I will give you I'd like to give you a picture overall picture and I'll do it again and again until hopefully you have it in your heart so the picture goes like this the first thing to start anywhere in this it's kind of a circle I would start with the bodhisattva precepts So start with receiving the Bodhisattva precepts. You receive those precepts of taking refuge in complete wisdom and taking refuge in the teaching about complete wisdom and enlightenment in the community. taking on the vow to practice right conduct, to refrain from unwholesomeness, to embrace and sustain all beings, and then not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality, and so on.

[01:21]

Those 16 receive them. And then these 16 bodhisattva precepts are the gate to what I call being upright so then being upright being upright is you both enter being upright by receiving the 16 bodhisattva precepts in other words these precepts of not killing and so on these precepts of embracing and sustaining right conduct they help you understand what it means to be upright They inform you about what it means to be upright. And also, being upright, being upright is the way to care for these precepts and develop them and understand them.

[02:35]

And also these precepts, these 16 precepts, are the gate to what I call full self-expression. So full self-expression goes with being upright. The kind of expression that comes from being upright I call full self-expression. Full self-expression is informed by the Bodhisattva precepts and also helps you understand the Bodhisattva precepts. So being upright is, in a sense, an attitude of uprightness and balance which is informed by harmlessness and conscientiousness, gentleness, courage, flexibility, honesty, anyway the precepts but there's also an expressive or active mode of this being upright which I call full self-expression this kind of cultivation of this this way of being is then the gate it turns into a gate also and it is the gate a second gate into

[04:13]

the understanding of Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising, Buddha's teaching of interdependence. But Buddha's teaching of interdependence is also the contents of Buddha's wisdom. So this being upright and full self-expression are the gate to Buddha's teaching are the gate to understanding Buddha's teaching. And understanding Buddha's teaching is wisdom, the wisdom of interdependence. Once this wisdom has been entered, great compassion spontaneously arises from this wisdom. because this wisdom is the wisdom is the understanding of interdependence so then great compassion which is not only caring about other people who you understand are not just other people but not caring about all living beings and actually caring about everything understanding that everything is you and you are everything

[05:43]

Naturally, you not only care about everything, but you want everything to be happy and healthy, and you're happy to work to help everything realize happiness and not only realize happiness, but realize wisdom and compassion so that all beings can then themselves enter the path of helping all beings enter the path. And then from this compassion, the natural expression of this compassion is the full realization, the full understanding and practice of the Bodhisattva precepts. So I drew this on this board here. So first is starting here. Sixteen BS is bodhisattva.

[06:49]

BS with a circle around it is bodhisattva. Contained BS is bodhisattva. Sixteen bodhisattva precepts are the gate to being upright and false self-expression. Realizing being upright and realizing full self-expression is the gate to understanding dependent core rising, DCA. And understanding DCA, understanding interdependence of all things, leads to great compassion. And great compassion expresses itself as the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Great compassion, again, is not just caring about people, but it is showing them how to be free. It is demonstrating. The Buddha doesn't make people free by, you know, fixing them up. The Buddha helps people be free by showing them how to be free. Showing them the Bodhisattva precepts so they can see evidence of freedom.

[07:56]

So round and round we go. Strictly speaking, The attainment of Zen meditation is understanding dependent core arising. The training in Zen meditation, in a sense, is training in being upright and full self-expression. You can train yourself in that, and when you train yourself in being upright and full self-expression, you're also starting to meditate on dependent core arising. you're starting to meditate interdependence when you're fully in some sense when you're fully fully being upright then you enter into the actual understanding of dependent core rising so Like Jackie asked a few a month or so ago, when I was talking about full self-expression, she says, does that mean you can do anything you want?

[09:06]

And what about the bodhisattva precepts, she said? And I said that full self-expression must be based on the bodhisattva precepts. I proposed to you that if you express yourself in such a way that you don't accord with these precepts, it's not full self-expression. It's some expression. You're always expressing yourself. You're always expressing yourself. You're always expressing yourself. But, if you don't understand how your expression is the bodhisattva precepts, and other people don't understand how your expression is the bodhisattva precepts, you have to work until you and others do understand it. And when you get to the point where you understand that what you're doing is the bodhisattva precepts, That's full expression, full self-expression. So that's the picture, and I will try to fill it in with detail, and you probably have questions about this.

