions are patterns of relationships in worlds. And if you're not in a world, they're still patterns of relationships. I see Rochelle. Was there anybody outstanding questions? Yeah, there's two. So Rochelle, can you wait until after these two people? Lynn? You, at the beginning of the class, you asked us to examine our intentions, become aware of our intentions, study our intentions, and that they would evolve. Now I'm getting the feeling that you're asking us to look at them in a different way than you had instructed before, because it seemed like before I was looking at it and my intention was fixed. For example, if I came to the class and I looked at my intention, then I would see something like,

[37:25]

A number of things. I want to do the Sangha. I would like to be with you. I would like to learn about the teachings. I would like any number. These all seem like fixed intentions. Are you suggesting that I try to find relationships instead? I appreciate your question. Did you hear what she said? She thought of like intentions for coming in this class, like I want to be with the Sangha. I want to be with Reb. I want to learn about some teachings. Those are kind of like intentions, right? And she said that they look fixed, right? That's what I'm saying is before you even look, you might not notice that they look fixed. You just assume they are. When you first look, they might look fixed, right? Like you said, that's good for you to say that. But as I said, if you look more, if you hear more teachings that what you're looking at, these intentions, which they might look fixed at first, but you're tipped off now, that those things which look fixed are actually relationships.

[38:27]

That your wish to come to be with a sangha is a relationship. It's a pattern of relationship in your cognition of Lin and the group, Lin and the community. There's a pattern of relationship there. When you see the pattern of relationship, it's kind of like, well, there's almost an intention there. I'm part of this group, so there's almost an intention. Well, I want to be with the group because I'm part of it. But actually, it isn't such a fixed thing of I want to be with the group. It's also, it's a relationship. Now, if you... Something is happening, something is really... I want, that's an action. Are you saying that? I'm saying that that is the definition of action, is the intention, which is a relationship. So you think of Lynn, and then you think of the community, and you think, hey, Lynn goes with this community, or it would be good for Lynn to be with the community. That relationship which you're seeing there of Lynn with the community, it's like an intention, and that's action.

[39:29]

However, there could be another intention. There could be Lynn in the community and not want to be with the community. That would be a different intention. I don't want to be with the group. I see myself separate from the group. Then that relationship of separation is still a relationship, but it's a different relationship, a relationship of separation or aversion. That's also a pattern of relationship, but it's a different intention. So first of all you look at intention and you may find them to be somewhat substantial or fixed. As you look more carefully, again with the information, you're hearing information, that what you're looking at is a relationship. It's not a fixed thing. And also the community would do a few flips one way or another then the relationship would change too. So the intention would change. Then you see, well, the intention isn't something I make all by myself. It has something to do with what the world's doing. So if the world's very nice, I want to be with it.

[40:33]

If the world's very tough, I want to be away from it. So your intention arises with the world, just like your cognition does. As you look more carefully at what originally seemed to be chunky, Karma is basically chunky, and the problem of karma is it's chunky and heavy and dark, and it basically sinks us down, down, down into less and less vitality. As we study it more, we find out it has more holes in it than we thought, more relationships, more possibilities. And pretty soon we see it's just always 100 percent relational, and if it's relational, then when you see how completely relational it is, you see how completely ungraspable and ungrasping it is, you basically have solved the karma problem. But at first, when you first become aware of it, it looks pretty chunky. Because one of the results of karma is to think in chunky ways. Because you've thought chunky ways before, and again, that's part of your relationships.

[41:39]

The world teaches you to think in terms of chunky. Like there was a candy kind of, not exactly a candy bar, but a type of candy when I was a kid called chunkies. And that was like a good thing that they were chunky. Chunky means full of chocolate. chunky good positive thing to be chunky if it's chocolate and sweet chunks of chocolate pleasure you know this is part of our environment that and we have a relationship to that it affects us it makes us think in terms of getting stuff and holding stuff and getting rid of stuff and getting away from stuff this kind of chunky way of seeing our relationships this is a kind of that's that's an intention that's and that's a type of karma called heavy dark, unskillful karma because you're seeing very little relationship. So in general I'd say the more relationship you see, the more your intention tends to be skillful. The less relationship, the less it's skillful. So when you first start looking at your karma, even if you see a positive intention, like go to a class to be with nice people, still it's kind of chunky at first and substantial and fixed.

