the eighth class and I guess the last one. Tonight I'd like to talk about the last three aspects, which are right effort, mindfulness, and right concentration. Effort and right mindfulness have been involved in the previous five aspects of the Eightfold Path to the extent that when practicing Right View or Right Intention and so on once you've ascertained by means of Right View what Right View is then to develop right view is right effort.

[01:02]

And to remember to do that work is right mindfulness, and so on. To work on developing right intention, right speech, and so on, to make that effort is right effort. to be careful and mindful while practicing right view, right intention, right speech, right action and right livelihood. That's right mindfulness. Mindfulness in the sense of guiding these first five practices or these first five aspects of practice. I'd also say that that there is a sense of right concentration, too, if while doing these practices you are one-pointed about practicing right speech.

[02:08]

You're really absorbed. When you're actually absorbed in the practice of right speech, tuned into it, then you'll also be practicing right concentration. If you're very much tuned into right livelihood, you're practicing some livelihood, really right livelihood, and you're completely concentrated and absorbed in that, then that would be right concentration applied to right livelihood and so on. So right livelihood, right mindfulness and right effort be actually operating in the first five as you did them more and more fully. But these three states or these three aspects can also be developed sort of on their own, not so much in supporting the previous five, although that's one way that they function, but in terms of developing themselves.

[03:19]

developing right effort itself, developing right mindfulness and right concentration themselves, which means actually to develop a certain quality of consciousness, a certain state of being. First, right view is like your cognitive understanding of the appropriate approach to practice, and your understanding, correct understanding or incorrect understanding, but if it's right view, the correct understanding of what you should be studying. I've been emphasizing studying karma, how it arises, what results it leads to, and to what extent there's this idea of a self there doing it. karma lead to how to study of karma lead to the development of right intention and so on. These are more like watching yourself in action.

[04:26]

Three are more like watching the quality of your being, developing your quality of being, your quality of consciousness, quality of experience. Not trying to improve it or whatever, but to make it in some sense Or as you say, to become more and more intimate with the nature of your being, with the nature of your mind. In some sense, these last three are more like becoming intimate with your nature. And the first ones are more like becoming intimate with your action, conduct. First one, and the difference between these three is subtle because there are actually three different aspects of developing intimacy with your mind, with your life. So they're very subtle in some ways, the differences between them. But anyway, the first one is called right effort. Now right effort will not be right effort in terms of practicing right livelihood, practicing right speech and so on, but will be right effort in terms of being the way that will open the door to reality.

[05:44]

being the way that will open the door to how things are actually happening. If you've been watching carefully, you know, your conduct, you're already sort of like settling down into your life, quite present. Now you're ready to develop the kind of presence that will take you into the way things actually happen. And then, you can have insight into reality. So the first, the traditional way that the right efforts presented, which is kind of chunky and mechanical, but I'll just tell you this way, is in terms of four right efforts, or sometimes they're called the four supreme efforts. And one understanding is the reason why they're called supreme is because they're so hard.

[06:51]

They're supremely difficult. Another reason why they're called supreme is they're so beneficial. They're supremely difficult and supremely beneficial. So here's the four right efforts, the four aspects of right effort. One is to grant. kind of negative language but anyway to prevent negative or unwholesome states of being which have not arisen from arising simply to prevent the arising of unwholesome states of experience this one is if any unwholesome negative states of mind have arisen to abandon them the second one third one is For any wholesome states or beneficial states that haven't arisen, let them arise. Make an effort so that they can arise. And the fourth aspect of right effort is an effort which promotes and supports wholesome states that have already arisen.

[08:01]

Stop, prevent, make an effort such that unwholesome states don't come up in the first place. If they have come up, make an effort such that they drop away. Effort such that wholesome states arise, and if they've arisen, make an effort so that they propagate. Once again, when you say make an effort, when I say make an effort, when you hear make an effort, you can understand this as something you do or an effort, which is not an effort which you do. What is it, that example of, how does it say, behold the lilies in the field? Is that how it goes? I don't know what they are. Behold the lilies in the field. Blah, blah, blah. Huh? They toil not, but they do something before they toil not, don't they? They stand up, they kind of like stand up and do their little lily thing, right? But they don't toil at it.

