Let me begin by reading this sutta which presents the Eightfold Path, I mean the Middle Way, in a little different way from the first one. Thus I have heard the Blessed One was living at Savatthi in the monastery of Ananda Pindika in Jeta's Grove. At that time the Venerable Kacchayana of that clan came to visit him, saluted him, sat down to one side, so seated he questioned the Exalted One. Sir, people speak of right view. Right view. To what extent is there right view? This world, Kajiyana, is generally inclined towards two views, existence and non-existence.

[01:10]

To him or her who perceives with the right wisdom the arising of the world as it has come to be, The notion of nonexistence in the world does not occur. Kajiyana, to him or her who perceives with right wisdom the ceasing of the world as it has come to be, the notion of existence in the world does not occur. The world for the most part, Katjana, is bound by approach, grasping and inclination. And he or she who does not follow that approach and grasping, that determination of mind, that inclination and disposition, who does not cling or adhere to the view, this is myself,

[02:25]

and who thinks, quotes, the suffering that is subject to arising arises, the suffering that is subject to ceasing ceases. Such a person does not doubt, is not perplexed. Herein, his or her knowledge is not other dependent. Thus far, there is right view. Everything exists, this kachayana is one extreme. Everything does not exist, this kachayana is the second extreme. Kachayana without approaching either extreme, the Tathagata teaches you a doctrine by the middle. Seems like it should be of the middle, but anyway.

[03:33]

And then he goes on to say dependent on ignorance dispositions arise and dispositions are often translated as karmic formations. Based on karmic formations or depending on karmic formations consciousness arises and based on consciousness, the psychophysical personality arises. Depending on the psychophysical personality, the sense faculties arise. Depending on the sense faculties, contact arises. Depending on contact, feeling arises. Depending on feeling, craving arises. Depending on craving, clinging arises. Depending on clinging, becoming arises. Depending on becoming, birth arises. arises depending on birth, old age, sickness, death, lamentation, grief, suffering, dejection, and despair arise.

[04:46]

Thus arise the entire mass of suffering. However, with the utter fading away and ceasing of ignorance, there is a ceasing of the dispositions. And so on up to there is a ceasing of the entire mass of ill. So where is the middle way? The middle way is avoiding the extremes of... Everything exists and everything does not exist. So in our life, when the world arises, when the world ceases, like right now you see the world arise?

[05:50]

To see the world cease? To see the world arise? To see the world cease? What's the middle way? As the world arises and ceases, what's the middle way? As suffering arises and ceases. You ever seen any suffering arise? Ever seen it cease? Seen some more arise? Seen it cease? That's the world, right? It comes in the world. The suffering comes with the world. The world comes with the suffering. It arises and ceases. What's the middle way? Is the middle way the arising and ceasing of suffering? It's the acceptance of it. That's pretty close, yeah. The acceptance of the arising and ceasing. That's pretty close. The middle way is not an experience.

[06:55]

It's not one of the experiences. It is the intimacy of experience which is closely related to accepting an experience. But it's even closer than accepting it because in accepting it there's still like maybe accepting it or you accepting it, the intimacy of the experience is the middle way. I even say intimacy of the experience rather than intimacy with the experience. Nothing arises unless there's some perception. So it says, to him or her who perceives with right wisdom the arising of the world.

[08:04]

So perceiving, so for, there can be a person, I mean, you know, there can be a life, you can have a life where you're perceiving, a life that has experiences. experiences that you perceive. And these, while perceiving your experiences, there can be Right Wisdom, which is also called Right View. And Right Wisdom is the way things are when you're intimate with the way things are. Or I would take away when you're intimate in intimacy with the way things are there's right wisdom. So if there's if the way things are is that something's coming to arise and intimacy with that is the middle way.

[09:13]

And then when you're intimate with it with whatever is arising, when you have right wisdom with whatever is arising, the notion of non-existence has no foothold. It doesn't arise, it doesn't occur in that intimacy. Yes? How do you get that intimacy? Well, first of all, the intimacy, the middle way is already there. Okay? So you don't have to make the intimacy. You don't have to make the middle way. So how do you discover the middle way? When we first hear about this intimacy, or when we first hear about being... about intimacy with our perception, such that there's right wisdom, such that you're so close that you can't intersperse or interject the abstraction.

[10:29]

Abstraction means, to abstract means to remove or pull apart. When you're intimate with what's happening, you don't abstract yourself from it. So if you want to know how to give up abstracting yourself from your experience, this is like how to approach intimacy, right? So you said, how do you get the intimacy? How do you stop pulling yourself away from your experience? How do you stop disconnecting yourself from your experience and feel your connection to your experience? How do you get that? Well, for most people, you get it by meditating. So what's meditating? Well, meditating is to try to find out what connection there is between your mind and your body, or between you and your experience.