[42:49]

Okay, look at that. The more you look at that and then you hear, she heard, now in the fifth class she heard, now I seem to be saying something different. It's different from what you said. I'm not talking about fixed karma, fixed intention. I'm talking about intention being relational. So now you're hearing that. So that sounds different than when you first started looking for intention. And maybe if I asked you to look for intention as relational patterns, it would have been hard for you even to find those intentions that you found. Huh? Yeah, at first, right. Or even now. It's easier maybe for you to see, oh, class, I want to be with the people. That pattern maybe is easier to see than if I say, look for relationships. So maybe it was good that you... approached it in a kind of grasping, chunky way, because then you found it. And then you heard the further instruction, which sounds like I'm telling you to look at it a different way. Well, actually, I am. I'm saying now that you've found these intentions, which you gave examples of, now I'm saying, can you see those relationships?

[43:55]

And if you can, it sounds like that would be different from the way you originally did, and I would say that's good. And it seems like now that you're saying this about relationships, and I imagined one, I mean, I thought of one, had one, now I can grasp it by a fixed idea. I'm suddenly seeing that as something I can grasp. Whereas if I just experience it, then that's not grasping it. I feel like I'm not there so much. Right. And if you see, first of all, don't see any relationship and just see, well, there's my intention. That's maybe kind of heavy duty. Then you start to see a relationship, but you still sort of see the relationship as graspable. Like I was talking to Kit before, you think you can grasp a relationship. That's a little lighter because you're starting to see it's a relationship rather than a fixed thing of my intention towards the world. It's my relationship. It's my relationship with the world that I got a hold of. Then if you look more carefully, you see, well, it's not really my relationship. It's the world's relationship with me. But it's not just the world's relationship with me and my relationship with the world.

[44:57]

It's that, but it's not that even. It's more dynamic and subtle than that. And then you start to be, as you say, kind of not there so much. So again, as I said earlier too, if you study the teaching of no-self, you start to realize, if you hear the teaching of no-self and meditate on it, you start to see, oh, I'm a pattern of relationship. And then you understand your karma better. If you study your karma as pattern of relationship, you start to see, oh, I'm not a fixed self. So the teaching of karma and the teaching of no-self actually go together. And you can approach karma through the teaching of no-self. You can approach teaching of no-self through studying karma. They go together. In this class, we're approaching the teaching of no-self through studying karma. Because if you study karma... which used to be like, I go downtown, you start to realize, well, really, the karma there, the key thing is look at the intention to go downtown.

[46:08]

And as you look at the intention, at first it's kind of clunky. Then you look at it and say, well, actually, the intention to go downtown is the pattern of relationship. And the pattern of relationship is actually, I'm in the pattern of relationship. I'm just a pattern of relationship. And I'm just a pattern of relationship with the world. I'm not something in addition to the world that I'm in this relationship with. There's really just a pattern of relationship and the world's not something in addition to me. It's just me and the world are in a pattern of relationship and you can't get one apart from the other, so I can't really find either one of them. So you find no self. No self of yourself, no self of the world. They're just interdependent. But you can approach that mixed in with intention and cognition aren't the type of actions which we study in this class. Those kinds of actions have nothing to do with evolution, positive or negative. But actions which are intentional do have positive or negative evolutionary consequences.

[47:16]

The key factor is when they're not studied, they tend to run down towards clunky obstructions. When they're studied, they tend to open up into more and more relational, interdependent vision of themselves and therefore realize release. I'm going to go to her now. Yes? Last week you talked about setting your attention to experiment. Yes. And I wanted to hear a bit more about what that might mean, what experimentation would entail. Give me an example. I'm curious about how one would experiment in setting attention. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is either attend or offer a class on karma and converse with people about it. That's one way to do it. So this class has been an experiment in karma for me.

[48:19]

And then before the class I'm meditating on karma and after class I'm meditating on karma. And some of you are too. So this class is an experiment in karma. It's one ready example. What about as an individual setting intention? Say you're sitting and you feel an intention to move or something like that. How would you... I'm just trying to get a better idea of... Well, again, I think I used this example earlier. If you put yourself in a situation where you go to a group of people who are going to sit still for a while, that could be an experiment in finding the intention to move. And to look, because as you sit longer, you're going to probably start to feel uncomfortable and think of moving, or rather you start to notice you're uncomfortable, and then the intention, the pattern of relationship will give rise to the intention.