[09:04]

So it is not possible, if you're alive, there's effort there, there's energy there, if you're alive. And you can make your effort into something you do, you can make a karma, and in this case, these four could be seen as four kinds of karma. All good. Or you can see them as four types of effort or four ways of being, four effortful modes of existence such that these four wonderful things occur. So you can understand when I talk this way, you can hear this as something you're going to do, an effort you're going to do, or just effort, a way of being an effortful person such that these things will happen. Okay? You can see, and maybe watch when you think about this, which way you're hearing this. You can hear it either way. They're both good. One is beneficial, meritorious, and the merit matures on the side of the one who imagines she does this.

[10:12]

The other is liberating. Okay? The non-karmic understanding will be liberating. The other will be beneficial. but keep you in the cycle of thinking that you're doing the practice. So anyway, the first one, the first kind of right effort is sometimes, actually I think the way it's often translated is practice which prevents unwholesome states from arising. It's often translated as restraint of the senses. I was, you know, for years I read that and I thought, restraining the senses, how do you restrain the senses? But then recently I saw what the Sanskrit was, or the Pali was, and actually what it says is samvara-endriya. What it really means is not restraining the senses, but discipline the senses. Train the senses.

[11:14]

But it really doesn't mean train the senses. What it means is train the mind or discipline the mind as sensation occurs. That's what I think it really means. Discipline the mind. Discipline the way you are in the midst of sensation. What is the way to discipline your response to sensation? What is the discipline here? The discipline is to have the mind Again, I don't like the word keep, but to let the mind be at the level of what is given. Keep the mind at the level of sensation. Tonight, we have this very auspicious thing called rain in Berkeley in August. Rarely, rarely seen.

[12:18]

Lovely late summer rain in north central California. You can smell it. You can hear it. You can see it. You can taste it. You can touch it. You can think about it. It's a sensory experience. I can say very easily, which I just did, it is auspicious and rare. for it to rain this time of year in such a lovely way around here. I can also say that it's beautiful and delicious. It's not bad to talk like that, but right effort is to find a way to be with the rain, that the rain is just the rain. By rain is just a rain that means there's no such thing really as rain. It's really that the sound is just a sound.

[13:23]

Smell is just a smell. Touch is just a touch. Mind is, I don't want the word kept, but the mind is resting or settled right at the level of the sensation as the sensation happens. The mind, in some sense, is very quiet. When there's sound, the mind is quiet with the sound. Just the rain, the sound of the rain. The mind is quiet with the touch. There's just the touch. There's a way to discipline the mind in relationship to the sensation. The mind is disciplined or trained to be that simple and non-manipulative. What's happening? Wholesome states do not arise.

[14:29]

This doesn't try to stop them from arising. They just don't. They just can't. Spontaneously, don't come up. There's no kind of like gap for them to fit into. This practice can be done or can happen without you even doing it. Just by letting the mind be that way. One of my favorite teachings of the Buddha is, he said to one of his students, he said, train yourself thus. The scene... Just the scene. Heard, there will be just the heard. In the hearing, in the hearing of my voice, there's just the heard. In the hearing of the sound of the rain, there's just the heard.

[15:37]

In the hearing the piano, there's just the heard. Just the voice, piano and the rain. That's it. Prevents the arising of unwholesome states in the first place. Not only that, the Buddha said, but when for you in the scene there is just a scene, in the herd there is just a herd, you will not locate yourself Then you will not identify with it. There's just the sound of the car. There's just the sound of the car. Then you will not identify with the car. Let's add in parentheses, you will also not disidentify with the car. It won't be your car. It won't not be your car. It'll just be the sound of the car.