[10:19]

And by discussing this picture, I hope you will understand what kind of relationships each of us has with all beings such that this story comes true so that this picture is realized so any questions so far yes gene last week i brought lovely copies of the Sixteen Buddhas. Yeah. Did you pick up that little piece of gray paper? You did? There's sixteen on there. Yeah. One, two, three, refuges. Okay? One, two, three, pure precepts. And ten, grave precepts. You got it right there.

[11:20]

Yeah. You got it. This is a good example, you know. it sometimes you don't know what you have you got to look and sometimes you have to ask and somebody tell you you've already got it and then you say oh thank you triple treasure is buddha in sanskrit buddha dharma and sangha but what buddha means in a sense is well you can say you can understand buddha is like the person or the teacher who teaches you wisdom But you can also understand Buddha as wisdom, as the wisdom of interdependence. The actual understanding of how things work and the actual being like that, that your state, the actual state of your being is like realizing interdependence. So you don't just understand in your head that we're interdependent, but you act like that.

[12:24]

your body naturally responds like that so like with your children especially when they're little especially when they're really little like in your womb you act like you're interdependent everywhere you go they go everywhere they go you go your food is their food their food is your food their your blood is their blood their blood is your blood you're like you know organically interdependent it's obvious and your body is the story of that as they grow up and come out of your body and run around you still sort of act like that for a while now imagine being like that with everybody that's buddha where everybody's blood is your blood and your blood is everybody's blood where everybody's food is your food you know so that means in some sense you can go eat off anybody's plate if you want to but of course you might ask them because You know, they're like you, and that they, you know, might think that their food's their food.

[13:28]

So anyway, you learn, actually, how to embody that. That's Buddha. Somebody who's like that's a Buddha, and that understanding is Buddha, or Bodhi. The teaching, this teaching, of how this is so, is called the Dharma. The teaching of interdependence, basically, is Dharma. and the community of people who practice it and help each other practice it is the sangha that's a triple treasure how do you separate interdependence from codependence uh codependence is like when i help you but you don't help me like you got you know you got some problems And I support you in your problems, but you don't support me in my problems. You don't help me with, you know. I feed you even though, you know, you've got some problems, but you don't say thank you.

[14:30]

And you don't tell me, and you don't admit to me that I'm helping you with your problem. And you don't discuss your problem with me. Matter of fact, you say you don't have a problem. And also, I help you with your problem by not mentioning to you that I think you've got a problem. So it's kind of it's kind of how it's like it's a asymmetry of information. It's not independent. It's not interdependence. It's it's dependence and being dishonest about the dependence. It both is a dependency and both parties are honest about it. It's not codependence. It's just kindness, even though it may look like one person's helping the other. When the person who's being helped says, thank you, you're really helping me, and this is what's going on with me, and is there anything I can do for you, even though I can't do certain things, it's the interdependence that makes it not codependence. In codependence, usually there's dishonesty.

[15:30]

In interdependence, there's being upright, there's honesty, there's courage. You're not afraid of what the other person will think of you. You're not afraid of losing the person. You're not attached. You serve them in non-detachment, in being upright in interdependence. So being upright gets you ready, and full self-expression gets you ready for having an interdependent relationship rather than a codependent relationship. In codependent relationships, there's not full self-expression. one person's doing this and the other person's doing that this person's holding back this person's overdoing and then in another realm this person's holding back and this person's overdoing they're not both expressing themselves and both taking care of each other there's a splitting there's a splitting in the relationship that's codependence but there's something good about codependence because somebody at least cares about somebody else in that situation but

[16:40]

if that somebody really cares about the other person they won't put up with a lack of information they won't put up with the asymmetry for long they only do it as long as it's healthy they only support as long as it's healthy and when it's not healthy they have the courage to express themselves and say i love you but i'm not going to do this anymore it's not good for us have the courage to do that even though it means you might lose the person They might not tolerate your honesty. But you choose honesty at a certain point in your life. Sometimes honesty can wait for a few seconds. But you time it. So you're flexible. You're honest, but you're flexible. You're not rigidly honest. That you always tell the truth no matter what, even if it hurts people. No. Sometimes telling the truth is at the wrong time. So I've mentioned before. So this is an example of the precept of three precepts, right there.

