So we've been two weeks talking about right view, and right view is a kind of cognitive aspect of the practice, and right view is basically right view is to be able to see if you got right view or not. And right view is a pretty big topic but basically it entails knowing wrong view and wrong view, the fundamental thing about wrong view is to think that action done by this person doesn't have consequence.

[01:01]

That's the most important aspect of wrong view. And right view, there's two kinds of right view. One kind of right view is the kind of right view which is still somewhat tainted, but it's meritorious and it still has some attachment involved. And the other kind of right view is right view which doesn't have a taint, in some sense isn't really meritorious or non-meritorious. It's sort of beyond karma, beyond doing things which have merit. And it is in alignment with the path of liberation. The first kind of right view will be a right view that we have until we're free of any kind of attachment to self and belief in independent existence.

[02:12]

That's the first kind of right view that we can cultivate under those circumstances. And it's meritorious. And I think all of you can practice that one right away. eventually we might be able to practice this right view which is untainted and has no attachment involved, perfectly clear vision of what's happening. And we talked last week about how to look at karma, and we had some examples and some questions about that. And I would like to introduce the next aspect of the path, just so that we move forward a little bit. And then if you want to bring up questions related to observing karma, that will be fine.

[03:19]

And I think you may be able to see that that relates very closely to right intention. or right thinking, or right motivation, which is the next phase of the path. So right motivation is not so much a cognitive aspect, but more of an intentional aspect. So in a sense, right motivation you see, is very closely related to karma. Because the basic definition of karma is your intention, the intention of your consciousness. So, in right view, you start to meditate on the intention of your mind, the inclination of your mind,

[04:24]

And in right intention, you're going to be continuing to meditate on what the shape of your mind is. And what you learn from right view will help you in developing right intention. Right intention also you can talk about as being of two kinds. One kind is of right intention while you still have some sense of belief in your independent existence and because of that belief still somewhat attached to yourself and things which go with yourself.

[05:29]

But even under those circumstances, you can still practice and develop right intention. The other kind of right intention isn't tainted by that misconception of independent existence. The first kind of right intention is meritorious. The second kind of right intention is liberating. Second kind of right intention is an intention that isn't tainted by belief in independent existence and attachment to self. It goes in similar lines as right intention that's tainted or that still has some attachment to self. It goes in a similar way. It just doesn't have this self-attachment added into the mix. The basic aspects of right intention are that it goes along the lines of renunciation, it goes along the lines of loving-kindness, and along the lines of harmlessness.

[06:57]

Based on a misconception of what we really are, based on ignoring what we really are, turning away from what we really are, how we really are, turning away from what life really is, there is a creation of a sense of some part of life being separate from the rest. Based on that ignorance of the true nature of our life and the creating of a false idea of a separate self, greed, hate and delusion arise. Right view addresses and starts to turn around delusion. And right view, not right view, right intention addresses greed and hate.

[08:13]

The greed is addressed by renunciation. The hatred is addressed by loving kindness and harmlessness. So these first two aspects are particularly directed right towards the basic afflictive emotions that come up in relationship to ignorance. So if you watch your mind before you speak, before you enact postures, First of all, it may be pretty hard to look. As some of you have probably already seen, it's not so easy to see sometimes what the shape of your mind is.

[09:20]

And the attendance of this class is not growing, it's shrinking. And I wonder if part of the reason why it's shrinking is because people are really having a hard time meditating on their karma and don't want to come here anymore and hear about that. Yes? Okay. So, let's say you're sitting here in... Let's say you're sitting here like in the period of meditation before we started here. We're kind of quiet. We're not talking. We're not moving much. But the mind is still happening moment after moment. Mind happens, changes, happens, changes, happens. So states of mind are arising and ceasing in a sense. That's what you might notice that.

[10:22]

Not every state of mind, not every state of consciousness, not every moment of experience has a kind of inclination or a tendency going in a clear way for example if you're just sitting here and you have a moment of feelings warmth or hearing a sound or seeing a color at those moments when you're actually smelling something or hearing something the shape of your mind is kind of flat it's not like shaped It's not even necessarily shaped towards listening, strongly shaped towards listening to the sound. It's just kind of like receptive. Okay? Now you might think, as I mentioned earlier, I don't like that sound. But still, if the mind just has, I don't like that sound, that still doesn't have a clear shape.

[11:35]

But if you think, I don't like that sound, And I think I would like to plug my ears. And then you think, I really would like to plug my ears. I really would like to do that. That's a, you know, very clearly I'd like to do that. That would be the shape, that would be kind of a shape of your mind that you would imagine that action. Okay? Okay? Now, then you might say, now, is that tendency to plug your ears, is that in a wholesome direction, a skillful direction or unskillful, or not necessarily one or the other? And I would say offhand, you know, that it's not terribly, not very unwholesome, not very harmful to plug your ears. I just did it, and it didn't seem that bad.

[12:38]

If I just say, or maybe not even say I don't like the sound, but I'd rather not hear the sound, and just think of plugging your ears, if I think of that, I don't think it's that bad, and I really don't think it is that bad. You could also say, well, I'll put earplugs in my ears. Fairly, I would say, neutral. Maybe a little bit good, Not too bad. Doesn't really hurt you, probably. Doesn't hurt the other people much, especially if you discreetly put some earplugs in, even before you came in here. Is it helpful? Well, I don't know if it's helpful. It might be helpful. You might feel like you meditated more easily with the earplugs in than with them out. On the other hand, I might give some meditation instruction during the period, which you wouldn't hear.