[16:38]

You will have no identity or disidentity with the car, just the sound of the car. So, you know, I said the scene, but that could be any scene, right? It could be something you see, but in any scene, you know, in a scene of your friends, there's just a scene of your friends. In a scene of a play, there's just a scene. There's just a scene. Scene number one. That's it. You don't identify with that scene. Disidentify. There's just a scene. And if you don't identify with what's happening, or disidentify, locate yourself in it. Dislocate yourself from it. If you don't locate yourself in what's happening, or dislocate yourself from what's happening, then there's no here, or there, or in between. And that, the Buddha said, will be the end of suffering.

[17:43]

This practice of right effort, which prevents the arising of unwholesome states, not only can prevent the arising of unwholesome states, it can actually end suffering, right there, all by itself. Because it can eliminate the sense of here and there, in other words, self and other, which is the source of our anxiety, which is what drives us to think we can do things on our own and that there's something wrong and we should do karma and so on. So that basic practice right there, that first one, keeping in mind that's simple. So if you walk through the rain and there's just walking through the rain, some states arise. That's the first right effort. If the effort isn't walking through the rain, And effort isn't the rain. The effort is walking through the rain is just walking through the rain. That's it. It was it, but we tend to add somebody to the story, make it elaborated.

[18:50]

And then in that slight elaboration, all the unwholesome states can come up. With no elaboration, there's no room or anything but what's happening, there's not even room for you. You can happen, too. That can happen. But when that happens, it's nothing but you. It's just you. That's it. The mind is, oh, it's me. That's it. Okay? Now, the next aspect of right effort is really kind of complicated and really hard to listen to this without making it into karma. But I'm going to tell you this, kind of briefly, just to give you a feeling for the second kind of bright effort. If you do the first kind, you don't have to do the second kind, by the way.

[19:51]

Okay? Is that clear? The second kind is when the unwholesome states arise, abandon them. But if you do the first kind of right effort, you won't have to do the second kind of right effort because there'll be no unwholesome states to abandon. So actually, I recommend just do the first one, but you don't have to do this messy second one, which is really kind of like complicated and it's going to be like this big complicated trip you've got to do because when unwholesome states arise, it's a mess. I would say that this unfortunate thing has happened, that you haven't kept your nose to the happening stone, and you're making things too complicated, and in that space, in that little crack or big crack, all this greed, hate, and delusion come up. As soon as you try to mess around with things, greed, hate, and delusion get in there. As soon as you don't just let things be the way they are, greed, hate, and delusion pop up. It's pain, and you don't just let it be pain. Try to do something about it.

[20:54]

Like, for example, get rid of it. If it's pleasure, you're not going to let it just be pleasure. If you don't let it just be pleasure, you're going to try to do something about it, namely get more of it or protect it. And if it's kind of boring, not too much one way or another, you're not in much pain, you're not in much pleasure, just kind of bland, then you're going to try to distract yourself in the blandness, jazz it up. If it's painful, anger is going to come in and ill will will come up. Try to blame somebody or blame it or blame yourself or as they say, blame it on the rain. It will come up. If it's painful, usually. If it's pleasurable, just let it be pleasurable. Then some kind of like desire will come up. Not because pleasure needs to be desired, but because you don't leave the pleasure, just be pleasure. So then desire comes up. Then your mind's starting to get turbulent again. neutral then there's various ways to jazz up neutral you can get anxious get restless you can worry you can doubt you can you can take a nap you can feel sleepy you can get bored many ways to keep yourself interested if it's not very interesting when it is interesting like you know interesting it's interesting painful is interesting right that's interesting yeah we'll get it out of here

[22:20]

Or interesting pleasure, that's interesting. Well, keep it and don't take it away from me. That's interesting. But when it's not interesting, we have ways of making it interesting. Unless you just leave it be uninteresting, then no unwholesome states will arise. But if you don't let uninteresting, boring, bland be boring, bland, then restlessness, worry, doubt, agitation, dullness, sleepiness, laziness, darken them. Okay, so now you got some kind of a mess here. So how do you abandon it? Five different types of ways of abandoning it. One way is by direct antidote. Apply the opposite. That's the first way. Second way is by learning how skillfully, you know, don't look at it. Skillfully don't think about it too much. Sort of like, not exactly denial, but kind of look the other way. The other way is by direct confrontation. The other way is by shame and a sense of decorum.