[17:43]

Not lying, not speaking of others' faults, and not praising self at the expense of others. Those three precepts bear on this because even if you're going to say the truth is not always good to say. The Buddha said you should not speak when what you have to say is true and hurts. You should not speak when what you have to say is false and hurts. You should not speak if what you have to say doesn't hurt but is false. Now if what you have to say is true and doesn't hurt, even then you should wait for the right time. So you have to be flexible, alert, courageous, honest, to be upright and to express yourself fully. if you do that we don't have codependence we have interdependence so let's see we had um uh i think because we have paula and we have joanne who else had their hand raised before barbara was anybody else okay paula from a dharma perspective doesn't interdependence exist irrespective of whether someone's

[19:04]

being involved with full self-expression or co-dependence isn't co-dependence more an aspect of being rather than it doesn't relate interdependence you're interdependent irrespective of whether you're doing it excuse me excuse me interdependence is always what's going on that's reality it's not the whole it's not all of reality is what we mean by interdependence in this But certainly all living reality, all human reality, all living reality is interdependence no matter whether you understand anything about it or not, it's still interdependent. Yes. So anything more you want to say about that? It's always the case. But if you don't realize what's going on, you can go around causing yourself and others a lot of trouble. It's called ignorance. It's called ignorance. It's called ignoring reality. When you ignore reality, you can cause major damage. and even when you can start seeing reality a little bit if you don't participate with it even if you see it and understand it with your mind your eyes if you don't get your body in line with it even if you understand bodhisattva precepts would be cool being upright would be cool understanding interdependence is really great if you don't practice it you cause practically as much damage as if you've never even heard of it so you've got to like practice it too

[20:37]

And codependence is, you could be in a codependent situation and still be trying to practice it, but you haven't realized it yet. Barbara? I don't know if you're keeping up with my question. It has to do with awareness of known as a whole is our life as a being. And so practice comes in, and I get stuck a lot in, you know, grasping a vision that's trying to be good, or contracting fear. And I just want to do a series, talk a little bit about full expression in there, and the, you know, the pitfalls, the pitfalls of trying to be good, and then, but you're really losing sort of awareness, and it's like... Okay. Okay. Let me just take the other questions and see what the lay of the land is.

[21:43]

So there was Joanne. Who else was there? Is that it? Joanne and Diana. Joanne? My question is just about the timing of honesty. And when you were talking about the qualities that you need to be courageous and upright. Okay. That goes with what she's saying, timing. And... What can you name again? Diana. Diana, yeah. Diana and Deborah in line there. Yes? About fear and you talked about last week about not running away from it, but pushing it, but settling into it. Fear? Uh-huh. Uh-huh, okay. My question was, I'm interested in how to settle into it. I think it's a little related. It's related to both these things, yeah. So fear, being good, timing and honesty. Patience comes into it.

[22:45]

Yes. Okay. So, um, so, so Bob was saying that somehow the, when she tries to practice good or the way she tries to practice good seems to interfere with your awareness. Do you say the trap of, how is true how is trying to be good a trap okay so trying to what you're saying you're trying to practice good but actually some dishonest ease possibility you have trouble being on being honest in the process of practicing good wait a second [...] be quiet so you're trying to practice good and clarity goes away okay so there you are unclear trying to practice good so what should a person do if they're trying to practice good in there and they're feeling unclear guess what i would say nothing huh

[24:04]

Do nothing? Yeah, do nothing? That's close. Huh? Well, that's the same as do nothing. So what else would I suggest you do if you're confused? Unclear? Huh? Be upright. Be upright in the middle of confusion. And then say, now, when you're being upright, what things go with being upright? Huh? No. Not when you're not clear. Huh? Huh? Honesty. I'm not clear. There's awareness, too. She said there's awareness, but the awareness isn't clear. But if you see the awareness isn't clear, there's some clarity there. Now, what if you're so unclear you don't even know that you're unclear? Same thing. Be upright. Now you can't even be honest about being clear, about being unclear, because you don't even know you're unclear.