[49:32]

However, when you first look at it, you may not notice the pattern of relationship. So I just want to parenthetically mention that this class has had very good attendance, including tonight, because there's 10 people in this class over at Dringos tonight sitting in Zendo. So if they were here, we'd really have good attendance. But the rest are not here. And they're sitting there right now thinking about moving. It's the end of the day. Thinking about, you know, when's this going to be over? Maybe, maybe not. But anyway, when you first sit down, you may not notice the intention to move or even the intention to sit down. As you sit longer, you may notice more and more vividly the intention to keep sitting or the intention to move. Okay? That's the first step. Next step is, you may notice, oh, there's a pattern of relationship here that develops, that's arising.

[50:36]

This is a pattern of relationship, this thing of, I want to be with these people. I am with these people. They're not moving. I'm uncomfortable. So I'm in a position where I keep sitting like this because I'm sitting with these people. So if I wasn't sitting with these people, I probably would have moved a while ago because usually at home I don't just sit in a chair like this for hours on end, you know, and my daughter won't let me anyway. So you start to notice that the pattern of relationship is giving rise to this impulse or this will to move. But it's because you're in this special situation. And if you weren't, you wouldn't have this impulse, plus you also wouldn't notice it. You just would move probably as soon as... I mean, the movement... Yeah, so it's an intention to move, but it's also an intention to not move. because of the relationship. So it's a frustrated intention to move or it's kind of like it's a complex kind of intention, it's a complex pattern of I'm kind of uncomfortable and I'd like to move but I also don't want to move because these other people want to move too and we're all kind of like cannot move and see how that works.

[51:46]

So this strange special situation of this relationship allows you to have this intention In fact, to not move, even though there is the impulse, partial impulse in the consciousness to move, there's also an impulse to not move. The resolution of all that is the pattern of relationship. And then to experiment with that would be to study it over and over. And as you study it, you start to notice different layers and different dimensions and more clearly how tremendously relational it is, and then to notice, oh, my impulses are always like this, but I don't usually notice it. So that's a good example because, in fact, that's part of what the sitting's about, is to be able to study this kind of thing. And then Rochelle? I was wondering if you'd say something about

[52:48]

Karma in relationship to genetics. In relationship to? Genetics. Genetics, yes. Is it cognitive or is genetics more of the eight? Yeah. I think some people have been, you know, experimenting with the idea that genetics and karma are related. I'm not, what do you call it, I haven't been thinking about that so much myself, but I think that some people who are meditating on karma have been meditating on the relationship between genetics and karma. But I haven't actually followed, I don't know how far they've gone and I haven't actually followed the discussion much further than hearing that certain long-standing practitioners, you know, like Thich Nhat Hanh, have been kind of experimenting with genetics in relationship to karma.

[53:56]

So part of our genetics is that we have this... Genetics has turned on these... these DNA, right, to make this brain, right, which... which can tune in to all these patterns of relationship. And so we have this ability to think chunkily about the relationships and thinking chunkily about them or heavily or substantialistic about them is actually unskillful, but it's also skillful. You know, you can like... I don't know what I should talk about first, but certain people can like oppress other people because they think in very chunky ways about their relationship with them. They don't really notice much relationship, in other words. It's more like, yeah, you're over there and I have an intention, but my intention is pretty much like 90% of the relationship.

[55:03]

And your intention is, well, maybe not 10% even. I see it, but how you're related to me is not that important, and how I depend on you is not that important. So having kind of a coarse understanding of causation, even when we have the brainpower to have a better understanding, in some ways is sometimes useful. However, there's another part you could say about human consciousness is that working out the subtleties of mating and so on does involve something to do with being aware of your partner and not just sort of imposing yourself upon him or her because they're smart too and they have ways of getting away from you if you're not kind of sensitive. So figuring out ways to get together with other intelligent people sometimes you know does make new patterns of relationship and which is new kinds of karma and then when you do and do not understand the subtleties is also part of the trade-off of power and reproductive opportunity and all that and all this then has consequences for those who have the ability to think of these subtle ways of relating or these coarse ways of relating which sometimes dominate people and give you certain kinds of success

[56:31]

those abilities come from also their past and then they tend to be instantiated in bodies and reproduced. So karma and genetics and reproduction, DNA and all that, it's probably all kind of related. And I think one could start looking at this and that could be also part of the wondrous study of of intention because we have almost exactly the same DNA as some other animals, but the way our DNA gets turned on is not the way theirs gets turned on. So even though we have the same basic material, the way it gets turned on is different. So then you get really quite different results with almost the same raw material but slightly different coating. of when to turn different things on. And that is part of, one could say, is part of consequence of past relationships, which we call cognitively intention.