[23:23]

And the other way is by, which is the worst kind, fascist repression. By willpower, just crush it. These are five different types, five different ways of abandoning unwholesome states once they've arisen. Antidotes are like when... Now, again, something pleasant happens, that's not a problem, okay? Buddhism's got nothing against pleasant things happening. Pleasure's okay. What do you do with pleasure? Huh? What do you do with it? What? Enjoy it. How do you enjoy it? By letting it be pleasure. Let the pleasure be pleasure. When the pleasure's just a pleasure, then you don't identify with it. You don't locate yourself in it. It's just pleasure. Now, if you don't do that, then you get greed. The main sort of direct antidote to this kind of thing when it arises is to concentrate on impermanence, meditate on impermanence.

[24:24]

And meditating on impermanence is good any time, any place, any way, but it's particularly an antidote to when you start, when you've blown something pleasant into, like, something more than it is, messing around with it, and now you're caught by desire because of the way you handled it. So then the antidote to that, the main antidote is impermanence. Walking around or when you're meditating, think of a pleasant thought in your mind, and don't just let it be a pleasant thought, but start messing around with it, and your mind becomes inflamed by your messing with the pleasant thing. Impermanence. Now, you can think of your own version of impermanence. What I used to think of back in the days when I had pleasureful experiences, whatever, you know, a couple decades ago, I used to think of my teacher, my dead teacher. I used to think of him at the moment he died, see him lying down.

[25:29]

That's one thing I used to think of. That would snap me out of it easily. If that didn't work, I used to think of me dead. And not just dead, but I used to think of myself on the street, a likely way to die is on the street run over by a truck. If that didn't snap me out of it, I would imagine the truck having done various things to my body. And that would sort of snap me out of it. A traditional thing to think of that people say to think about is, which I actually have seen, is to think of what happens to sheep sometimes. You know, sheep sometimes, they lay down and they roll on their back. You know how they get gas from eating grass? They get gas and it accumulates on their back instead of their stomach. And they roll on their stomach to squeeze the gas out of their torso. But sometimes when they're rolling on their back, they get up against a,

[26:29]

a fence or something or against a tree and they can't get...they can't right themselves, so they're kind of paralyzed in their back. Something that's been going on for, you know, thousands of years. And then what happens is crows come and attack them. They don't even eat the...they don't even eat the whole sheep. What they do is they eat their eyes. The sheep's there on its back with its eyes being pecked out and dies just from, you know, from its eyes being pecked out. And, of course, it gets infected and it dies. So just that image of a sheep or a lamb on his back being tortured by crows is another way that sometimes Buddhist meditators snap themselves out of this inflamed mind, you know, this mind which is like, well, you know, insane, sort of, ready to do now. not ready to go back and practice wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood because you're so wrought up.

[27:39]

And then for dullness and distraction, the main thing is to arouse yourself. And you can physically arouse yourself. If you're practicing meditation, get up and take a walk. Or go jump in the bay. Jump in cold water or splash cold water and take a walk. Or do it you know in your heart you know arouse yourself raise your aspiration to wake up snap yourself out of the drowsiness and if it's agitation and worry the main thing that is recommended is sit still or walk concentrate on your posture and follow your breathing that usually calms the agitation and the worry and if there's doubt strike you when the meditation's not too interesting and you start messing with it. You don't just let it not be interesting. You start messing with it. Then you start doubting the whole thing because it's too... You know, it's more interesting to doubt it than just to sort of find it not interesting. Like, this is really stupid, you know, this whole practice.