[25:10]

So, the question is, what do you think? Do you think you're clear or unclear? So part of being upright would be to be attentive to whether you're clear or unclear. If you check and say, I'm not sure if I'm clear or unclear, then you know something. If you don't even check, you don't even know, but you can check. And if you think you're clear, then you've got something to work with. That you think you're clear. Now what if you're unclear? What do you do if you think you're clear? What do you do if you think you're clear? What do you do with that? Huh? Reb says no. Huh? Express yourself. If you think you're clear, express yourself. How do you express yourself? Any way you might express yourself if you thought you were clear? well how much express yourself speaking acting what touching and who might you speak and act and touch huh a person any particular person yeah yeah someone you feel clear with right someone you have a clear relationship with like for example your teacher you have a clear relationship you're my teacher right mm-hmm

[26:34]

working on clarity uh-huh okay guess what i'm clear and matter of fact i'm going to touch you now to show i'm going to touch your nose you go missed that wasn't my nose so you tell your teacher that you're clear and as you tell your teacher you're clear your teacher says that's clarity and you say uh uh oops i'm not clear So now you're clear that you're not clear. Certain clarity is coming. So there's the death clarity. The teacher says, right. Let's try that again. So yeah, you have to express yourself to find out. What if you don't think you're clear? What should you do? How about there? If you don't think you're clear? Hmm? What? Express that to? To whom? Hopefully you still have someone in your life you have a clear relationship with. Go tell them. Say, I'm not clear.

[27:35]

And they say, what's happening? And you tell them and say, yeah, you're not too clear there. But then you clarify it by expressing it. If you express confusion and express lack of clarity, you can clarify it through the expression. And the more fully you express your lack of clarity or your confusion, the clearer you get. Now this relates to patience. And fear. Because people are afraid to express themselves when they think they're clear. They're afraid to express themselves sometimes because they're afraid for many reasons. You could be afraid if you thought you were clear. You could be afraid that people will show you you're not clear. People will be angry because you think you're hot stuff. they will be jealous of you for being clear. You could, you know, you name it, you could be afraid for a lot of reasons for telling somebody you're afraid. I mean, you're clear. So again, you should be, you should have a relationship where you're committed to express yourself and where you think it's fairly likely that the person will work with you on that.

[28:45]

Now, if you're not clear, then also you might be afraid to express that you weren't clear because people might think less of you for being confused and unclear. A lot of people go to see certain Buddhist teachers and they're confused. They're afraid to show their confusion. But when they show, if someone shows me their confusion, to tell me they're confused, they get, what do you call it, you know, they get rewarded. I say that's good. It's good that you show. The main thing you do when you go to your teacher is you express yourself. You express yourself. It's better to express confusion than to withhold confusion. It's better to be confused and express it than to be clear and not express it. Because, again, you may be clear in this dreaming of it, but if you're confused and you express it, you can learn. You can have wisdom in confusion if you fully express it.

[29:50]

And so part of it is you You learn how to fully express. It means, okay, I'm going to fully express my confusion. I'm going to fully express my anger. I'm going to fully express whatever it is. And you find out you didn't fully express it. So you try again. Try again. And when you fully express, you enter into understanding reality through, even through expressing confusion. Now how about trying to practice good? Trying to practice good. you're clear or unclear about practicing good you think you think this is clearly something this is i'm clear that i i'm clear that this is good if you fully express that then the person you express it to might say you're clear that this is good mean and you are you saying that this is good and you say yes you say that's different from you saying you think this is good right and then you say yeah and maybe you didn't notice the difference between saying this is good and i think it's good You thought you were clear, but the other person says, you said this was good, but actually you thought it was good.

[30:59]

And actually, I don't think it's good. But I don't say it's not good. I just tell you I don't think it's good. And you think it is good, so we have difference of opinion here. What is good? Good is not what I think is good. Good is not what you think is good. What is good? What is good? Wouldn't you bring, when you're confused, a dose of love, compassion, and kindness, and seeing? Wouldn't you bring what, when you're confused? When you're in confusion. Would it be good to do what you just said? Yes, it would be good. And maybe that will clarify things. Maybe it will, right. But the way you put it first was, you said, don't you do that. and people don't necessarily do that but it would be good to do that and those things would help you fully express your confusion compassion will help you fully express your confusion kindness will help you kindness is part of what it takes to fully express yourself not just kindness though also strength and just how much strength how much strength does it take to fully express yourself yes please

[32:15]

all your strength. How much is that? It's as much as you have. People have different amounts of strength, but you use all your strength that you've got. You use all your kindness, too, and all your gentleness. You use all yourself to fully express yourself. Is that difficult to find, that full self-expression? Yes. Do you need help to do that? Yes. But this is another way to talk about it. An enlightening relationship is one which you use to help yourself be upright and fully express yourself. You cannot do this by yourself. You need some relationship to do this. When you have a relationship that you use to practice being upright and fully express yourself, plus it actually helps you do that, that's an enlightening relationship. That's a relationship that takes you into reality, takes you into wisdom. It's enlightening. Once you're in wisdom... then you have an enlightened relationship.