[11:42]

Check it out. So the first thing that most, not necessarily first, but maybe the first thing you do is you start looking for how to be intimate with or how to be connected to your experience. Okay? And so the first thing you find, the first thing you discover, usually, is what? Is that you're not. Right. you notice that you're disconnected from your experience. Now before you look, you maybe think you are connected. Think, I'm connected to my experience. And then if you start looking to see how you're connected, you'll probably first of all realize that you're not. And this is a kind of poignant experience or piercing experience. Shocking experience to find that you're abstracted from your experience So most of us spend most of our time in an abstract in an abstract bubble of Ongoing commentary on our experience.

[13:03]

We're not down in our experience. We're up above it in a kind of pulled away abstracting it thinking about it like we're riding riding in a car a good share of the time well you may be just you may be um not even noticing that you're in the car but if you if you are do notice that you're riding in a car you might notice that you're thinking about riding in the car and sometimes while you're riding in a car Sometimes you drop down into feeling what it's like to be riding in the car and you notice the difference. Or like in meditation, you're paying attention to your body, but rather than experiencing the kinds of feelings and thoughts that arise from the body, we think about and comment on our feelings and thoughts that arise with the body.

[14:06]

Or our breathing, we're thinking about our breathing rather than be down in the concrete experience of breathing. So that's the first thing you notice, probably. So then you might wonder, well, how do you move from this abstraction to the concrete? How do you move from thinking about what you're doing to experiencing what you're doing or the experience of what you're doing. You're interested? You want to know about that? Hello. Hello.

[15:13]

Hello. Why is it taking me so long to answer you? Nancy? Why is it taking me so long to answer you?

[16:15]

Yeah. And so how was it going, being with your experience? Well, I'm very sick tonight, and so I was feeling my sickness and my sadness and my upset about being sick and just lots of things going on. Pretty good. Those are some experiences that you were kind of accepting that you're having them. You don't sound like you were too disconnected. although you might like to be, it doesn't sound like you were. It's not like you were just being sick and you were being sick in such a way, you were behaving towards your sickness in such a way that some of us could tell you were sick.

[17:25]

We could almost tell that you were behaving in such a way as to not run away from your sickness. Somebody told me yesterday, I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before, he said, there's this magnet, this powerful magnet, and it's covered with Velcro. And I have a little piece of Velcro on me. He didn't say that he has also magnetic properties. anyway and this magnet this powerful magnet pulls me to it and then I come to it and then I now I come to it but then I also get velcroed to it and then the magnet somehow and the velcro somehow released me just long enough to get away and be snapped back again and then releases me again

[18:48]

and pulls me back again. And he said, this goes on ceaselessly. Plus, I have expectations arising all the time, which this constantly frustrates. I said, maybe you could switch to have an expectation of getting pulled back and released over and over. But anyway, he can't make his expectations match this cycle. And then he said to me, I won't ask you for how to get out of this. And I think the reason why he didn't ask me is because he's asked me before and I said, there's no way out. This tendency, he said that he felt pulled two things and then sticks and then gets released and pulled two and sticks.

[20:14]

But it's also that we are constantly reaching out and trying to get a hold of something. And as soon as we get a hold of it, It's gone. So then we grab again for something else. And we're constantly frustrated because we never get quite what we're looking for. Now sometimes we get approximately what we're looking for, but still it changes. Even if we're somewhat successful, we lose it, keep losing it. And then, of course, we try again. However, there's an escalation that happens there, of course, so that what used to be a little bit satisfying even though it was fleeting won't be enough now. So how do you get out of this? You can't get out of it.

[21:19]

It's a perfectly self-perpetuating system. That's what the Buddha is talking about here in the second part of the sutra. Ignorance, karmic formation, ignorance. What do you do with ignorance? Try to do something about it. Something's wrong and you can do something about it. You're ignorant, something's wrong. And you're ignorant, therefore you can do something about it. So you do. So then you get consciousness, then you get personality, and then da-da-da-da-da-da. Misery. There's no way out of that. How about the ceasing? Is the ceasing of ignorance out of it? No. It's not out of it. It's just the ceasing of ignorance.

[22:23]

What's the ceasing of ignorance? What's the ceasing of ignorance? It's the ignorance itself. It's intimacy with the ignorance. The fundamental affliction of ignorance itself is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. The fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. They all know about the fundamental affliction of ignorance. They practice the middle way with the fundamental affliction of ignorance. Suffering which is subject to arising, arises.