[28:42]

So if you have doubt, what you do is you study scriptures and go talk to teachers and tell them your doubts. And by studying and conversing, you can usually reason your way out of the doubt. The doubt is... Not too many doubts have much, you know, this kind of doubt anyway. It's not like intelligent doubt, like doubting your state of your existence. It's like doubting that doing wholesome things is good, that kind of doubt. So those are direct antidotes. Okay, that's the first type of way of abandoning. And there's four more. But maybe I won't get into them right now because that could get too complicated for you. But I just want to tell you there's five basic methods. The first one is direct one-to-one antidote. The other four apply to all the different unwholesome states. That's what I told you about, suppression. Only do that one when the other ones don't work because it's so heavy-handed. But once again, you don't have to do any of this abandoning of unwholesome states if you practice the first right effort because they won't even come up.

[29:49]

And most people do have a few gaps in their practice of right efforts, so sometimes they do come up. So you might have to practice this messy abandonment of these unwholesome states at least once in a while. Okay? That's a lot of input there. So... going to basically say that since the way you practice, if you've been doing the first five aspects of the Eightfold Path and you practice right effort, the next two aspects of right effort, I would say, are almost spontaneous. I can go into them how it happens, but to make it simple for you, if you do the first practice of keeping your mind very much at the level of what's given to you in terms of sensation, prevents the unwholesome states from rising.

[30:55]

And if you're practicing the other right view, right intention, right livelihood, right speech and right action, I mean right, yeah, if you're practicing those with this first aspect of right effort, these wholesome states will arise. And then you continue to practice this way, that will foster them and develop them. There's more details there, but I'd like to say, leave it simple like that so I can go on to mindfulness. Now what's the difference between right mindfulness and right effort? Right effort is a way to be with what's happening, what you're sensing, in such a way that, first of all, unwholesome states don't arise. And as I said before, if you really stay right there with right effort, with what's happening, you can even overcome the duality of self and other and have insight and become free of freedom. Actually, in that scenario, I didn't mention it, but right mindfulness was functioning there.

[32:02]

Look of it as right effort, and it is, but actually right there in that practice that I just described was right effort and right mindfulness was there too. The right effort was the keeping the scene at the level of the scene and keeping the herd at the level of the herd. Keeping, again, I don't like that word keeping, but just letting things be the way they are. That's the right effort. Which, of course, is nothing at all because they're already that way, right? It really means the right effort is, your right effort is not to do anything about what's happening. It's actually, your effort is to not use your effort to change what's happening, but be an effortful person and in some sense give up your effort, give up your effort, give up your power and love what's happening. Love it rather than fix it, rather than improve it, rather than change it. And love it means not like it, means appreciate it the way it is.

[33:06]

Appreciate the rain for what the rain is right now. That's the way of loving the rain. It's not something you do. That's right effort. Now when you love the rain, or you love the voice, and you let the rain just be what it is, and you let the voice just be what it is, the rain, then the sound starts to show you what reality is. And mindfulness is what happens after you let it be, Notice, for example, you start and you're just present there. You're letting it be and you're just present there. One is the emphasizing letting it be. The other is the fact that after you let it be, there is a presence there. There is an awareness there. There is a mindfulness of what's happening. Happening.

[34:11]

Well, there might be a you and an it. Or a here and a there. There might be a you in the sound of the airplane. There might be. There's a presence there which just sees. Oh, there's a kind of me and a kind of airplane. But actually, you're not necessarily in a connection or disconnection between me and the airplane. The mindfulness doesn't think that. The mindfulness is present and that is revealed. The mindfulness is the way of being there such that you see, oh, it's interesting. I don't have to worry about that airplane. I don't have to, like, have a relationship with that airplane. You have to be. It doesn't have to be my airline company or somebody else's airline company. It doesn't have to be an airplane that I ride or I don't ride. It's just... Not really there's a here or there anymore.