[33:18]

Unless the person who helped you get there has left town. But they're still holding your hand, and they went with you, then both of you have wisdom, and then together you both have great compassion, and you both show the world the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And there's fear here. There's fear in full self-expression. There's fear, I think Jackie was raising the fear before of, If I fully express myself, I'll violate the precepts. If I fully express myself, I'll hurt someone. We're afraid of that. We're also afraid of what people will do to us if we violate the precepts. And I would say, fine, be afraid of it, but don't be afraid of it so much in the sense of holding yourself back. Just rather try to express yourself in such a way that it's not killing, not stealing, not lying. Try it. Try to check. Everything you do, check if it violates any of these precepts. If it does, is it really full self-expression? So, is it?

[34:24]

And patience is necessary also for full self-expression. Patience is necessary also for full self-expression because, again, even patience means you check. I have something to say. Is it true? Is it harmful? You have to be patient. Give yourself enough time to stop and look to see if it satisfies those two. If it doesn't, wait until you see a way that is true and isn't harmful. Then, when you find a way that is true and isn't harmful, then you wait to see when is it helpful. And you may have to wait a long time before you can say this true, harmless thing. Maybe you have to wait a long time until the person you're gonna tell is ready to hear. If you tell them beforehand, it could be a big mistake.

[35:25]

You have to wait time for the right time. So courage, clarity, flexibility, alertness, honesty, gentleness, kindness, strength, vulnerability, all these things are necessary for full self-expression and also balance. And again, balance between, and again, full self-expression means asserting yourself and listening to others this is what i think what do you think is that what you think did i understand you correctly well i disagree what do you think of me disagreeing so this movie with my wife and one in one of the scenes from in the movie this guy this one guy says to another guy how do you like them apples

[36:34]

she said what does that mean how you like them apples it means what do you think of this how do you feel about this yes pat how do you decide for someone else whether something you have to say will be helpful to them How do you decide by yourself, for yourself, whether something you have to say to someone else will be helpful to them? You don't decide for yourself whether something will be helpful for somebody else. You don't decide. Okay? You don't. Got that? Okay, so what did I mean by you check to see if it's going to be helpful? Actually, I didn't say that, did I? I said check to see if it's going to be harmful. So you can say, well, how do I know if something will be harmful? It's the same question, but it's a little easier. It's a little easier. If I want something to say to you, I have some experience of what is harmful to people.

[37:39]

Generally speaking, if I yell at people and I want to hurt them, I succeed. There may be a few examples of where it's not so, but usually if I want to hurt somebody, I have something to say which I think would hurt them, I rarely am unsuccessful. I could easily hurt you right now. Easily. Even though it's just a sort of dramatic situation. I could hurt you with my words. It would be easy. So, if you think it's going to hurt somebody, you're probably right. Now, if you're not sure, you could check with somebody else. Now, Jackie, if I said this to Pat, do you think it might hurt her? Jackie might say, yes. And I could ask a whole bunch of people. Then I could ask you even. I could say, now, Pat, I have something to say to you which I think might hurt you. Do you want me to talk to you about it before I say it? And you might say, yeah.

[38:41]

And I say, well, it was something along these lines. I won't tell you exactly what it is. And you might say, yeah, that might hurt me. So, you know, maybe don't say it. So I don't decide. Now, how about helpful things? You can also consult with other people about helpful things. If you're not sure at the right time, it's okay to get help from other people. A lot of people come to me and ask me, they say, I want to say this or this to my kids, or this to this to my parents, or this to this to my friends. What do you think of that? And I say, sounds really self-righteous. Sounds really cruel. Sounds really angry. Sounds really selfish. Sounds really frightened. Blah, blah, blah. And they say, oh, yeah. They change it. They keep working until they say it in a way that I think, yeah, that sounds really kind. That sounds really clear now. You don't sound like you're dumping on them. That sounds really like a full self-expression. They'll love it. I mean, they'll hate it, but they'll love it. By they'll hate it, I mean that they'll have to deal with something real, and they don't want to do that usually.