[13:41]

You might not hear. You might say, well, that's too bad. So that's an example of an impulse which you might or might not act on, but just if you think about the impulse, it's not particularly harmful. And yet you might really want to do it. And you might check it out and say, well, I don't think it's that harmful. Now, you still want to do it after you find out it's not harmful. You might say, well, yeah, I do actually. I do want to do it even though it's not particularly harmful and maybe it's not particularly good. There's some disadvantage in plugging your ears because if you plug your ears every time anything happens that you don't like to hear, there's certain things you won't learn about in life. So it might not be as skillful as something else you might do with the sound. Like you might say, instead of plugging your ears so that you didn't have to like feel this experience of the sound in your ears, which in itself is also not necessarily harmful, you might be able to study that clear karma more easily if you just didn't mess with your ears and just kept feeling that impulse to plug your ears.

[14:58]

You might get many, many examples of that impulse to plug your ears if you didn't act on it. So it might be more wholesome and more helpful just to meditate on the impulse to plug your ears than to plug your ears. Because by not plugging your ears, you might get several more moments of a clear sense of the impulse to plug your ears. And it's not necessarily hurting you not to plug your ears, so you get a nice clear sense of that. And also you can watch the shape of that impulse change as the meditation period goes on. Now, I could give examples, of course, of unwholesome things, too. Like if the person next to you is wiggling and you didn't like that, you might think of, I don't know what, maybe, you know, hitting them.

[16:00]

or telling them to stop moving, which might hurt their feelings and discourage them, or something like that. That might be something which might be harmful, might be coming from ill will, and you might feel sorry for later. The person might keep moving anyway, or they might stomp out, or they might start arguing with you during meditation, or something like that. Anyway, you can see the tendency to want to talk to the person and tell them to stop moving, but then if you consider, you think, now, would that actually be helpful? Will that actually promote my meditation? You might think, well, is this thought of talking to them even promoting my meditation? Well, it's a somewhat disturbing thought, maybe. First of all, you don't like that they're moving. Second of all, you maybe feel irritated about thinking about talking to them about moving. But in terms of meditating on karma, it's a pretty good example. So, I said quite a bit.

[17:03]

It looks like you have some questions. I do. So, when you're meditating and you were talking about not closing your ears but observing the intention. Yes. And that... I don't understand. I think that observing the intention is... Right view. Right view. Because this is helping you enlighten yourself about who you are. About who you are and about how your mind works. And then... Observing a negative thought, you'll learn also about yourself. And you'll learn about... And you'll learn about how your idea of yourself works with the shape of your mind, to create certain consequences, which then come back to yourself and then impel you to think other thoughts, which lead to other actions, and you start to learn this cycle.

[18:11]

And the intention is not to try to change that at this point, or as far as we've talked about it so far. So far, the way I'm talking about it, there isn't any... It's observation. It's just observation, okay? Now, the next one may look a little bit like trying to change yourself. Because it's talking about right intentions, talking about renunciation, loving-kindness, and harmlessness. So if you observe attachment in your mind, and you observe certain intentions which are motivated by attachment, or you see certain intentions which are motivated by ill will, or you see certain intentions, inclinations of your mind which are motivated by cruelty, you see these things, then what... you might think, well, I guess right intention would be to stop those things or to change myself.

[19:16]

First of all, anyway, right view is helping you identify these tendencies. Okay, now, you might observe these tendencies But in fact, if they're happening, they're happening. If you've got ill will, you've got ill will. You've got to start with what you've got. If you've got a cruel thought, you've got a cruel thought. If you have attachments, you have attachments. Just to think of a thought based on attachment, just to think of a thought of ill will, just to think of a cruel thought has a certain effect, which you might be able to observe. Now, if it's a thought to speak cruelly or to speak in order to promote attachment and you act on the thought, then you can learn how that works too. as you learn how these things work better, that vision and the understanding of how these things work naturally starts to transform your mind in the direction of renunciation, non-attachment, loving-kindness, and harmlessness.

[20:41]

Still, however, you might think, well, what about, you know, I'm not, what about, like, I'm observing my mind, I'm seeing what kind of thoughts are arising, what the shape of my mind is. What about thinking about actually giving rise to the kind of thinking which is like thinking about non-attachment, thinking about loving-kindness and thinking about harmlessness? What about actually trying to think that way? And what about when harmful thoughts of cruelty come up? What about trying to stop them? This is pretty subtle. Once a cruel thought, once a thought of doing cruelty has arisen in your mind, it's already arisen. should you then speak should now we're getting into right speech should you then speak it or right view would right view would tell you no don't speak it don't do harmful don't don't say a harmful thing don't say a cruel thing because it'll lead to unfortunate results for yourself and for others so it isn't so much you have to stop yourself

[22:12]

you just see it doesn't make sense, it doesn't work out, it isn't a good idea. Seems simple, huh? How's it going, Naomi? Huh? You look kind of... What? You got lost somewhere? Well, where were you before you got lost? Do you remember? No? Martha?

[23:15]

Does restraint play some part in this thing? Well, you know, I... I... I don't know if it really does actually play a role. Because if you see something, if you see in your mind the impulse to say something to someone that's cruel, and then you see, oh, that wouldn't be a good idea, and then you don't say it, did you really restrain yourself? Or did you just see, I don't want to do it? If you think, I want to say something cruel, I think it would be harmful. And I think I'm going to do it anyway, so I better stop myself.