[35:15]

So the mindfulness actually was functioning there as we understood in such a way that we didn't get involved, that we didn't put ourselves into or take ourselves out of what was happening. Though there is that ability, which people usually have, of putting yourself into what's happening or taking yourself out of what's happening. You're just present with what's happening. So first of all, you're not messing with it. And second of all, you're just aware of it. And you start to see that some of the ordinary games aren't connecting anymore. Or if they are connecting, you see, you understand how silly they are. In fact, they don't hold up under this kind of awareness. The here and there, the putting yourself into, the locating yourself inside of or outside of, it doesn't happen there. This is the mindfulness. It never did happen, actually. It was just kind of like unclearness that we thought it was like that.

[36:19]

Me to identify with Laurie or disidentify with Laurie is extra. Just me and Laurie. But it doesn't have to be like there's me separate from Laurie or me the same as Laurie. Laurie, actually. and they're just the rain, and they're just me. Laurie, rain, piano, me, me, piano, Laurie, rain, that's all. Just sensation. You don't have to put things together into this like self, other, here, there, putting yourself in and taking yourself out. This is all kind of like actually confusion that arises from not letting it just be. And having a mind which lets it be, and in letting it be, these things which we ordinarily try to control, precipitation, temperature, sound, these sensations which we identify with and disidentify with, that we're manipulating, that we're trying to control, we stop trying to control, and then all these things bloom.

[37:35]

They always were blooming, But because we were messing with them, we couldn't see the bloom. First of all, we leave them alone. Then once we leave them alone, then they can be what they are. Then when they'll be what they are, we're present with them, and then we see what they are. Once we let them be what they are, we let them be jewels. We're just present with the jewels, and then the jewels turn into mirrors, jewel mirrors, such that all the things teach us It becomes dynamic. And then the last point is the concentration. Then we absorb ourselves into this right mindfulness and right effort. We absorb ourselves into that. Then we have the enlightened presence. It's a short course on the last three. And the first five, set that up.

[38:39]

And then when there's no you or other or here or there and you're free of suffering, then you come back around and now you have a new right view. A right view is, now your right view is not just this, there is karma. When there's a self, there's karma. There's not just, you know, it isn't just, you see more than just the world and how the world works. You also see how you're free of the world and you see how the world is you know, just based on a misunderstanding. So then you go through right view, right intention, right speech, right effort, right action, right livelihood. Now you go through them, but now it's no longer you doing them. So now they're not karma anymore. Now they're enlightened activity which was possible before but now you you naturally don't approach these practices anymore of you approaching them because there's not a here and there anymore in these practices so you just go round and round eightfold path okay so anyway that's a lot so probably you have some some questions or comments

[39:58]

Does that mean that when there's a rain, there's a thought about it? Actually, what? Okay. Since you were talking about the airplane going by, so I was listening to you and the airplane went by and I came to the word, yes, airplane going by. Since you thought, other than noticing that there was a sound in my awareness, is that you thought, oh, I've got one more airplane I can't hear, that's getting wrong, that's messing with us. You already said? Not really. Okay. Why don't you say it again louder? Okay. Something like that louder. I had in mind was, or first of all, my question was about how do we mess it up? Meaning... Okay, something's happening. Something's happening, the sound of the rain.

[41:02]

Okay, sound of the rain. How do we mess it up? Right. Okay, stop right there. How do you mess it up? Let's put it positively. How do we not mess it up? There's a sound of the rain, and that's it. That's how you don't mess it up. How do you mess it up? Commenting on it. And by commenting on it, actually, if you're on top of it, you can even comment without messing it up. If you don't have the comment be about the thing. The rain, okay? Hear the rain? Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. Wonderful. But the wonderful is not about the rain. It's not like the wonderful is here and the rain is over there. There's just rain and wonderful. Buddha can say wonderful. But the Buddha is not like doing something to the rain by saying, wonderful. Just rain and then there's wonderful. But if you think there's rain and then, okay, you're going to do something or say something or fix the rain or make it better by commenting on it or wish it was louder or wish it was quieter, wish it was stronger, wish it was weaker.