[23:24]

What does it depend on? They watch how this happens. That's all they watch. That's all they see. And that itself is their immutable knowledge. When you say that they're watching it, do you mean that they're watching it or that they're experiencing it? Actually you're right. There's intimacy. They're experiencing the intimacy of the fundamental affliction of ignorance. And with the experiencing intimacy of the fundamental affliction of ignorance, they experience the ceasing of the fundamental affliction of ignorance. But they don't get out of it. They don't get out of it.

[24:34]

It just ceases. By ceases, do you mean it stops moving up and down, or it goes away, or that it ceases to afflict? Or all of them? it ceases to arise in the first place. So it also ceases to afflict. It doesn't exactly go away, but I guess you could say it goes away. But it really doesn't come. And if you're intimate with how it comes, you understand how it doesn't. Which again means to be with ignorance in this unobstructed way without interposing theories of existence and non-existence on suffering.

[25:54]

which is related to acceptance and patience. So is it accepting that you don't know is intimacy with it? Accepting that you don't know that you're ignorant is intimacy. So do we have a person here who doesn't know that she's ignorant? Is that what we're talking about now? Oh, no. I was just saying that accepting that you don't know, being intimate with Oh, accepting that you're ignorant? Accepting that you're ignorant?

[27:12]

That's part of the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas, is to accept how ignorance seems to arise. Because ignorance, in a sense, means not knowing. So if you want to say not knowing ignorance, accepting that. Wouldn't it be ignorant to think that you do know everything? Thinking that you do know everything is just a thought, okay? And thoughts arise based on ignorance. Yeah, that's what it says there, doesn't it? Based on ignorance, there's karmic formations. Based on karmic formations, there's a consciousness. Based on consciousness, there's a psychophysical personality. And so on. All this stuff arises based on ignorance.

[28:13]

And suffering arises based on the personality and so on. Without a personality, without... without feelings, without contact, without craving and so on, without that stuff the suffering doesn't happen, doesn't arise. But without ignorance none of that stuff arises. So one might ask is there, what life is there without ignorance? What is there without ignorance? Yes, Andy? I was wondering if I'm agitated from the noise outside because I'm ignorant. And I was thinking, well, maybe I'm agitated because I'm ignorant, but what about if a leaf blower was in here and we had a leaf blower going the whole class? Would my agitation, would my suffering be from ignorance?

[29:22]

Just ignore it. To say that it's from ignorance is slightly different from saying that, well, for example, if you, if there was a, you know, somebody saw a leaf blower going on and you were practicing the middle way, I mean, you know, the middle way was realized by you, And you had insight into what was going on at that time. How do you think you'd feel about the leaf blower? You could still hear the leaf blower going, you know, and if it was loud, they might have some painful sensation accompanying the loud leaf blower. I think I have a craving for it to stop. Well, then you're plugging into that system there of craving, and that works back to ignorance.

[30:32]

But if you practiced the middle way and could see how the craving arose, that was your understanding of how craving arose, you could also understand how craving ceases. If you had that kind of right wisdom, you wouldn't be projecting, you wouldn't be abstracting yourself from the experience of the leaf blower. And would that be the end of suffering? yeah it would be that would be the end of suffering to be completely unobstructed about the experience of the leaf blower the Buddha you know towards the end of his life had back problems and got sick towards the end of his life and had you know I think he had pain

[31:52]

and had a hard time getting around, hard time walking. He had, you know, major physical pain. Was he still, was he the Buddha? Probably. Did he stop being the Buddha in his illness? No reports of him not being Buddha anymore. So he would continue to practice the middle way, continue to be able to see this is the end of suffering. This is the arising of suffering. Understanding the arising suffering, understanding the end of suffering, he had realized the end of suffering. He realized the way of living that is the end of suffering. He saw the origins of suffering, and he saw suffering. He could see suffering and the origins of suffering, and he could see suffering. The end of suffering and the way, the middle way, which is the end of suffering. You can see that. Right while the leaf blower was going.

[32:53]

And, you know, making his nerves go... But no craving and no ignorance. He realized the cessation of ignorance and therefore the cessation of craving and therefore the cessation of the mass of suffering. But if we're not intimate with the fundamental affliction of ignorance, then where is the fundamental affliction of ignorance? Is it like nearby? Well, actually... It is nearby and all we can do is abstract ourselves from it, remove ourselves from it. By what? By interposing abstractions.

[33:58]

So then we don't have a clear vision of how it works. So this sutra shows the clear vision of the Buddha that arises from the middle way. So whatever happens, that's it. It happens. For whatever ceases, that's it. There's no inner or outer grasping. What if there's grasping? If there's an experience of grasping, that's what you're experiencing. You feel that... that draw. You're there with it. Yes? I just don't see how it's possible to live...