[24:19]

So then didn't you just, did you really stop yourself or did you just again decide not to do it? Did you really restrain it? I guess you could say you did, but, you know, the word refrain means to reign again. Like rein a horse. So I don't know if you really restrain yourself when you decide not to do something. So like let's say there's many things you're not going to do tonight, right? Are you restraining yourself from doing those things? You might say, well, not necessarily. I mean, I'm not restraining myself from going to Tahoe. But what if you think of going to Tahoe? And you say, well, actually, I don't think it would be a good idea to do it because I have to go to work tomorrow. If I went there, you know, I wouldn't be able to go to work. And I don't think that would be that good besides what I was thinking of doing to Tahoe isn't that important anyway. So I'm not going to go to Tahoe tonight. Did you really restrain yourself? I'm not saying you didn't, but I just think that way of thinking about it, I don't exactly... Somehow that seems a little heavy-handed.

[25:28]

Right? It's maybe better to sort of like to get in there and see, okay, here's the impulse. Do I really want to do it or not? Is it actually going to help or not? And if I say, no, I don't think so, and then I don't, was it really restraint or was it actually study, seeing what I really want to do and doing what I wanted to do? What do you think? It's like consciousness is the key. Yeah, consciousness is the key. Yes? I was going to say that's provided you see anything. Oh, yeah. See, this requires that you're looking pretty carefully at what you're thinking. This means you're looking pretty carefully. You're noticing your impulses, and then you're wondering, is this going to be beneficial or harmful? What is the motivation here? And generally speaking, saying cruel things, saying things based on ill will and saying things based on attachment, generally speaking, they do damage to the actor.

[26:37]

They lead to results which come back and hurt the actor. They might also hurt others. But is it really restraint or is it that actually... Now, if you want to say you don't look... Let's say you don't look, and an impulse to say something cruel comes up, and you don't look. Then it probably would just happen. So then it seems like when you watch, the watching has something to do with restraining that impulse. But when you actually get into the watching, it's not exactly restraining. When you look at what you act like when you don't watch, then it looks like watching restrains. But does it really restrain or does it enlighten and show you really the life you want to live? And when you see the life you want to live, you live it. Now, what if you somehow say, okay, I see what it is. It's not helpful. I don't want to do it. And you do it. Usually what happens is at that moment you look away.

[27:42]

You say, I don't want to do it. It's not helpful to me. And you find yourself doing it. Usually you looked away for a moment. Like, I've already had, you know, two pieces of cake. I really don't need a third piece. I don't want a third piece, actually. I mean, I kind of do, but I really don't. And I'm not going to have it. And then you reach over and put it in your mouth. At that moment, you stop watching. You didn't notice that the impulse came again after you decided you didn't want to do it and you didn't look at it and say, no, no, no, I really don't. Really? No, really, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't. I mean, I do and I don't. But mostly I don't. That's the decision. That's my vision and I don't want to do it. Say, okay, fine. You look the other way and it happens. Like that. So, okay? Is it Carol? What about What about the intention to do good?

[28:45]

Yes. That comes around and whacks you behind the head. The intention to do good whacks you behind the head? Right. Uh-huh. You think about to do good. Yes. And it seems like a good idea. Yes. And then, well, what I read today was no good equals uncommon. Uh-huh. The intention was positive. It was conscious. The result was somewhat positive in one way, but there seems to be always a somewhere where even the good things you do don't exactly are all on purpose. Right. Okay.

[29:49]

Well, that expression, no good deed goes unpunished, there's a couple different ways to understand that. One way is that when we do so-called, quote, good deeds, there's often a shadow element in that, that we tell ourselves, well, like the famous expression, this is for your own good, and then you punch the kid, right? So you tell yourself you're doing a good thing, but actually the reason why you're punishing them for their own good is because they hurt you or something in some way. You really haven't sat down there and really seen whether this is really going to be beneficial to them. You haven't noticed that there's some impulse to cruelty there. So one sense of... But still, if you think this is for your own good... And this is for your own benefit that I'm now going to spank you or hit you or whatever, if that's what you really think. And then you do it. And then you notice that it doesn't really help the kid.

[30:56]

Then you maybe say, hmm, did I overlook something here? Because I thought things done, because I looked at it before and I thought, I want to do this for the good of the person. I think it would be good. Now, again, is there any ill will there? Is there any harmfulness there? Is there any attachment there? You look and you don't see any, let's say. To the best of your ability, you didn't see any. And then you act, and it looks like, from the results, that there was one of those three operating there. Now, if you're looking, you've got right view happening to some extent. If you're not even looking, you're pretty much done for. You've got wrong view. If you've got wrong view, you're almost certain to have wrong intention. Probably you have wrong intention if you have wrong view.

[32:00]

Probably you do. Highly likely. If you have right view, you could still have wrong intention, though. You could look and you could say, I think this is good, and you forget to check. whether there's any attachment, whether there's any harmful ill will, whether there's any cruelty. You forget to check. You forget to check whether, is there renunciation here? Is there loving kindness here? Is there harmlessness here? Now, if there is those things, part of what you do in those cases is when you act any way towards any other living being and towards yourself, then you always ask them how it was for them. So if you spank the kid, you say, was that helpful? You know? Now, do you actually say that when you do those kids? People do that? Well, if you don't do it, then maybe you shouldn't spank them. If you're not up for, like, asking them whether it was helpful, like, who's going to ask somebody after you beat them up whether it was helpful?