[42:13]

That wish, if you actually contaminate the sensation with that thought, okay? That's messing with it. And then in that contamination, greed and hate come up. But really, you don't have to see it that way. The thought, the opinion, the judgment could be just seen as separate from the event. So then there's the rain, and then there's this thought of... whatever. That's just another thing that arises. And if you leave that alone, that counts too. I actually said, I shortened the Buddha's quote, I said, in the herd there will be just a herd, in the seen there will be just a seen, but I actually said, in the imagined there will be just the imagined, and in the cognized there will be just the cognized. So the same applies to when you think of something like, oh, this is good, or here's a plan, or I'm aware of this or I'm aware of that."

[43:15]

All these different categories of perceptions and concepts, to let each one of them be what they are, accomplishes this non-manipulation. So you can be hearing a sensation, like a visual thing, a sight, a scene, a heard, but also imagine something or cognize something. When each thing is just what it is, that's fine. And even though you might have a sound followed by an imagination followed by a cognition, if each one is just what it is, there's no disturbance. But if you have one thing and then have another thing and then infect the previous one with the latter one, then you're not letting each one be itself. Not to mention if the following one is about the previous one and wishes it was different, But if you don't get fooled by that and just let the wish for it to be different, not be the wish to be about the previous thing, but the previous thing was fine as it was, as it happened, you let it be what it was, it actually happened without being touched, and now there's this other thing which is commenting on it, but it's just a comment.

[44:22]

That's it, that's it, that's it. Then it's fine, the previous thing's fine, everything's fine. Then there's no tampering. You actually identify then with the tampering thought and think that this thought could tamper with something that's already happened, then you're tricked, then you're deluded, and then you're meddling. But if you don't get tricked by that, you're not deluded and you're not meddling. When you're not deluded, you don't meddle with anything. When you do meddle with things, you're deluded. Actually, when things come up, they don't meddle with anything else. They're just happening. But if you think they do... Because this doesn't meddle with that. This is just this. It's all there ever was. It's all it can be. That's enough. This is a fantasy. That's enough. It's not a fantasy about anything. It's a fantasy. These are not about something. That's why they're called fantasies.

[45:23]

Concepts are not really about anything. They're just themselves. The concept of Abraham Lincoln is not Abraham Lincoln. That's why it's called the concept rather than Abraham Lincoln. Fooled by that, like the concept of Michael or the concept of Pierre, and you think your concept of Pierre is Pierre, then you've got problems. Then there's Pierre over there and me over here rather than my concept of me is over here, and there's no Pierre over there separate from my concept of me, my concept of Pierre. All I've got is my concept of Pierre. That's all I've got. Now Pierre's got something else, but I don't have it, and so on. Okay? Say yes, please. Jean? I'm having a problem with thinking about judgment that might come up and start circumstances. Yes? Instead of a gentle, nice rain out there, which is easy now to... I heard a scream out there right now.

[46:37]

I think I immediately would find myself involved in trying to judge that and try to ignore it, just let it happen. And I think there's lots of things that might happen. Okay. Simply so. So what am I saying? I'm saying to practice right effort with the scream... is to let the scream just be the scream. That's what I'm saying. And you're saying it would be hard for you to not judge. Okay? But I'm not saying, I'm not talking about not judging yet, okay? I'm saying that when you hear the scream, let the scream just be the scream. Train yourself thus. In the herd, in the scream, in the herd, let there just be the herd. In other words, in the scream, let there just be the scream. That's what the Buddha is saying. Train yourself that way. He didn't say, don't judge it. He didn't say that. He said, in the scream, there will be just the scream. If in the next moment, there's a cognition, oh, that was a scream, or oh, I think that's bad.

[47:46]

That's a scream which means this isn't a happy scream. I think this is a bad scream. I think this is a scream of pain or danger. That's an imagination. You say, well, it might be right, it might be wrong, but anyway, it's an imagination. The Buddha is saying, in the scream, in the herd, let there just be the herd. Then in the next moment, in the imagined, namely, this is trouble, let there just be the imagined. Okay? He's saying, in that case, you will not identify yourself with the scream or with the imagination. Okay? Now, this is going to be fast, OK? And when you don't, this is instantaneous, OK? You've got plenty of time here, because it's instantaneous. Heard? Okay? Judgment. This is like, boom, boom. Okay? But in the herd, there was just the herd. It didn't take any time for the herd just to be the herd. Then in the imagination, which comes instantaneous, right away, not immediately, there's a slight gap, but instantaneously, very fast, like the speed of light, there's a thought, trouble.