[57:46]

And again, all these beings that are related to us closely, they also have lots of, they're cognitive beings. But one of the main things that we have that some of them don't have is we have this thing called language, and language is a big part of it, too. So language and genetics are also ways to study this. Yes? I had a similar question to her about genetics. You were talking about her world, my world, your world, and my world moving together, and I was thinking about That relationship, as far as nature goes, and how that fits into genetics, that is the element with water and fire. Because I was thinking, first, I'm sleeping. And then I finally wake up.

[58:51]

And then I get a question. And then I feel my metabolism go. And of course, it's heat. And then wind and fire, then comes the question. And I ask it, and it seems like nature is part of the world. And that is the element. Because you were saying something last week or the week before about the energetic energy needed to make karma go. you know, where energy is never, neither created or destroyed, and the karma isn't workable until you give, I guess, for lack of a better word, virility to the thought from the mental process. So, it seems like, you know, nature is included in the karma, and I was wondering if you could, you know, get something about that.

[59:52]

Because, you know, the life force, you know, the thought... Well, originally I was, I'm suggesting that Nature in terms of, you could say, those elements you're speaking of, nature is part, and nature can come as electromagnetic radiation. Those elements can form into electromagnetic radiation, into sound waves, into gases, into liquids, and into tactile phenomena, and those things, when they interact with our living bodies, that gives rise to cognition. So nature, that kind of nature of these material elements, when those material elements interact with our body with a sufficient intensity to turn these sense organs on so that they're actually functioning, the functioning sense organ dancing with the material nature that you're speaking of, that's the birthplace of cognition. So the material world is also contributing to the pattern of relationship which give rise to cognitions and also give rise to our intentions.

[60:59]

So the material world is also part of giving rise to our karma. And again, to see how your karma is arising with the world is a rather enlightened cognition itself. So we want to develop a cognition which would understand how it and how its intentions arise in relationship to the world. And one more thing I want to say about worlds is that when I say worlds, I mean, although I have my world, you have your world, but also we share a world. We live like we live in the world of Berkeley, right? We share the world of Berkeley. And other people who don't live in Berkeley also share the world of Berkeley. We share the world, and part of the reason why we share the world is because of karma. I mean, because of karma, it's because of language. And our language, I think, is part of the reason why we have a lot of commonality in this world that we live in together.

[62:01]

And I think that fish and foxes live in different worlds than we do because they have different languages or know languages. So that's, again, part of karma. Language is karma. It is intentional vocalization. It's vocalization that has intention in it. But again, the intent, it's vocalization which has a pattern of relationship in it. So vocal karma is particularly powerful in creating not just a world, but a shared world with the other people who use those vocalizations. That's another area of study. Yes, Nancy? So, in the beginning, I kept asking myself, what's my intention? Yes. And I kept not being able to find it. You know, I couldn't figure out what was mine. Yes. A lot of time. Yeah. But now, I think what I'm getting from what you're saying is that I already felt that it matters so much, my intention, because there's somebody else's intention as well in the mix.

[63:12]

I mean, I could have an intention, But it includes other people. It does. And they don't have the same intention that I have. Maybe not. A lot of the time. Right. And I can't get the meat. I don't have the skill or whatever that it takes to have my attention and their attention produce the result that I want to have. For example, you could be a Republican and somebody else could be a Democrat. Or you could be religiously tolerant and somebody else could be intolerant. And you could have certain intentions around your tolerance and they could have certain intentions around their intolerance. They might even be willing to admit, I am not tolerant of this other religion. They might say, I am intolerant. They might even be able to say, yes, I am a bigot.

[64:14]

So you have these two different intentions, and they're influencing each other. And the more you would see the influence, the more you could help the other person see the influence. The most important thing is not whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. The important point is that you study your intention that you have. As you study your intention more, you will be able more and more to find a peaceful resolution with people who have different intentions. You have three modes. Mental intention. All three are cognitive because all three have intention in them. So you have intention which is mental, cognitive and mental. You have intention which is verbal, and you have attention which is physical. So you have these three modes. You can use all three or you can use just one.