[35:04]

I don't see how it's possible. I mean, you have a job, and you have to make things happen, and you have a family. Well, what way do you see it's possible to live like? You see it's possible to abstract yourself from your experience? Is that possible? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. In fact, I don't see it possible not to. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. It just seems impossible. But you do think it is possible to sort of like be going around in a kind of commentarial mode about your life. That's possible. Right? So most people know about that. This is kind of a common way of life where we're not practicing mindfulness. Okay, so you know about that. So you don't think it's possible to just occasionally, just maybe suddenly feel what it's like, like a few minutes ago when you were just like feeling what it was like to sit there and be sick. You did feel that way, didn't you? So it was possible.

[36:07]

So why did you say it wasn't possible? I guess I think it's not possible if you're working or if you've got things that you have to make happen. Then how can you not do that? How can you just leave it? I can't imagine myself at work in this way. Because I'm always trying to do something. So I'm always grasping for something. So you can't understand how you could settle into, like this guy who told me, you know, he was like, felt what it was like to be in this grasping mode that he's in all the time. So you don't think you'd be able to be in the grasping mode and be grasping all day long and feel what that's like? Right. So we're not saying that you'd be different from that.

[37:13]

That's the fundamental affliction of ignorance there. You got that going. It's just a question. And as part of that ignorance, we think the ignorance is necessary in order to get the job done. We think that we wouldn't be able to function without the ignorance, without that grasping. Right? Which is not true. But we think that. Okay? The Buddhists can walk downtown and turn a knob just like anybody else. They don't see it that way, but they had the behavior of walking around. They can do it. They can go to work. They can sweep the floor. They don't see it that they're sweeping the floor, but the activity of floor sweeping can occur without this idea of grasping. Anyway, we have the idea that you've got to have the grasping. So the grasping is going on, right? And the constant frustration and perplexity is also accompanying that grasping. Okay?

[38:14]

And we can't imagine how the job would get done without the grasping. And therefore, I guess, we can't imagine how it could not have perplexity, doubt, and anxiety. We wish it could be, but we're somewhat realistic that maybe without drugs, it probably wouldn't be. Those will come along with it. And in order to get the job done, we accept that maybe. That's the price of employment. So I'm not saying stop that ignorance. I'm not saying that, I'm saying notice how you're not connected to the experience of being ignorant. He said here, what is it? Who thinks? She who thinks. She doesn't think. She doesn't have this thing. This is myself.

[39:16]

She's not abstracting herself. But she still says, the suffering that's subject to arising arises. So suffering that's subject to arising arises. Suffering based on this clinging. When this clinging is deficit, the suffering arises. And there is awareness of this. you can go ahead and be deluded and think that your delusion is necessary in order to do the job and therefore see the job done and be there with that process of delusion. It is possible. And not only that, but if you were there with it and what? And you saw that the ceasing of this grasping the job could still get done. But in the meantime, if you can't imagine any other way to behave other than the way you have been behaving, go right ahead and do it.

[40:21]

But get intimate with what you're doing. Namely, first of all, don't distract yourself from what it's like to be a grasper at work. Don't distract yourself from that by... Self-denial, self-mortification, and self-indulgence, indulging in sense pleasure. Don't distract yourself from what it's like to be a constantly frustrated person by those. And then, don't pull yourself away, don't abstract yourself, don't distract yourself from your life by interposing this commentary, this exists, this doesn't exist. So you don't have to change any of the basic machinery that you think is necessary in order to do your job. You just need to dismantle the separation from feeling what it's like to be on this wheel of ignorance, psychophysical personality at work, craving, clinging and so on.

[41:42]

Just be intimate with that. and you're being intimate with the fundamental affliction of ignorance. And this is what Buddhas know about. And by knowing about it, there is the ceasing of the ignorant, of the not knowing about it, of the ignoring it, which makes possible the clinging, and which makes possible thinking that the clinging is necessary even. Well, necessary, inexorable, unavoidable, irresistible. It is irresistible once there's ignorance. It's unstoppable. You cannot stop it. It's coming. You can see that if you're intimate with that process. And you can do that while at work. You can dip down into what it feels like to be a deluded person at work.

[42:43]

You maybe can't stop being a deluded person, which is somebody who thinks that she does this by her own power and she can't imagine any other way for it to happen, therefore she holds on to that way. Like that I told you before, you know, the guy comes and says, my brother thinks he's a chicken, right? No, you didn't hear that one. You missed class. You heard it, though, didn't you, Nancy? You didn't? My brother thinks he's a chicken. Guy goes and tells the psychiatrist, my brother thinks he's a chicken. The psychiatrist says, well, why didn't you tell him he's not? He said, I need the eggs. So. You think you're grasping something and you think that's necessary in order to do the job. It's not, but you need the eggs and you think that you won't get them if you don't do it the way you usually get them. Turns out if you take away the thing you usually do, you'll still get them, but you can't believe you don't want to take a chance.