[48:56]

And you just let that thought, trouble, be the thought, trouble. then you will not locate yourself, you will not identify with the screen, you will not disidentify with the screen. You won't say, oh, that's my kid or that's my neighbor, I don't care. You won't identify, you won't disidentify. You won't put yourself into it, you won't take yourself out of it. It'll just be the screen and it'll just be the thought, this is dangerous, this is trouble. And when that happens, there will be no here or there, in between and that would be the end of suffering so what's happened in this story that i just said is she heard the scream she thought it was trouble she became enlightened she became free of suffering and she says then she probably says well but what about the person out there this enlightened person then will do whatever she thinks is appropriate you're free of suffering by this event because of the way you handled it, now you, who is free of suffering, can figure out what you're going to do.

[49:58]

And you might stand up, push the window up, and say, hello, how you doing out there? It sounds to me like you've got problems. Is that true? And they say, no, we're fine. Or you might say, yeah, we're in trouble. You say, well, let's go. Yoga room class, 40 people, let's go help. But you can act. You're free of suffering. You're enlightened. You can do the right thing now. You're no longer living in the delusion of, the delusion of, the delusion of Jean and the people across the street. Jean and the scream. Jean and her thought. There's no like you and your thoughts anymore. And you and the scream. You're free and now you're free of suffering. You're also a free agent to practice right speech like open door and speak right. Like maybe give a big strong scream. But maybe before you scream, you might check, hey, what's happening out there? Right action, now the right action will not just be like right action, like trying to do your best, which is good.

[51:05]

It'll be enlightened action because it will come from freedom from here and there and in between. It doesn't mean that you still don't have judgments like, hey, this looks harmful. It just means that when you think this is harmful, you don't say, I think this is harmful and that's true. You say, this is my thought, this is harmful. When you realize that when you think something is harmful, that's just your thought, then you don't identify with your thoughts. When you identify with your thoughts, then they better be right or they better be wrong, you know. If you think something is wrong, then you've got to figure out that it is wrong or is right rather than just your idea. But when you realize it's just your idea, you become free of your thoughts. When you're free of your thoughts, then you can act right. But if you're not free of your thoughts, then you're basically driven by your thoughts. So if you think this is wrong, then you've got to do what the reality of that being wrong would be. But it actually is not. You don't know necessarily what's right and wrong.

[52:07]

But you do have ideas of right and wrong. But when your ideas of right and wrong are just your ideas of right and wrong, and you know that and you let them be that way, then you become free of your ideas of right and wrong. And when you're free of your ideas of right and wrong, you do the right thing. You don't even do it. It just comes out of you. So right action... is the point of the whole thing. But right action is not just what you think is right. You work your way up to this spontaneously enlightened right action by doing what you think is right, what you want to be right, what you intend to be right. But then as you practice that for a while, then you finally come around to practice right effort and right mindfulness and right concentration. And then the right that happens is not anymore karma. It's not based on your opinion. It's based on reality. And reality is... associated with freedom from suffering. Freedom from suffering and reality go together. When you're free of suffering and you understand reality, then right action is your life.

[53:10]

And if you can help somebody who's in trouble, you will. And if you can't, you can't. But actually, no matter how much trouble somebody's in, if you're anywhere near them and you're enlightened, you help them. You might not be able to fix their broken leg, but you can love them. And that's what we're here for, is to receive love and wisdom and compassion. And you can always give that when you understand things are just what they are. And that's it. And there's no you and other. There's no here and there, really. It's just we dream that up. We also don't eliminate here and there. We just let here be here, there be there. When here is just here and there is just there, then there's no here and there.

[54:07]

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