[65:18]

Or you have to use at least, you have to do the mental one. Because that's there in the vocal one. But you could specialize in talking if you wanted to. And if you could see your intention while you're speaking. But really you have these three options and the more you understand the intentions involved in these three forms of karma, the more you will be able to appreciate the relationship between other people who have different intentions. And we're not going to ever have everybody have the same intention in this world. We're not going to have everybody have the same perspective on the relationship. There's going to be difference, always. But the more people that can study their karma, and can see how their karma, their intention, their karma, their action, their intentional action, the more people can study that and see how it's related to other people's, the more they can have conversation with the people who disagree with them.

[66:18]

And the more they can be willing to have conversation and have skills of having conversation because they have a good feeling that comes from seeing their relationship with these people who disagree with them. This person disagrees with me, like, again, I often use my grandson, he disagrees with me, but I see that he disagrees with me, and he agrees he disagrees with me, but I see that he's closely related to me, and I see that my intentions, even though I disagree with him, are related to his. He himself does not yet see that we're closely related at that time. But if I hang out with him, and him thinking that we have different views and we're not closely related, And I can see that we are closely related because I can see how my intentions are a function of his and his a function of mine. He gets it eventually. Eventually, although we don't exactly agree, we find peace. So we can find peace with people even though we still do not agree, like one of our big disagreements is over Burger King.

[67:25]

He just doesn't get how Burger King and McDonald's are, you know, causing damage to people's health. Doesn't get it. I try to explain, you know, about how they're feeding people, you know, the junk, how this is basically poison, you know. And, you know, did you see that movie, Supersize Me? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I just, I took him to Burger King, you know, twice. And I saw that movie and I said, no, I'm not going to take you to Burger King anymore. I feel so sorry for the little guy you see on TV that sees Burger King and McDonald's and they give the kids poise when they go to these places. It's so evil what they're doing. And I won't take him anymore. But we have these conversations where he explains to me, he has these various percentages of amount of poison and non-poison that they serve at Burger King. He totally just makes his stuff up, you know.

[68:29]

He's got all these fantastic scenarios about how Burger King's not the way I say it is. But we are conversing, you know. And now the next thing is 7-11. He wants me to take him to 7-11. So we have all these struggles, actually, of different perspectives. But that's our relationship. And the more I appreciate the relationship, rather than my intention versus his intention, the more I can tolerate the struggle and hang in there with him. And we can have a conversation and we can have peace. Even though he may always, or at least for many more years, really preferred Burger King over, you know, Whole Foods or whatever. Well, how about having a hamburger at some other place? No, I want to go to Burger King. Well, how about if I take you to Whole Foods and give you a toy?

[69:31]

But still, you know, Whole Foods does not have the billions of dollars of hypnotism behind it. It doesn't have the magnificent aura of Burger King, where they not only show the toy, but they basically give this image of children of its nirvana. Going to Burger King is nirvana. It's like you will be... They have all these happy kids, you know, jumping up and down. Happiness, nirvana. Burger King, McDonald's, you know, they don't have ads like that for Whole Foods. They get the kids like, let's go to Whole Foods. It's just marketing for a Democrat. Exactly. They're making the adults think that they'll be in Nirvana. Let's go to Whole Foods. Well, how about going to the Zen Center if I give you a toy? But we don't have very good advertising. The more you study yours, the more you'll be able to hang out with people who disagree with you.

[70:46]

Because you'll see that there's a close relationship. Yours isn't really a chunky thing separate from theirs. And that makes it It will make it more possible for you to be willing to talk with people who don't want to talk with you because you're so stupid. Because you don't agree with them, so you must be stupid if you don't agree with them, right? So somehow you can find a way to have a conversation without lying, without necessarily saying, well, I do agree with you, but more like, I see the relationship between your view and mine, and maybe we could talk about that. Yes, John. And Bob? Yes, John and Bob. It's a new couple. I enjoyed your story, but sometimes I get frustrated because you often share these stories about your grandson whose behavior you have control over. I don't have control over him.

[71:48]

Well, I mean, in the sense that you decide whether or not you go to Burger King. And the reason I say that is because I find my thorniest... karmic relationships at the present time are people that I have to have conversations with. And I can't say, well, we're just not going to Burger Cave, because the decisions are always, they're open questions. And I can't, in the way that one can with a child, Well, again, I appreciate you saying that because although I say that, that's not the end of the conversation. He doesn't accept that. Well, I guess what I'm saying is what I'm looking for is examples, not that you need to share them, but sometimes I find it harder to have conversations with people where, well, maybe you already know what I'm driving at, where...