[43:50]

Because of your kids, right? Because of your kids. It's not for me. But in fact, you can settle down and you will be all right. Now, some of the things might happen, like people might say, what is going on with you? Why are you crying? Why don't you come to the Christmas party? So maybe some changes will happen. I don't know. But even if you don't go to the Christmas party, you'll still be clinging and craving, you know, not being at the Christmas party. The only difference is that you'll be with your craving and clinging when you're not at the Christmas party. Whereas if you go to the Christmas party, the people will say, you know, what's the matter with you? And then you feel like, well, do you want me to stay at the party and be like I am? Like to be here and like not abstracting myself and how I feel being at this party?

[44:55]

And that they say, yeah, fine, stay. And you can say, okay, I'll stay here and I'm connected to the misery of being at this party. So you can stay, but maybe they say, oh, you can go. It's all right, go ahead. Go sit outside. Go back to your office. Go home early. Because we're not here to be intimate with our suffering. We're here to indulge in sense pleasure. It's a, you know, once a year, let's do it. And you might say, okay, once a year I'll do it. Once a year I'll take a little break and abstract myself to indulging in sense pleasure. Once a year is maybe okay. They do that once a year in Zen monasteries. Huh? Yeah, on New Year's Day they stop practicing mindfulness. Officially. Now, some of them aren't practicing it, are unofficially not practicing it. Other times, too, but officially everybody stops practicing and indulges in sense pleasures on New Year's.

[46:01]

What's that? Well, everybody's, you know, everybody acts stupid and drunk and, you know, they get intoxicated so they can't even, like, feel where their suffering is, you know. Was my suffering here or there? You go into this numb space, right, with the aid of the alcohol rather than with the aid of mental abstraction, which is the way we usually do it. Rather than theories. Theories of existence and non-existence, you can keep yourself... I'm suffering so much, yeah, huh? That was Woody Allen's joke. That was Woody Allen's joke about the chicken. That was Woody Allen's joke. Here's another joke that I just read in the New Yorker. This guy's, you know, it's one of the psychiatrist jokes.

[47:07]

The patient is lying down on the couch and the psychiatrist says, I'll say something normal and then you say the first sick thing that comes to your mind. Yeah. So go ahead. Say the first sick thing that comes to your mind. Patty? Got something sick to tell us about? I was just thinking about there are moments that I'm with the experience and I think it's habit that I run and I go back to the abstraction. Right. That's right. It's habit. Well, the Velcro thing is not necessarily... The Velcro thing is... You can be mindful while the Velcro thing's happening.

[48:14]

This guy who told me about that, that was an insight. It's an insight to be able to see the Velcro thing happen. That's insight. You're actually there when you see that. To feel that draw and that smack and that stuck and then to feel the release and then draw back again and to feel the frustration and to feel the expectations. That's insight. This guy is suffering and he could tell me about how the suffering works. Everybody else is going through this Velcro cycle, this magnet, stick, release, go back, frustration, expectation, blah, blah, blah. But they're like up, away from it. Everybody's going through that, but who is down there in the soup? Meditator, the one who's practicing the middle way, is down in the soup. They're down in there based on ignorance, karmic formation. The Buddha was actually in that soup. He was down in there. He actually experienced it. And he could see how the experience of karmic formations comes, it depends on ignorance.

[49:20]

And karmic formations is... You know, you not only sense that something's wrong, but you think you can do something about it. Because you're ignorant, you think you can do something about it. So you can't do anything about it. All you can do is have karmic formations on top of ignorance, which produces dualistic consciousness. And with dualistic consciousness, now you can create a personality which keeps you away from your experience, and so on. So the Velcro process can keep going, but you can feel what it's like to be doing that. And this is not very pleasant to hear, but this is the kind of work we have to do to get intimate. You have to feel not intimate in order to feel intimate. You have to feel not connected to feel connected. You have to feel your abstractions to give up abstractions. These things are mostly unconscious.

[50:23]

They're not going to go away just by, you know, putting yourself in a buffer, in a space suit for a little while, and then maybe when you come back they're gone. No. They're just churning away while you've been away. It's getting stronger usually while you've been out of town. They can't get much stronger because they're really strong as it is, but they can get a little stronger maybe. Eventually we have to come back down into this stuff and face the music. Not change the music. Not stop the machine. Face the machine. Face the experience of it. That's the first part of the middle way. And the second part of the middle way.