[33:04]

Who would ask them? Well, I think Buddha would. Because Buddha doesn't very often beat people up. Did you sense any attachment in me? You know, of course, little kids have trouble answering these questions, but did you sense any attachment or some agenda I was holding on to when I administered punishment to you? And they might say, well, I mean, you know, if I tell you, are you going to punish me again? And you say, well, maybe. Depends on what you say. Say, well, then just tell me what to say. I'll say it. You know? Well, say that it was helpful. Okay, it was helpful. But if you actually... want to find out, if you were intending to do something helpful to somebody and you want to find out it was helpful, you can ask them afterward, was that helpful? And I really want to ask you that, and I'm not going to punish you if you tell me that it wasn't helpful. But how often is punishment and cruelty helpful? How often is it really coming from right intention, from kindness

[34:11]

Harmlessness and non-attachment. How often is harshness and punishment that way? Now, what about being kind to people? How often is being kind coming from attachment? Pretty often. So you try to do something nice for somebody, you know, you think it's nice, you think it's helpful, but there's some attachment there. If you ask them, they might say, well, you know, I feel uncomfortable sometimes. Do you feel some attachment or some greediness or some acquisitiveness in this action I'm doing? And I say, well, it's not really, tell me. Well, yeah. But you can be able to tell for yourself. So you think it's good, but you don't just let it go there because if you think it's good, then if you think it's good, wouldn't you want to check to see if it was? Isn't doing good something that you want to check on? Isn't it good to check on whether your good action is working? That's the way good is, right? If you're doing harmful things, so you don't necessarily even care whether it's successful.

[35:17]

Like, I'm going to slap this person, but I don't really care whether it hurt them that much anyway. I just feel like slapping with them. I don't really care whether it really hurt them, really upset them. Maybe I do enough to detect, did that hurt? No. Do it again. But really like to check and, you know, did it really hurt? You know, tell me the truth now. When you do evil things, you aren't actually that careful usually about how you do them. When you do good things, in other words, when you try to do good things, it naturally goes that you would investigate whether you were successful or not. Because you're trying to do good things because you think it's important what you do. So you would want to, it's an experiment which you want to check on the results of it. And it is possible to have unconscious aspects of your behavior going, but if you check on it, that tends to bring the unconscious aspects forward. Check on your own feelings, check on your own observations, check on your own reasoning, check on your own intuition, and ask the other people if they're involved.

[36:25]

If you're doing something to yourself, like giving yourself a nap or giving yourself a punishment or giving yourself food or giving yourself exercise or giving yourself medicine or giving yourself clothes or giving yourself possessions. If you do these things for yourself, then think beforehand, is this actually going to help me? Is this going to be good for me? Then check to see whether it is. Eating, sleeping, exercise, all these things. How do you feel afterwards? Was it actually helpful? Check with yourself. The more you check with yourself and talk to yourself about it, the better you get at talking to other people about it. The more you talk to other people about it, the better to check with yourself. And the more you work with both of these, the more the shape of your intention starts to modify. The more you see the benefit of non-attachment, the more you see the benefit of how things work, how smoothly things work when you're not attached to the result. But that you have a non-attached

[37:27]

non-greedy approach to this study of what life's about and a non-angry attitude to how things are working out. Most important is not whether things work out to your benefit, but whether you understand. And doing good things goes with the experimental approach of doing something to see how it's good. Okay, now I think this is renunciation. I think this is loving kindness, and I think this is homelessness. Okay, that's my thought. That's it. Just have that thought. See how it feels to have such a thought. Now I think this speech is like that. See how it is to speak like that. Watch how that works. And then further speech, I think it would be helpful, I think it would be good to ask others how they felt about my speech. So I'll try that and see how that works.

[38:31]

My posture, I think this kind of posture, this kind of attitude, this kind of physical action would be beneficial. Now I'll try it and then ask feedback. This is... Quite laborious, isn't it? Quite difficult, quite laborious, hard work. It's hard work. It's hard work, especially with people, well, actually with everybody, especially with people who will actually play the game with you and who will talk to you. And with people who won't, it's hard too. To get them to play with you, to get them to give you feedback. That's hard, too. How will you talk in such a way as to encourage them to talk back to you, to tell you? That's hard. This is hard work. And being careful and studying yourself, it's hard work. And you don't look like Mr., you know, whatever, relaxed, you know, like, what is it, like a, what do they say, a raconteur? You don't look like that kind of person, like somebody who's just sort of .

[39:40]

You don't look like that. You have to practice a long time before you can just sort of like just talk, blah, blah, blah. It's very fast. Someone who's not here tonight wrote me a letter and said, where does spontaneity come in? Actually, spontaneity comes in right at the beginning. In other words, at the beginning of this kind of practice, you are spontaneously kind of awkward. You'll be spontaneously awkward. You'll be spontaneously clumsy in the process of studying your behavior. That would naturally spontaneously happen to a person who wasn't skillful. If you take somebody who doesn't know how to ice skate, you put ice skates on them, put them on the rink, they'll spontaneously fall down. They'll spontaneously get hurt. And they'll spontaneously quit or spontaneously continue. This is actually, spontaneity is there all the time, but spontaneity for a beginner is different than spontaneity for the medium or advanced practitioner of the art.

[40:49]

Right? But still it's spontaneous in the sense that various things are coming together to create it. People are spontaneously bad. But spontaneously means spontaneously given ignorance, given lack of right view, given lack of right intention, they'll spontaneously get in trouble. I, yes? Could you talk to me, I guess I can be direct, and you can decide not to do that, but... You're gonna, you're gonna take a new direction? Yes. Okay. Is it a wholesome direction? Okay, let's see. That's why I'm acting. Can you talk about renunciation? You've used the word in the sense of good attention means harmlessness, loving kindness, and renunciation. Yeah. And I think I get the other two, except that I understand the words and have experienced them.