[73:01]

It's harder to set a boundary or how to draw the boundary or where to keep a boundary or not keep a boundary. It's tougher than it is with a child. Well, you say it's tougher than with a child, but I would just basically say that drawing boundaries is not the same as control. So you draw boundaries, but it doesn't mean you get control. I don't have control over him. And he doesn't have control over me. But I do set boundaries, and he does too. But his boundaries do not control me, and my boundaries do not control him. But we both set boundaries, and we attempt to set boundaries. And I think setting boundaries is a useful dance. But I don't set boundaries to control him. I mean, if I do, I would fault myself on that. That would be unskillful intention to set boundaries to control him. I would say. And I do not feel, generally speaking, I fall into controlling him. And his mother, however, does fall into controlling him.

[74:06]

But, you know, that's a different relationship. But it does look, I mean, it looks like that with them. But with him, you know, I really try. I remember one time I had this real struggle with him on Grant Avenue or Maybe it wasn't Grant. Maybe it was Powell. What's the next street up from Grant in Chinatown? Stockton. Stockton, yeah. So we're on Stockton. He used to live in Chinatown. We're on Stockton. He wants to go in the street, and I don't want him to go in the street. And I was trying to interact with him, find some way that it wasn't me overpowering him to keep him out of the street. And so I'd keep him out of the street, but then he was in the stores, you know. either the cars are going to harass him or he was going to harass the people in the story. I'm trying to interact with him in a way to not overpower him, which I could get into that scenario, but I don't want to. I don't like that. I don't want to teach him that basically it's like the big people are in control.

[75:09]

I don't want to play that game. I want it to be mutual, and it's a struggle to find mutuality, and it's easy to find control with little people, but I don't want to do that. So with the Burger King thing, I did go twice. And then I just reached my limit. However, the story's not over. He keeps asking, and I keep sort of begging for some alternative, but I'm not in control of him. If he doesn't like what I'm asking for, it's not the end of the story. He just keeps on me. And I have to live with this person who has a big influence on me. I mean, he could, he was able to come to this person and make this person get in... I mean, I shouldn't say he was able to, but rather his intention and my intention interacted in such a way that we went to Burger King twice. And the second time I went to Burger King, I actually, although he did eat the stuff, I had this deeply touching experience watching this poor little guy basically being hypnotized.

[76:15]

I watched him go up to the... Conor and order his stuff, you know, and I watched, I watched, I could see he was like in an enchanted realm, you know, like here he was. I actually am in Burger King and I actually, I'm going to order this stuff. I'm going to talk to these employees and I'm going to tell them and they're going to give. It was amazing, very poignant to see the world he was in. But then I, then I, now I've drawn this line, but he can keep bouncing off that. And it isn't just by power that I'm holding it up. I could conceivably go along with another trip to Burger King, but it hasn't happened yet. And I'm continually putting that up of, I don't want to go, I don't want to go. But I'm trying not to have it be that I'm in control. I don't want to do it that way. And of course, not just with children do I not want to be controlling them, but I don't want to be controlling you. I don't want to control you into agreeing with me now. I want to have

[77:18]

my intention be a relationship between us? Well, I guess it's sort of what I'm saying is with children and teachers and relationships like that, they're somewhat different because there's always... Children and teachers? What kind of teachers do you mean? Well, sometimes teachers of many sorts, professors or spiritual therapists or therapists, that sometimes there's a way in which when there's a... there's a point at which control can be used, then the relationship can be different. Control can be used for the relationship to be different? What I'm saying is, I had lots of experience with children. I use the word negotiate, negotiating with children. Yes, okay. But it's different because there's a point at which

[78:21]

You know that you can just say no, that you can just use control because that's an option that's available. Whereas, let's say with your wife or, you know, in a relationship, you can't just say to your husband, well, we're just not doing this because control's not an option. Right. That's what I'm saying is when it comes to your examples, there's this... Yeah, but what I'm saying to you is that the places where you see that control isn't an option, those, I'm saying, are in my grandsons. They're there, too. You didn't see it, but I do not want any relationships to be one. I don't want to have relationships with so-called children where I think that control is an option. I don't want to do that. So if you think I was talking about that, you just misunderstood me. Because you're seeing relationships where you're saying control isn't an option. I'm saying I want to learn that there's no relationships where it's an option.