[51:26]

The first part of the middle way is stop doing these gross things to turn away from what it's like to be deluded. And then stop doing the subtle things. The gross things like, you know, banging your head against the wall and taking drugs. And then the subtle thing is abstracting yourself. You're not stoned. You're not injured. But you're a little, you know, you're in this abstract bubble all the time floating above your experience or to the side of your experience. Those are two ways we separate ourselves from the experience which, if we were intimate with it, we will see that this basic experience of ignorance and suffering, we will see this is exactly what Buddha studies and what Buddha knows about. And knowing how it goes this way is to know how it goes the other way. knowing how it arises and ceases is understanding how it doesn't arise and cease.

[52:27]

So you look kind of miserable But you need to be enthusiastic about not being miserable, but you need to be enthusiastic about being intimate with your misery. You need to, otherwise you're not going to be. The habit is strong to get yourself away from this misery, which is to get yourself away from your ignorance. and keep your ignorance unconscious so it can drive your life. In order to get intimate with this ignorance, we've got to be enthusiastic about getting intimate with it. So in the next few minutes, you need to get enthusiastic because you don't look enthusiastic right now. You're smiling. That's close, very close. Smile.

[53:46]

I'm going to get intimate with my suffering. I'm going to get intimate with my ignorance. I'm going to get intimate with this Velcro thing and the expectations and the non-stop frustration and anxiety. I'm going to get intimate with it. I'm going to be intimate with the arising of the suffering and the ceasing of the suffering. This is like really... I'm up for this. Why I'm up for this? Because all Buddhas took this course. The Buddha teaches the middle way, which the Buddha learned how to live. But it wasn't easy for the Buddha to learn to live the middle way. The Buddha had a hard time. It took him a long time to figure out how to settle into this groove of being intimate with what's happening, to not distract himself to not turn away or abstract himself.

[54:49]

So if it took him a long time, it'll probably take us a long time. If it was hard for him, it would be hard for us. But it definitely will not move along very well if you're not up for it. So if you're not up for it, please let me know so I can get you up for it. I mean, I can't get you up for it, but the universe is going to get you up for it through me freaking out. Yes? One thing I do worry about is getting depressed. You know, this will cause depression in me. It will cause depression. Well, you know, sometimes if a person is depressed, we usually don't recommend that they just like sit quietly in a room alone. We usually want them to get moving if they're depressed. But now, if a person's not depressed, but they're worried about being depressed, that's all different.

[55:53]

So how are you going to get depressed? How do you see, what's the story by which you think you're going to get depressed? Meditating. Are you depressed now? I might be. I don't know. I'm just worried that, because in the past I've meditated and then had horrible thoughts come into my mind, and then I feel like I got afraid of it and depressed and didn't want to meditate anymore. Horrible thoughts. Yeah, well, again, that's what, as I said, when you first start trying to approach the Middle Way... It seems like you're moving away from it because that means you're getting closer to the stuff that you've been away from. So then you do expose yourself to horrible thoughts, to horrors.

[57:00]

But it's not going to help you get depressed about this. So how can you be enthusiastic about being exposed to horrors? tell yourself a story about how that would be good to be enthusiastic about facing these horrors, these terrible, these horrible thoughts, these terrible thoughts? What? Yeah, so what would it be? Because, you know, you know that it might be that when you sit down and start to not try to abstract yourself from what's happening, terrible things, you could have terrible experiences, terrible thoughts could come. So how are we going to be up for this? In the past, I told myself they weren't my thoughts. They were other people's thoughts. Tell yourself that they aren't my thoughts. Well, that's another thought, which is a perfectly good thought. These thoughts are not my thoughts.

[58:04]

They're somebody else's thoughts. So you have the horrible thoughts and you have the thought that they're not your thoughts. So that's more thoughts. So that's fine. I mean, I'm not saying anything wrong with that, but that's not the middle way. That's just more thoughts. Don't use thoughts, generally speaking, don't use thoughts as a way to try to get yourself to have some other kind of thoughts. Use thoughts to encourage yourself to be intimate with your thoughts. If saying to yourself, these are not my thoughts, therefore, since they're not mine, I feel more able to be close to them because they're not mine. So I can be cozy with these horrible thoughts because they're not mine. If that works, I guess that would be fine. Some kind of like creative way to get close. That might be okay.

[59:07]

Okay. There's lots of ways to... That's kind of enthusiasm. It could be. I mean, if that's the motivation, is to get closer, is to stop distracting yourself from it, that would be okay. Yes? I feel that this is somehow irresponsible that... They're certainly not owning their doctors. They rise and they settle, but they're not borrowing. I mean, to me, that doesn't seem really responsible. And the whole notion of emptying yourself, you have to kind of, in some way, not take responsibility, which Well, I was just trying to be open to what you said, okay?