[41:52]

But renunciation is... Renunciation means... Well, I understand what the word means. I just never understand... How to apply it? Well, when you have a desire, okay? You desire something. Want to give an example of a desire? No, I'm sorry. Do you want to pick a desire? Or a desire to eat something sweet. Okay. Or even, yeah, a desire to eat something sweet. So renunciation is you've got this desire to eat something sweet, right? You see your mind is inclined towards eating something sweet. Your mind is inclined towards eating something sweet. You could also be eating something sour or eating something healthy. practicing right view with that, you might try to see whether this is actually just an impulse that should just be let go at that, or whether it's going to be beneficial.

[43:08]

Okay? For example, when it comes to eating, once you're aware of what's going on with you, once you're actually looking at your mind and seeing the impulses to eat, know you're doing pretty well if you're actually stopping to see the impulse to eat something that's pretty good now the question is now if you can do that could you now say is this actually an impulse that i should act on you might say well i haven't eaten all day um i um i got a headache i feel like my blood sugar is depressed And eat some, here we have, let's say we have like, you know, this is an approved healthy piece of bread, you know, like freshly baked, nice, you know, organic Berkeley bread. And it seems to me from my understanding that this would probably be a good thing for me to eat.

[44:16]

I think it would probably be good. But even without that, and that's a fine thing to think, but even without that, all you've got to do is bring the bread somewhere near your face and see if you salivate. And if you salivate, probably you shouldn't eat it, unless it's somebody else's piece of bread. But let's say it's in your own house, you know, your own little bread box. You come under, you open it, and you have this thought, you have this impulse, saying, you think, I think it would be good to eat. Now, you just go over there, take the bread out, cut a piece, bring it near your face, and look at it, touch it, smell it, and see if you salivate. If you do, then eat it. And it's good, actually. You might say, now, how will I eat it? And you say, well, I think it would be good to actually eat it, not in one big bite, because I might choke, but I think I'll eat it bite by bite and chew my food well. And I expect that since it's really good bread, it'll taste good too if I chew it. You chew it and say, yeah, it is good. And then afterwards you feel the blood sugar. Even before your stomach digests the food, your body does some stuff for you just by tasting the stuff.

[45:23]

You feel your energy coming back. Hey, that's a good idea. I thought it would be good. It was good. Now let's say you think of eating and you think, I don't think it would be good. I feel the desire to do it. but I don't think it would be good. I feel this desire. It's not just that I think it would be good to eat. I feel a desire. I feel like something's missing in my life. That's different from, you know, wanting to eat. You don't have to have desire to eat. It's not necessary. It's not necessary. So when you have eating connected to desire, renunciation is to sort of scoot around the desire and eat without the desire or let the desire to sort of drop away and eat from the point of view of just go the other way from the desire and then see if you want to eat. And you may find out that you can eat without desire.

[46:27]

If you eat based on desire, you check it out and you check it out and see what you find. What most meditators find is that if you mix desire with your eating, that it hurts you. It's painful. It makes eating into a painful thing. To mix the desiring with perfectly normal human activity. In Zen we say, you know, when you're enlightened, eat when you're hungry, and you sleep when you're tired. That's it. You don't have to eat when you have desire, because you can have desire to eat even when you're not hungry. And you also can have desire when you are hungry. But you can be hungry with or without desire, but even if you are hungry and you have desire, you can eat from the hunger rather than from the desire. If you watch yourself, you can see the way to cut through the field of experience without leaning into the desire.

[47:32]

You can see that. And you can see how when you lean into the desire, how that turns it into a direction that hurts you. And how also when you go with the desire, usually it's because you're not paying attention. Because if you paid attention, you would notice that when you go towards the desire, it hurts. But when you act without going towards the desire, it doesn't hurt. It's happy. Is this difficult to see? Yes, it's difficult to see because basically your mind's somewhat turbulent and unclear because of basic ignorance. So it's hard to see perfectly clear these things because of our self-concern. But I'm proposing you try. So here's another exercise for you. Although we're not yet, you know, on right action and right livelihood, we're sort of getting ahead of ourselves in a way. But there's another area of when it comes to eating is their desire and can you sit down with the food and and notice the difference between eating because you're hungry and the desire over there can you like just go over and eat from the hunger rather than going through the desire and if you can't then notice how eating through the desire is painful and then maybe if you can notice how eating from the hunger is not painful

[48:58]

One's really clear and enlightened, the other is amassing unwholesome karma. Check it out. Yes? When you, when you, the way you're using the word desire, is that with like a clinging, let's see where... There's clinging in the background, yeah. There's clinging to self, and then there's a sense that, whenever you have a sense, whenever we have a sense, as long as we have a sense... that we live independently of other beings and that we have independent existence, we always feel like something's missing. What's missing? What's missing? Our life. Yeah, interdependence. Our life's missing. Most of our life's missing. So we feel something's missing. So desire naturally comes up. So are you going to act on that delusion, that misunderstanding of desire? Well, if you do, it's not going to work out very well. By meditating, by getting the right view now, watch what's happening, that will help you see when your actions come from this basic delusion that you're missing something.

[50:08]

In other words, desire arises from something that's missing. And then you get into this missing, missing, missing thing. And attachment is there before, during and after the desire. I don't know who was next. Deirdre? Daniel, I think, was next. One thing I noticed, and definitely to do with what you mentioned last week, was noticing our, what's that say, an urge, and then looking to see if that urge was going to move back before acting on it, seeing if I could notice the urge before acting on it. Yes. And I noticed that I couldn't even tell if I was doing it or not. You couldn't tell what? I can't. With some of the things you mentioned, especially down in the particular, I can't really tell if I'm doing it or not. Okay. Now, last week I did this with you, too.