[79:23]

Yes, well, I agree with you. And I'm saying with my grandson, if I get into thinking that control is an option, that's a mistake on my part. But I don't often think that. Mostly people, if they watch me with them, they enjoy seeing that he's apparently in control of me. He's not. He's not, but I'm willing for it to look that way. And people love to see that this little person apparently can control the big person. They like to see it, but he's not in control of me. And often he thinks he is, too. People think he is, and he thinks he is. And I'm not in control of him thinking that he's in control. And I'm not in control of stopping him from thinking that he's in control. Neither are But I don't think I'm in control. However, while I do not think I'm in control of him, I set boundaries left and right. I say, I don't like that.

[80:25]

Please stop that. Please stop throwing rocks at the house. I don't want you to throw rocks at the house. Then I get tempted. Should I move towards this illusion of control? Do you want me to tell your mother? No. It's like a control move. You want to go to Burger King? Now, yeah, and I could do that just as a joke. Huh? He's gone to Whole Foods a lot. He goes to Whole Foods with his mom. But I do not want to try to control him. I want to treat him like I would treat a peer. Now, he's not, but I want to respect him.

[81:28]

And again, there's lots of other stories where he's... I've told many stories, you just haven't heard them, where he is basically like when we play soccer, you know? The way we play soccer is we have this goal, and the goal is the garage door. And when I'm the goalie, I have to get way over on the side of the goal. So he can kick pretty much anywhere, and I can't get the ball. And when he's goalie, and I'm kicking the ball, I kick it right to him. He's the one who seems to be in control. However, at a certain point, I say, I don't want to play anymore. This is not fun. But I do play for a while when he's totally in control. And I say, in all kinds of games, he's better than me, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[82:30]

He totally wants to be in control. And I play to a certain extent with him. And I do not think I'm in control of him or the game or me. But at a certain time, I set a limit. But then when I set the limit, do I set it as a control move or just to let him know, hey, this is who I am. That's what I try to do. I just want to tell you one recent story. I said to his grandmother, I'm not hearing many stories of him anymore because he's moved to L.A. So I don't see him much anymore. And she said, oh, there's still stories coming on. For example, the other night when he was visiting us and you were over teaching at the yoga room, I was getting my emails and he came in and started like climbing all over me and messing around with the computer and says, he said, let's Google granddaddy. And she says, I'm busy now getting my emails. Just leave me alone and I'll do it later. And he kept bugging her and said, leave me alone.

[83:31]

I got to do it. So finally she finishes and she says, okay, I'm done now. So do you want to Google granddaddy or have a story? And he said, Let's have a story. I can't even control him to Google granddaddy. But I appreciate what you're saying. I do not want to have controlling relationships with people because that's called a dark understanding of karma, a dark understanding of relationship, which is what intention and karma are. It's karma. Yeah. That would be dark karma. That would be dark karma. That would be very heavy understanding of karma, like, I'm going to control him, rather than he and I together have a relationship, which is my intention. My intention is our actual relationship. And then when I see that, then there's not much controlling, and then there's freedom from karma.

[84:34]

You see that? You're welcome. uh yes bob yes yes you're right oh okay there was uh there was some something you mentioned last time and you didn't really go into it uh it was about uh okay saying that when you sit in zazen a good first step is to kind of get settled uh centered and relaxed but that's no real different than any other meditation that you get out of yoga or A number of different places. Yeah, other forms of meditation have that same instruction. That's not particularly Buddhist. What was the extra thing to lay on top of it while you're doing zazen? Once you've achieved the relaxation of the other disciplines. Well, the next step would be to study. Ah, to study. Yeah, to learn. I guess I was a little bit confused about when you're sitting in zazen, How can I study things without being pulled out of the state of consciousness? Well, the type of training

[85:37]

The relaxing type of training is one type of training. But once you achieve the fruit of that type of training, which is not particularly Buddhist, so yogis of other traditions attain states of concentration and ease. So the state of flexibility and ease and buoyancy and so on that comes through in concentration, that was known to the Buddha before he discovered meditation. the Dharma. And other people before and after have done that. But when he studied Dharma, when he found Dharma, he did some further study beyond. Once you're concentrated from that kind of training, then you can't do that kind of training anymore. And you will be concentrated for some period of time. Sometimes it lasts for ten minutes, sometimes it lasts for three hours, sometimes it lasts for a week. But once you're concentrated, that state has some life, some duration. in that state of concentration and ease and relaxation, now you're in a position where if you wanted to do any kind of study, sewing, carpentry, music, Buddhist teachings, any kind of thing, you'd be readily able to do it.