[39:43]

But check with them beforehand. I was just kidding about hating it. Check with them to see if they really want it, and if they're up for it, tell them. Yeah, lying, deceit. No, no. In codependent relationships, if you withhold the information, not for helpful reasons, but for cowardice, You know, because, you know, you're afraid of what will happen to you. That's codependence. If you're withholding it because it's beneficial to withhold it, that's not codependence. That's interdependence. Because if it's, you know, if it's beneficial to withhold it, it's beneficial to them, beneficial to you. But codependence is, you know, more like a person's an alcoholic and people pretend like they're not. Why do they pretend like it's not? Because if they bring it up, he'll crop them. He'll smack, throw them across the room.

[40:44]

That's why they don't bring it up. And they don't want the kids to see mom get thrown across the room so mom doesn't bring it up. And the kids don't bring it up either because they don't want to see mom get thrown across the room. Or themselves get thrown across the room. So they don't bring it up. It's not because of, you know, that it's beneficial not to bring it up. It's that they're afraid of what will happen if they do bring it up. But it's not beneficial not to bring it up. They should bring it up. Now, of course, since he might throw them across the room if they bring it up, they should be careful when they bring it up and have some other people there may be like several uncles there or something when they bring it up so you know but something you should bring it up you should risk some little disturbance in order to tell the truth but again you have to think when will telling the truth not be harmful so you don't just bring it up when he's drunk and mom has no help because that might be harmful to mom and him and everybody you find the right time but you intend to tell the truth eventually so and then you know the harm of not telling is not just the harm of not telling it's the harm that after a while you forget that you're not telling you forget that you're lying and your mind really gets sick because you can't remember what you really think

[42:07]

So you really get deluded and really get confused. Right? That's like the worst. Getting thrown across the room is really not that much compared to completely deluding yourself about what's going on. We're all going to get basically thrown more than across the room pretty soon. right our bodies are going to go through big big changes real soon but if we're deluded when there's no hope even if we don't get thrown across the room so telling the truth is really important and really hard and takes courage attention and you can't even tell the truth all by yourself you have to work it out with others so let's see i don't know who is next Okay, so let's go. Jackie, Jane, Kate, who else?

[43:12]

Okay, Jackie. You said you shouldn't say the truth if it hurts. If it's harmful, not if it's worse. Some people have told me the truth. It hurt a lot. It was very helpful. hurt pain is not necessarily harmful harmful the main harm the main harm is when you say something that one of the main harms is if you discourage someone the main harm is if you discourage someone from practice that would be a big harm if you'd say something that would discourage someone from being courageous Like if someone was just starting, like a child or a young meditator, if they were starting to tell the truth, starting to notice what's going on with them, and you did something that discouraged them from telling the truth and discouraged them from being aware of themselves, that would be really harmful.

[44:26]

But sometimes, if you say something that's painful, it helps the person, it encourages the person to be honest. It encourages the person to pay attention. Because they find out, oh, he said it, it hurt, I'm still here, and he still loves me. I didn't lose him. You know? It's sometimes even painful to tell the truth, even before what the person does. It just hurts to say the truth. Sometimes people come and tell me stuff, and it's just like, it's very painful for them to say certain words. It hurts to say certain words. It's like, you know, like delivering a child, in a sense. it's like these tight tissues have to open up and as they go through the change of speaking the words against their habit it hurts and there's fear and it's painful for them to say this thing and then they say it and it hurts them to say it and they survive and they feel fine and they feel strong and they feel less afraid and the next time they do it more fully and more fully and get more courageous

[45:36]

So if someone was trying to do that, and I said something to them that discouraged them in that process, that would be harmful. But it might not even be that painful to them. I might just sort of not encourage them to do it. I might tell them that that was off. That would be very harmful. Misinstruction in practice situations is very harmful, but not necessarily painful. Like, no, you don't have to do that. You don't have to tell the truth. Yeah, you can be, you can be, you can just keep going, doing that, what you're doing now. You can take advantage of people. Easy for them to hear. Very harmful. But sometimes if someone's being mean to someone, and you say, you know, I'd like to talk to you about the way you treated that person. Would you like to hear about that? And you say, yeah. I said, it might be difficult for you. But I have to say, do you really want to hear it? You might say, if you think it would be helpful to me i do and i tell you that i really didn't think it was good what you did to so-and-so and you say why and i say because it really hurt them and it really discouraged them and then you feel terrible that i informed you of that but it really hurts you to hear that but it might really help you to hear that because you might not know that you hurt them and i'm the only person that can tell you because they're totally wasted but you need to know

[47:06]

and doesn't hurt you. And if you can hear me and be hurt, it means you're able to be responsible for your actions. And you learn, geez, it really is hard to see how powerful I am and how I can hurt people. But that's part of Buddhism, is to be upright and understand interdependence, because you can hurt some people a lot. it's hard to see how much you can hurt some people but if you can you should know so I may tell you about that and help you see that or they might tell you and it might hurt you to see but not harm you what actually harms you is if you would do something that had a powerful effect on somebody and because you have a powerful effect on them that feeds back to you and if they don't tell you and I don't tell you and you don't know you don't understand your full self-expression, which was going on, the interdependence was going on, but the people trying to protect you from the negative feedback, the relationship gets dark.