[60:12]

about maybe saying that if a violent thought arises, my basic thing is if a violent thought arises and you can become intimate with that violent thought, then the violent thought won't hurt you or me. That's my basic thesis. Okay? Did you get that? Yeah, I know. My proposal is a violent thought unattended, a violent thought that's rising in your mind that you don't attend to, that you don't take care of, can be very destructive. That's my basic message to the world. And the people who do a lot of destruction, I feel, are people who have violent energy, violent thoughts arising in their mind, but they're not intimate with these violent thoughts.

[61:38]

If you're intimate with violent thoughts, then the violent thoughts will not be harmful. I don't think I needed that one. Are you telling me that you don't control that? Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I am saying that you don't control that. Yeah. I'm telling you that you are not in control of your thoughts. That's what I'm saying to you. Now, you and a lot of other people think that they are in control of their thoughts, and I disagree. I have never met anybody that's in control of their thoughts. Myself. I've never met somebody like that. But I have met people who become intimate with their thoughts, and when they become intimate with their thoughts, then their thoughts are not harmful.

[62:40]

You can think of... A violent thing can come in your mind, like... Like you think of cutting somebody's head off, and if you're intimate with that thought... If you attend to that thought with love, which is part of intimacy, patience, courage, and the middle, balanced way of not distracting yourself from what it's like to have that thought, then that thought will not be harmful. If you don't attend to violent thoughts in your mind, If you don't attend to them, then they generally speaking have a really fairly good chance of causing some damage. Almost anything wholesome or unwholesome that you don't attend to has a good chance of harming you and harming others. That's what I'm saying. I agree with that aspect of what you're saying. Okay. All right. That's not the aspect. It's a different aspect of... Well, just the fact that you agree on that point, that's my main point.

[63:49]

So what don't you agree with? That this thing of emptying yourself and then... By the way, I don't think I said emptying yourself. No, okay. I think a lot... Huh? I'm not saying try not to fix things. No, because I'm saying that you're constantly trying to fix things. You can't help. You know, you've got this thing. That's the thing. That's the magnet. The magnet is, I'm going to... Here it goes. I'm going to try to fix this. I can't stop myself from trying to fix it. Here I go trying to fix it. And... You know, it doesn't get fixed. Of course, it's hard to get fixed, but then after it gets fixed, you're afraid it's going to break again. So you need to try it again. So anyway, we can't stop these habits. You can't stop them by your own power because it's the same system.

[64:54]

I'm not telling you to stop what you can't stop. I'm telling you to become intimate with what you can't stop. And I'm not telling you to start what you can't start. I'm telling you to become intimate with what you can't start but that does start. When you become intimate with it, don't you just want to just be there with it? I mean, you don't want to change it. That's right. The intimacy doesn't want to change it. But the intimacy, if it's a bad, if it's a harmful thing, although the intimacy doesn't want to change it, the intimacy disarms a harmful thing. Yes. You can want the world to change. You can want the world to change. You can want beings to be free of suffering. That's what the Middle Way is about. It's about how to free beings from suffering, including yourself.

[65:59]

That's what it's about. That's the point of it. Well, if you learn how to do it yourself, that helps you teach others how to do it. You can teach others how to do it if you would learn how to do it. But this intimacy thing, this middle way, is about understanding the end of suffering and teaching it to others. The Buddha teaches the middle way, that he realized, when he realized it, he got the knowledge of the Buddha, which is the knowledge of the end of suffering. He got to see, this is the end of suffering. There it is, flat out. This is it, folks. This is suffering. This is the source of suffering. This is the end of suffering. He got to see that. How did he get to see it? By practicing the middle way. So now he's teaching it to us. If you learn the middle way, then you can teach it to others. It's about teaching people to be free of suffering through understanding how suffering arises and ceases.

[67:02]

Okay? But it's not exactly about emptying yourself. It's about realizing the emptiness of yourself. It's not about emptying your suffering. It's not about emptying your experience. It's about realizing the emptiness of your experience. And in a way you realize the emptiness of ignorance and the emptiness of the cessation of ignorance. And therefore you're liberated and therefore you can teach others how to do it. But it isn't that it would be irresponsible. It's irresponsible to go around harming people. Or you could say, no, it's not irresponsible. You're fulfilling your responsibility as a troublemaker. You're being a very responsible, harmful person. You're harming people.

[68:03]

You're doing your job of being harmful. But responsible, irresponsible, that's just an endless process of misery. Intimacy with responsibility and irresponsibility, whatever those are, that's the path of liberation. from responsibility and irresponsibility. Does that make sense? It's going to take a while. Hi. No. Well, when you're not, I just had a But anyway, I'm not saying empty yourself. I'm not saying stop yourself from being the way you are. I'm saying become intimate with the way you are.