[86:50]

So if you turn your attention now, which is now an attention which goes with a relaxed, buoyant, flexible mind, now you turn it towards study. And now you can think without agitating yourself. And you can, for example, do what Kristin was talking about of notice that although you're at ease, there still might be some impulse to move. And you can see, is that impulse just your impulse? Or is it a relationship that you have with all the people you're with? And you can notice the difference between sitting by yourself in the woods and sitting in a room with other meditators. You can see the different relationships. As you see the different relationships, you start to have insight into the ungraspability of the karma, which previously we had this very narrow, chunky, dark, obscured version of. And when you have an obscured view of karma, due to not studying it, then the karma obscures your view of everything.

[87:56]

So not understanding karma, then we don't understand everything else, too. Or having an obstructed relationship with our karma, then our karma obstructs our relationship with everything. I guess it was specifically, I was trying to think of, when I'm sitting zazen, how do I do that? Or is that just something that occurred without using my mind, you know? I guess I'm not using my mind when I do that process. When you study, you do use your mind. You use your mind in both cases, but two different ways. When you use your mind in tranquility, you give up your thinking. Oh, mind as opposed to thinking, yeah. Huh? Mind as opposed to thinking. Yeah, so you have a mind, a cognition, which has thinking, and thinking is your intention. So you kind of give up your intention when you're calming down. But then once you're calm, then you can look at your intention. and study your intention. So in wisdom work, you're actually studying your intention or studying your thinking, using your thinking to study thinking.

[88:57]

In tranquility meditation, you're kind of giving up your thinking for a while until you're calm. Studying your thinking during Zazen is not the same as like using your mind to think. It's some kind of a letting go process. No, no. It is... You're actually using your... You're actually thinking... about various things, like you can think about teachings. In zazen, you can think about teachings. Okay, so that's not the same as letting yourself be distracted by thoughts. Not now, because now you're calm. Now you're calm, and when a thought arises, you can look at it without being distracted by it. Ordinarily, a thought arises and you get distracted by it. Another one arises and you get distracted from the distraction. You can't even concentrate on the distractions. Try to concentrate on some distraction. You can't even do that because something else comes up. So you're jumping all over the place. Your mind's wandering. That's the normal state of most people's mind. Once you give up all these distractions and calm down, then thoughts arise, but they don't distract you.

[90:01]

You just look at them. Period. Calmly look at things. But then you can actually start examining what used to be a distraction you can now examine. But some distractions you won't examine because they're just unwholesome kinds of thought patterns, like thinking about how stupid everybody else is or something like that. You won't be spending your time on that. You'll be spending your time thinking about teachings, like teachings of karma or teachings of compassion or these wisdom teachings you can then examine and investigate and study. You can study your own karmic patterns, these kinds of things you can study, but now you're not distracted anymore. It's like you're sewing, you know, or something like that. You're very concentrated on your work. Okay, I'll pay a little different kind of attention when I'm in Zazen, but those kind of things coming in, I treat them a little differently than I would rant about. The teachings, yeah. The teachings. Yeah. But if you look at teachings, but you find that you're getting agitated by looking at them, then maybe you shouldn't look at them, and you should go back and just give up.

[91:06]

I'm into the monkey. I turn that into monkey mind. Exactly. You could turn teachings into food for monkey minds. If you have the monkeys up there in the trees, you know, having Dharma discussion. But actually you're just jumping around, you know, relating to the Dharma as though they're, you know, banana splits or something. And throwing Dharmas, having Dharma food fights or something. But really you're just agitated. You know, you're not calm. But when you feel calm... and then you look at some topic, like some Dharma topic, and you can continue to be calm, then you're looking at it in a good way. And you can. Sometimes when you look at teachings, you become even more calm when you look at them. But we took some other things, like how stupid people are. You get more and more agitated, more and more upset, and you feel more and more tired and scared and stuff like that. So that's not a good thing to be thinking about. But when you're calming down, you don't even think about good things. Just think about avoid unwholesome thoughts, unwholesome intentions.

[92:09]

Don't get involved with them or even wholesome ones. Just work on just letting go of them and calming down. Then your mind naturally wants to turn to the wholesome. And you can turn to the wholesome and continue to be calm. If you should turn to unwholesome, which you usually don't want to do anyway, you would see how disturbing it is and drop it. I get a much better sense of it now. Thanks. You're welcome. Well, thank you very much for your excellent attendance in this class. I really appreciate it. I often ask people to let me know when they're not going to be here, but nobody didn't come, so they didn't have to tell me. Anyway, thank you very much for your wholehearted practice.

[92:48]

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