[51:08]

Okay? Now, before you talk again... Okay. You didn't. Before you talk again, don't talk. Be quiet. Next time you see an impulse to answer me, Just watch the impulse for a little bit. Study the impulse to say something back to me now. And see if you have... First of all, see if you have a strong impulse, a clear impulse to say something back to me. First, check that out. But don't act on it yet. Don't speak it. Just see if you have an impulse to talk to me. Okay? Then see if you think you're doing it or not. See if you think that impulse to speak that you're observing, I say you observing, but I wouldn't say, in observing the impulse, see if that impulse to speak is coming from nobody or from you. And I would say, for the sake of this exercise, that you don't talk until you've settled that question.

[52:22]

at least in this class. You're not required to speak, okay? But I'm suggesting that you don't speak until you identify... I shouldn't say you don't speak. That speech does not come in the midst of this meditation practice, okay? That speech does not come until you verify whether there is the impression that you are doing the speaking or that it's clear to you, that it's clear that the speaking is coming not from you, And you can tell us which it is when you get to that point. Now, it's difficult because you can't even tell me whether you understood my instruction. Do other people understand the instruction? Did you understand the instruction, Naomi? No. Okay. So... He was talking to me about... He said he wasn't clear to him... whether he was doing it, doing the action or not.

[53:26]

He cannot if that's true. He's not, that's why I didn't quite get that right. He couldn't tell whether he was doing it or not. And I don't say to you that you are doing it. I don't say that you do do anything. I don't say that you think your thoughts or that you speak your language or that you move your body. I don't say that you do. Actually I say, you don't. But I do say that most people think they do. Most people think they think their thoughts. But actually the thoughts are just something that happened to us. And the thoughts that happen to you happen in relationship to how you have been thinking. And the thoughts you have happen in relationship to whether you're meditating on your thoughts. If you meditate on your thoughts, your thoughts change. A mind that's being meditated upon, it starts to change because it's meditated on.

[54:32]

You don't think the same way when you're watching what you're thinking as when you don't. However, it's not you that changes the thinking, it's the meditation that changes the thinking, or the lack of meditation changes the thinking. speech the speech that comes from thought that meditated on or thought that's not meditated on the speech that comes is not done by somebody but most people think that they speak that their words and they did the speaking and most people think they did the motion that's the way most people think and because they think that way karma is possible If you are thinking that way, if you do feel that way, then it would be good for you to know that you do that because that's what's called meditating on karma. If you really don't think you're involved in it, then you're an unusual person and we have ways of testing to see if you really are unusual or if you just can't tell that you actually think you do things.

[55:33]

Like this guy, I had a class in San Francisco last Thursday, and he said he couldn't actually identify that he actually did anything. Actually, he said he couldn't identify an impulse. I said, well, how do you sit? And he showed me how he sat, and he actually, he sat, this guy sat in full lotus. I said, okay, sit that way, and don't move your legs until you feel a clear impulse to move your legs. And he sat that way for a while, and pretty soon he said, I'm feeling the impulse. And I said, do you feel it very clearly? Can you feel that impulse? He said, don't move until you feel it. I said, yes, I do. I said, okay. Okay, now, do you really want to move your legs? He said, yes. And you think it would be good? He said, yes. I said, okay, now do you feel the impulse to do that? And he said, yes. I said, okay, do it. But I didn't ask him, actually, did you feel you did it? If one of you comes up here and does something to me and hurts me, do you feel that you did it? Do you feel bad and do you feel ashamed of yourself for doing it?

[56:36]

Or do you think, hey, I didn't do that. You know? Reb said I didn't do it so I can go punch him and there won't be any problem. I won't be responsible, right? Is that really what you think? If so, I would suggest we talk about it beforehand. You tell me, if you want to do something, if you've got some idea of some action that you think, of course, I'm already playing into it to say, if you have some action that you think you can do without you doing it, I'm making it harder for you. But I would just say, if there is in the room the understanding of the performance of an action without the necessity of a person being the actor, then I would like to hear some talk about that. And vice versa, easier would be if anybody, I guess I would just like to ask, how many people have a sense that they think they do things, that you think you speak things yourself, that you do speak it?

[57:45]

Does anybody not have a sense that they actually speak? Sometimes? Okay, but do you sometimes do have a sense that you speak? Okay. So now, I asked Daniel not to speak until he had a clear sense that he is speaking. He seemed to have some trouble with that. So now, have you got to the point yet where you feel like you can entertain that delusion of you speaking? Yeah. Did you feel like you did that just then when you said, yeah? Yeah. Second, yeah also? Yeah. Third, yeah? So you're on the track now. You're doing this talking. Yeah. It seems so. You feel that way. That's your view. You know, it's kind of like I'm asking you to learn

[58:51]

to observe your delusion. Because I think we do operate that way. It's not that it's true, but I think we do think that. Certainly if you do something really good, I mean certainly if something really good is done and you think you did it, and somebody else comes and says they did it, and they give the award to this other person, you notice that you think you did it. Do you know what I mean? You feel, well, like if you're really, let's say you're really a kind person, you say, well, I'm glad they got the award instead of me, but actually I did it. It's deluded to think that you did it, but you did think you did it. Now, if you think you do a bad thing and somebody else gets punished for it, then in that case you might not be able to remember that you did it.

[59:56]

I don't know if I did that. Did you do that? I'm not sure if I did. Maybe you got the right person there. Yes? Are you saying that there's not really a personal self in it? I'm saying that there's not truly an isolated, independent self. I think there is... I'm saying that the sense of our independence is something we imagine. But once we imagine it, It has consequences, big consequences. Big, big, big suffering follows from the belief that we're independent. I think that the world, the universe can make individual things. I think that can happen. I think that does happen. I think the world has made an identity, which is your life.