[69:10]

I'm saying stop distracting yourself from the way you are. Stop turning away from the way you are. Stop turning away from your sense of how you're doing things on your own, by your own power. Stop turning away from your karmic formations. Stop turning away from your ignorance. Stop turning away from your suffering. Stop turning away. I'm not saying do stupid things. I'm not saying stop doing stupid things. You don't need to be told to do stupid things, and you can't stop yourself from doing stupid things. I'm not saying do good things, and I'm not saying stop doing bad things. I'm saying doing good things and stopping doing bad things, that's the Buddha's teaching, but nobody can tell you to do that. But if you become intimate with the good things you're doing and intimate with the stupid things you're doing, you will start doing good and you'll stop doing bad.

[70:14]

And you won't be any longer an abstraction which you use to turn away from your life. You'll become intimate with the you and it won't get in the way anymore. Become intimate with your you, with the me, with the violence, with the horror. Stop turning away and practice the middle way. Yes? There's something that I thought about back here. I don't quite understand what you're saying. coming up with the idea that we should have passion about this, and one should act in the larger worlds and do good and great things. And a lot of what I hear, a lot of what I'm learning here is how to take care of myself.

[71:22]

I understand there's perhaps a trickle-down to doing work, but take care of myself, but take care of others. Well, it's learning how to live among misery and the desire to somehow eliminate in a large sense. Right, right. We've learned to practice away this movement in the middle. You're learning a way to exist in the middle of all this. That's what I'm talking about, right? Without taking action? Without taking action, did you say? Okay, so I am talking about living in the middle of things. yeah right well this this middle uh this middle means this middle way means to go all the way that's what this middle way is this is a passionate middle way it has passion it means that you do what you do completely because you're intimate with what you do and you become you become liberated from your small scale doing things and you enter into a

[72:56]

very big, what's called great activity which is the activity that's born of enlightenment. But it's enlightenment that is born by being in the middle of what's happening, understanding it, becoming liberated from it, And liberating from what's happening means also your activity becomes great and beneficent. So that you can teach other beings who are in the middle of it, who are distracting themselves from being in the middle of it, and therefore harming themselves and harming others, you can teach them how to become free of their harmful ways of life. Is there a place in the middle of it where we stand up and shout, I'm mad as hell, I'm not going to pay you back anymore? if it's helpful if it's helpful to do that i don't know if i know what you're saying but if it's helpful to stand up and shout then by all means it should be that you stand up and shout the buddha did sometimes shout yes

[74:07]

The middle way is a very active one. It's not a passive one, sitting on your cushion. It's getting off your cushion and bringing it to everything. It is sometimes. I mean, I get the feeling people think that we're supposed to be passive, and that's the hardest part, is if you're doing it every moment, you're totally active. I mean, not in terms of trying to change things, you know, the changing part, but if I were actually paying attention all the time, I would be so happy. The middle way is a big change. It's a really different, it's a revolutionary way to live. And it requires a great passion in order to practice, because you have to be able to wholeheartedly enter into the world of suffering with all beings.

[75:21]

You have to plunge into the world of suffering with all beings. You have to feel fully what your experience is. And the proposal is that this middle way, This balanced way of being, which is also fully experiencing what's happening, is a source of great activity, of great beneficent activity. Part of the thing is that there's kind of a historical example of the Buddha and many disciples who had great activity in the world, who were very helpful to many people, and they were right in the middle of the world of suffering, but they showed many people how to be in the middle of the world of suffering and how to help others. They helped others learn how to help others. Right in the middle of suffering, by becoming intimate with the suffering and liberated from the suffering, And whatever way that works, whatever way that helps, let's do it that way.

[76:28]

If yelling helps, yell. I could yell now, but I don't know if you need me to yell. Do you need me to yell? If you do, I'll yell. I have no problem yelling. And sometimes I do yell, and sometimes I think maybe it's helpful. And I've been yelled at, and it's been helpful to me sometimes. Most of the time I've been yelled at lately. It's been helpful. That question is, is the yelling arising up out of the middle way? If it is, I say it's beneficent. If it's not, then it's off, because it's not coming from where we are and what we are. It's dislocated from our life. It's just an abstract continuation of off-centeredness and inclination.

[77:37]

And generally speaking, that's the way the world is. So the Buddha is trying to set an example of not being inclined in the midst of our life to be upright and let that uprightness blossom into great activity. Which can be, you know, ow, it hurts, or may I help you, or whatever.

[78:04]

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