[48:16]

If people aren't protecting you from the feedback about what you're doing, so you can help you to be responsible for what you're doing, if they aren't protecting you, it might be very painful, but enlightening. Being aware of the consequences of our action is not necessarily comfortable. That's again why we have to be patient and gentle with ourselves. Sometimes we can just take a little peek at how much damage we've done to someone and the next day see some more. So you have an installment plan of somebody telling us how much harm we've done to them. But stay with the program. Give them five installments to tell you the full consequence of how much you hurt them. Every installment hurts. Every installment opens your mind to the power of your relationship. Does that make sense? Difficult, but... Difficult, but... Is there any way to take back the hurt?

[49:23]

Is there any way to take back... That you caused someone... Take it back? Take it back... In other words, if you know you've hurt and harmed your children, or any relationship? If you find out from your children, for example, if you find out from your children that you've hurt them, and if you find out, and they know that you know now, they see, oh, she knows that she hurt us, and they see how you feel about hurting them, and they see that it hurts you terribly, to see that you've hurt them. That doesn't exactly take it back, but it does facilitate your relationship. And the child might be willing, you know, if they could choose, or an adult would be willing, for the closeness that might come from them seeing you understanding your effect on them. They might be willing, for them it might be worth it.

[50:26]

They might say, you know, it was really hard, it really hurt, But the fact that you understand makes it all worthwhile. It was a very expensive thing we went through, but now I feel closer to you, and that's more important to me than if nothing painful had happened, but we were far apart. Or just again, like a mother and a child. A mother would be, maybe not right away, but after a little while, she's, She feels like it was worthwhile to pay the price of all the pain that she went through to have this close relationship. Sometimes, you know, mothers say, well, I don't want to do that again. It's so hard. And same with, you know, I sometimes train students and certain parts of the training, I feel like I'm a mother giving birth. And one time I had, what do you call it, Quintuplets.

[51:28]

Is quintuplets four? What's four? Quadruplets. I had quadruplets one time in a period of two months. Went through a formal kind of birth process for four kind of babies, four offspring. And afterwards I said, I'm never going to do that again. It's too hard, you know. But then after, you know, it's like a mother after a few months, I thought, well, they're kind of cute. Maybe I'll do it again sometime. It was so hard, so hard, so painful, you know. not as painful as giving birth but but it was really hard and I didn't want to do it anymore it was so hard but now I'm doing it again so sometimes the merit the vitality and reality and happiness that comes from a close relationship is worth sometimes the pain that it takes to get closer It's okay sometimes if it's not so painful.

[52:32]

You can get close without a lot of pain, but usually there's some pain involved in getting close because usually there's some misunderstanding that hurts when you're close. Some lack of harmony hurts. Some people I know, like this lady I met, What was it? It was... I think it was like I said something to her in the rain at Tassajara. And it was, I think it was dark. And she said, I can't see you. And I said, well, listen to, just listen to me. I think I said, you don't have to see me. Just listen to me. And that just was so painful for her that I said that.

[53:33]

And what was so painful was the distance. She felt the distance between us, and it was just like a knife in her heart. And I really didn't deserve to be on the chart for the cruelest thing of the month for that. It really wasn't that bad. All I said was, well, just listen to me. But there was a kind of distance there that, because we were working so closely in the monastery, that distance just was super painful. But she told me, and I felt it, and that was an occasion for me to understand how close she feels and how little I need to do to disturb that harmony. and how careful I have to be and respectful I have to be of that closeness. But it was, you know, it takes a lot of effort. It was painful to hear that. And so there it is.