[61:04]

But the world made you. You couldn't be nodding your head right now if it weren't for me. You couldn't be in this room right now if it weren't for the piano. Everything that makes you exactly what you are makes you not independent of the things which make you what you are. But human beings can forget about that and ignore that and think they're independent. That's the problem. And based on that, Forgetfulness, based on that ignorance, we do what's called karma. Right view is to watch the fact that we think that way, that we think we can do things. And by watching and keeping track of the fact of how it is that you think you can do things independently by your own power, that this identity, which depends on everybody, forgets about that she does depend on everybody and then thinks she's an independent operator, an independent author of her actions.

[62:06]

then we have karma. Right view is to watch how that happens and to watch that does have consequences and what kind of consequences it has and what kind of consequences this kind of action has, what kind of consequences that kind of action has. And as you see how this works, the type of thinking you do starts to evolve. And the second thing of right intention, again, it sounds like you're supposed to try to develop right intention, but actually right intention In some sense, it's just a natural outflow of right view. So why even mention right intention? Because by mentioning right intention, you kind of guide your right view because right view, if it's working, should be leading to right intention. So if your intention is not modifying, it means you're not meditating on your activity properly. If your intention is modifying and you're starting to notice, oh... If you meditate on your intention, which is the basis of karma, your intention starts to change.

[63:21]

If you notice a cruel intention, things have already changed. It's a different world when you notice a cruel intention than when there's a cruel intention unnoticed. Your intention's already changing as soon as you start noticing it. As you start to notice cruel intentions and how they're, even if they're not acted upon, there's consequences of cruel intentions when they're not acted upon. There's further consequences when they are acted upon. As you start to watch this, your cruel intentions start to wither, start to soften, start to weaken. more you watch cruel intentions the less you're wanting to be cruel people who studied their own cruelty their own cruelty exhaustively stop being cruel the Buddha Shakyamuni Buddha studied his study he had cruel intentions he looked in his own mind and saw cruel inclinations of his own mind the Buddha

[64:24]

he saw how the cruelty went how it went how it worked what it led to and when he saw what cruelty led to he gave up cruelty you're right he didn't give it up it was just given up it was renounced it was dropped it's dropped by the meditation the meditation You take a person, a living person, together with meditation and karma, and the karma starts to change. If there was just meditation on the karma but not connected to a person who suffers as a result of it, it wouldn't necessarily change. But the meditation together with the person who doesn't like to suffer by their own action. Why go out of your way and cause yourself suffering? One learns that. and then it changes. That's why I think it's not so much like get in there and you... You don't get in there and try to rework yourself, but you do get reworked by the meditation.

[65:37]

The meditation transforms you. It transforms you with karma. Karma creates you and perpetuates this situation When you study the karma, the karma uncreates you and sets you free. Yes? I have a very practical type question. Fine. I'm a very creative person, and I've had exceptional difficulty for many years trying to be disciplined. And I think that that's, you know, my... Sure. There can be a breakthrough. So, here I am talking about discipline. And you're asking me, how can one learn discipline?

[66:50]

I'm saying to you, I'm suggesting to you to develop the discipline, a discipline of paying attention to the impulses of your mind. Right view is right view. But to discipline yourself on it, how are you going to discipline yourself? How are you going to get yourself to do this? How does that happen? that's an example of how it happens i said how does how does it happen that you watch your impulses and she said you watch your impulses that's how it happens how does it happen that you watch your impulses how does it happen It happens when you watch your impulses. That's how it happens. That when it happens, how does it happen? Check it out. When it happens, see how it happens.

[67:52]

Each time it happens, it will happen differently. How does one become disciplined in watching and learning about your impulses? How does one do that? By practice. How does one get a chance to practice? By practicing. Is there some other way? I can't think of one offhand. Of course, excuse me, another way, there's two ways to learn discipline. One way is by practicing the discipline. In other words, by meditating on your karma, that's one way to develop the discipline of meditating on your karma. Okay? Does that make sense? What's the other way? The other way is don't meditate on your karma. Don't practice right view. Okay? That's another way to practice discipline. Because when you don't, when you, if you, if you, first of all, do you want to discipline yourself in this meditation?

[68:52]

Do you want to discipline yourself in watching your action? If you want to, then that's part of what it takes. If you want to, and then you do, that's called the discipline. If you want to and you don't, that's called not doing the discipline, but that's part of the discipline because when you want to and you don't, you suffer. And that's part of the discipline, is that you suffer when you don't do what you want to do. That's part of what helps you do it. That's part of how it happens. If you can meditate on your karma... If you can watch to what extent you're involved in your karma, I predict there will be a breakthrough. Discipline will develop. Your intentions will be transformed. Your intentions and your thinking will be different.

[69:56]

It won't be overnight, but gradually you'll spend more and more of your lifetime paying attention to what you're doing and being transformed by that attention. And it's not because you're some special person or not a special person. It's just that the way a human being works is when they get enough examples, when they get enough data, they understand. And when they understand, they understand. We all operate differently. We all operate according to our understanding. That's how we get through life. Moment by moment, day by day, that's how we get through, by our understanding. Our current understanding is whatever. Our current understanding is such that most of us still think karmically. Because we think karmically, we suffer

[71:03]

If we will study this karma, our understanding will change. When our understanding changes, life will be different. Not by trying to be somebody different. We will just be somebody different. We will become a different person because we'll have a different understanding. We'll have a different understanding. We'll have a different life. But this is difficult work because nobody's reminding you to do it except in this class. Or if you take one of these people home with you, they might remind you. But basically, you have to remember to do this in the middle of everything you're doing. Or you have to remember to do this when you're like just sitting there not speaking and not moving, but just looking into your mind. You have to actually look and see. There's an impulse. Would it be good to actually speak about, to enact this in speech? Would that be helpful? So there it is. It really does, it has to be practical.