[54:36]

Jane? That was my question. Clarify it. That saying something that may, the other person may have pain upon hearing is not necessarily hurting. Right. Yeah, so what I said to her, you see, was not hurtful to her because she could tell me that it was painful. If she hadn't been able to tell me that it was painful, then it might have been harmful because it would have maybe... She could have had a reaction like, well, if he's going to talk to me like that, I'm like, you know, I'm just going to withdraw. I'm going to forget about such a close relationship. This is too hard. Then you might say, well, that was... Then I harmed. But the fact that she'd come back and tell me the next day, I'm really in pain and I'm really angry at you. And then I could, which I did, I could say, okay, good for you.

[55:39]

I like that. Tell me how you feel. And I didn't get angry at her for telling me that she was angry and for telling me that I hurt her. And I couldn't take it back. And I could hardly in that case even say I was sorry because I guess I could say I'm sorry I'm clumsy because I didn't mean to hurt her, but I was kind of clumsy. But actually, again, I wasn't sorry, so I didn't say I was. I didn't lie. I'm close enough to her so I don't lie and say I'm sorry when I don't feel sorry. A lot of times I feel like the answer I'm supposed to give is I'm sorry and I don't feel it and I don't say it. I try not to anyway. try to be honest and take responsibility for being who I am, which is somebody who's not sorry sometimes. Sometimes I search around for, is there something remotely related to sorry that I could say? And I might say that, you know, I might say, you know, I'd like to be sorry, but, you know, I'm not.

[56:45]

You know, we've got to deal with this pathological thing here. But I want, you know, it's not that I want to be sorry, but I do want to be close to you. And that's really what people want, ultimately, because that's really what it's about, is this closeness. And to be upright and fully express ourselves, we realize that closeness, but it's tough. Suzuki Roshi, my teacher, said, intimacy is not like, you know, all cuddly and charming all the time. It can be really tough. Kate? My comment, I guess, is about when I am thinking of a way to say something. Say it again. To say what's on my mind gently. But it may take me a couple days to figure out how to do that. Yes. My silence is harmful.

[57:48]

It's creating harm. While you're waiting to find the time? While I'm trying to figure out how to say it. Well, So, you know, I'm partly lack of courage. What I learned to do in a case like that is to say, I need some time to find a way to relate to you now. I'm not going away indefinitely. I'm going away for like two hours or one day. And I'll come back at the end of that time and check in. And at that time I may be able to talk about this. Or I may need another time. if you withdraw from somebody you're close to and don't tell them that you're going to come back on some level that can be they don't know if you're ever coming back on some level and whether you know it or not that can be what if that can be that's called passive that could be passive aggression but to just say you know i'm wounded and i'm afraid if i talk about certain things right now it'll just turn into like unhelpful anger

[58:53]

I need some space to recover and I intend to come back in a certain amount of time and then come back and say, I'm still not ready. I need two more hours or whatever. It makes all the difference in the world. But sometimes you're so wounded that if you enter into a conversation, you don't have enough patience to be upright. So then you don't express yourself fully. So then you don't understand what's going on, so then you, it just, you just ramify this lack of, you know, the Bodhisattva precepts are not working and it's just, you know, it's better to like go back to a situation where you have a better chance of practicing this way. And you recover, feel warm again, you know, and then go try. But telling the person beforehand is very important. It's such a big difference. It's a difference between major injury and actually like zero injury.

[59:55]

Like sometimes it doesn't hurt the slightest bit. Maybe they're slightly impatient if they'd like to get into it, but, you know, it's kind of a break for them too. Although they may be up for it because they don't feel so wounded. They can also, you know, they also, I think, want you to be in good shape to have a conversation. So they kind of understand. So one thing, I just want to say one more thing and then we can sit for a while. Why don't you stand up before you sit just for a moment. Part of what I want to go into next time is take another step forward into looking at what it's like when you start looking at interdependence. I think we did that a little bit tonight. particularly like I would like to emphasize next time and saying this to you may be more likely to happen is how being upright and full expression takes us into awareness of the stories that that we have that create our relationships and how to start becoming aware of the story like quality of our relationships rather than you know the reality quality you know art what we think is real and

[61:17]

which is actually just how our story creates a situation and what happens when you see the story quality. That's what I'd like to go into more next time. And so how many people want one of those cards that didn't get one last time? One. How many people did not get one of those cards of the precepts and would like one? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, about ten. Okay, I'll bring about ten next time. So I will be here next week, and then we'll have a two-week break, and then we'll meet two more weeks after that. So be sure to come next week, because it will be the last meeting for three weeks. So would you like to sit for a little while?

[62:11]

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