[72:09]

It's very practical. And it's very difficult. Yes? At the beginning of the class, when we're sitting here meditating, before those impulses go up, at least at the beginning of the class, No, just enjoy the receptive mode and learn that that is part of your life. And that's, in some ways, a very nice part of your life when the reception is receiving positive sensation. Sometimes, however, what you're receiving is pain. Sometimes what you're receiving is pain. But that moment, anyway, when you're receiving pain, there's no karma there. You're receiving the results of karma. At that time, just sit there and, as a meditator, just sit there and watch and say, this is not a karmic moment. There isn't a strong impulse. Then the next moment, there's a strong impulse to do something about this pain. Now, is the impulse going to be helpful? Sometimes you feel pain and you have an unhealthy impulse, like you have pain in your stomach, right? You have an impulse. Put food in it.

[73:11]

But the food you put in makes you sicker, right? Like some people, they have an upset stomach. You hear about the upset stomach? They put food in and they have a heart attack. That happens sometimes, right? They have an upset stomach and they drink some cheese and a cup of coffee and they have a heart attack. People do various things to themselves which, out of the pain, they have an impulse and they hurt themselves. Or out of pleasure, they have an impulse and they hurt themselves. Like they see something, they see somebody hurt. you know, they have a positive, they have a positive feeling about seeing somebody, they act in relationship to that positive sensation, and they get shocked. You know, whatever, you know, because they didn't really think, now, is it really going to be helpful to, like, touch this person who I don't even know? So, but, this is not so much about, what I'm teaching here is not so much about impulse control, it's more like studying. Studying, so you don't have to control your impulses, so much but so that your understanding will be different and your impulses will be different so your impulses will actually be your impulses will actually be renunciation loving kindness and harmlessness until those are your impulses you have to keep studying these other impulses of attachment desire

[74:34]

ill will, and harmfulness. You have to keep studying that stuff, which is not pleasant. But until you study that stuff and see where that goes, you're not going to be convinced. Until you're not convinced, your mind won't change. Being convinced means you have a different understanding. Being convinced that cruelty is... No good means you understand differently, because before that you were thinking cruel thoughts. You had an understanding such you'd think, hey, I'm going to think a cruel thought. No, you don't think that, but anyway, you're understanding a louder cruel thought to come up. You understand the world in such a way that you think, I'd like to hurt that person big time. That's the way you understand the world. This is not a helpful understanding. This is an understanding which will hurt you. Hurt you terribly. If you do cruel things, you'll be terribly hurt. The other person may or may not be hurt. If you do cruel things to some people, it doesn't hurt them. But it definitely will hurt you.

[75:36]

That's for sure. And if you watch your karma, if you watch your cruel thoughts and you watch your cruel speech and you watch your cruel physical action, if you watch that, you will see, you will be convinced. And when you're convinced, your mind will change and your mind will no longer give rise Once your mind is convinced, it won't give rise to cruel thoughts. But again, this is going to take some time. It would be nice if we could just do it for one day and suddenly there were no more cruel thoughts. But we have to get many, many examples of this. We have to really be convinced. We need quite a few examples of this. Quite a few means really quite a few. But who wants to have quite a few examples and notice quite a few times that they have a cruel thought in their mind? Nobody wants to see that. The Buddha didn't want to see this, but the Buddha saw this. The Buddha saw. The Buddha saw. The Buddha saw. The Buddha had cruel thoughts. The Buddha had thoughts based on ill will. The Buddha had thoughts of attachment. The Buddha saw that. And the Buddha saw that, and [...] the Buddha saw that.

[76:44]

And the Buddha saw also thoughts that weren't of renunciation, saw thoughts of loving kindness, saw thoughts of harmlessness. He saw those. He saw them. [...] When he saw a whole bunch of both of those, his mind changed, and his mind dropped those unwholesome tendencies and just had the wholesome ones. But he had to do this dirty work We have to do this dirty work too. We aren't going to be able to like... We're not that much more enlightened than the Buddha that we can skip over the hard thing he had to do. I don't think so. I think we've got to face up to what we are. What are we thinking? This is hard work. That's why the attendance in the class is dropping so fast. People aren't here having a nice time. Watching TV, you know, whatever, eating whatever they want without thinking about it. Talking to people without considering their motivation. They're having an easy time. You people are working hard here. So that's why next week some more will be gone.

[77:46]

Yes? If we miss a class, would you like us to tell you, you know, why? Or if you miss a class... and you see an impulse to speak to me about it, examine the impulse and see, is there any attachments, any ill will, any cruelty in it? See if there's attachment. See if there's non-attachment, renunciation, loving-kindness and harmlessness. And if there is loving-kindness and harmlessness and renunciation, and if you think it would be good to tell me, then do the experiment and tell me. Okay? That's the criterion for you to determine what your karma will be. So if she asked me, should you tell me? It depends on your motivation. It depends on where it's coming from. You check it out. If it's coming from right effort, from right thought, from right thinking, from right intention, yes, please. Do the experiment. Try it. And ask me afterwards, well, I thought of it.

[78:52]

Here we have time for arousing five minutes of meditation.

[79:00]

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