Any questions about how to practice compassion? Are you practicing compassion now? How are you practicing it, Leon?

[01:05]

I mean, you're just seeing what is, what is in you. Now, are you practicing compassion, Fred? You're nodding your head, I think. I think quietly. technology. Yes. Yes, Rebecca.

[02:58]

I would like to say that I am practicing compassion. But what I'm aware of is that my heart is not, I feel overly enough that I can say that I'm practicing compassion. And I, you know, I'm practicing compassion. Did you say you are practicing something? What are you practicing? And you're not sure if you want to say that being aware of your heart is compassionate. I think it is on the... I think it is on the way.

[04:13]

But by not having a sense of... I'm aware of... I'm still aware of feeling a lot of separation. Uh-huh. And my sense of... of when I... Instances, you might say, I feel compassion, but I'm not as aware of the separateness of pain. Mm-hmm. Could you hear her okay? Only, um, I miss some words. I'm hearing it there. Uh, she said that she, she sometimes feels, um, less separation from, from people. But now she's feeling some separation from people. So I guess she's saying that you feel that the compassion is more fully developed when you feel less separation.

[05:14]

something else I've been saying recently is that I've been saying that the context for deep insight into reality is compassion, but also compassion is the fruit of deep insight. And the difference between compassion before deep insight and after is that the compassion before is compassion where we still are seeing dualistically. We still see other beings as separate. But you can feel compassion even while still feeling separate from other beings. It's not the fully developed compassion. Fully developed compassion, the full potential of compassion is to feel without there being anybody out there.

[06:23]

You can feel compassion for beings who are not other anymore. So, in a sense, this relates to this teaching of two truths, is that at the beginning of practicing compassion, we're practicing compassion from the point of view of conventional truth, where we still feel some separation or dualistic thinking. But the ultimate compassion is a compassion which goes with understanding the ultimate meaning that we're not separate. So I heard Becky say that

[07:40]

She's practicing something, but she hesitates to call it compassion because of this sense of separation. But the something she's practicing seems to be that, similar to what Leon and Fred were saying, you seem to be willing to feel what it's like to feel separation. So, feeling separation is more or less painful. It's always a little painful, at least. And it can be, of course, extremely painful. And part of compassion is to be present with what it feels like to think dualistically. To be present and feel what it's like to feel separate from our own feelings, our own thoughts, and feel separate from others and feel separate from nature in general.

[08:48]

So part of compassion is just to sit there and not run away from that. And this sitting there or sitting here in the middle of all this is a kindness. It's actually a kind thing that we allow for ourselves. We allow ourselves to sit quietly in the middle of our experience. It's compassion. It's kindness. It's loving kindness and it's compassion. It is also patience. It is also giving. And it should also be enthusiastic. It can lack enthusiasm, but then you're sort of half-heartedly here. But to, you know, really fully just sit here and be here in the middle of what's going on means that we do it wholeheartedly, energetically, with all our life.

[09:59]

And there's also concentration in this implied in sitting quietly in the middle of what we feel. There's concentration there. There's a focus there. Okay? So that's... And also compassion can, you know, you can... You can be compassionate. You can be sitting in the middle of what's happening and then you can lose your patience and jump off your seat. Run away from what's happening. Or you can lose your patience in the sense of there's you know being with some people you just don't want to face what it's like to be with them you just say I don't want to deal with this so in that sense at that time you take a little break from compassion unless you really feel like well I'm just taking I'm taking a rest

[11:15]

And it's okay to take rests. That's part of compassion too, is to take a rest sometimes and to not take on... I could say not take on practices, but also in some sense not take on certain situations which are too advanced, too difficult for you. But that can be done with a positive, enthusiastic attitude that you just feel, I think this is too much for me. And also at that time you might consult with the teacher and say, I think this is too much for me. What do you think? And the teacher might say, yeah, I think it's too much. It's okay. You can rest. You don't have to take that on right now. You don't have to go spend time in that situation or you don't have to go be with that person right now. It's too advanced for you. You won't be able to stay present, probably. So just work with what you've got now and then maybe later you can go into that situation and be present with that.

[12:26]

So in a sense, you face up to and don't shrink back from the decision not to take certain things on. Does that make sense? When you were first asking the question on how compassion, I was sitting there and I was thinking about your question and I realized that I was really feeling me. I was really the center of me and compassion for myself. And the first sense of compassion, the dualistic separation, that almost feels, that almost has a tinge of guilt because you are being self-centered. But when you take it to the next level of, of what? compassion and you realize that we're all one, the compassion that I feel for myself is compassion that I feel for you. And you have a different energy.

[13:34]

Yeah. Part of the... When we're living in the world of the conventional truth and feeling separate, part of the pain... of that is it sometimes is even painful to take care of ourselves because we feel like taking care of ourselves is not taking care of someone else. That's the kind, that's the way you feel under the auspices of conventional truth. So, if you don't take care of yourself, you've got problems, and if you do take care of yourself, you've got problems. Either way, you've got some problem there because you see yourself as separate from others. Also, if you help them, you got a problem. Or if you don't help them, you got a problem. Because if you help them, you're not helping yourself because you feel separate. If you don't help them, you got a problem because you feel separate. So, that's the... But, when you understand the ultimate truth, helping yourself and helping others

[14:42]

is the same thing. So there are these two truths and lots of different ways to talk about them, but... So one is called conventional truth. But it's also called sometimes... concealer truth. Concealer truth. Conventional truth is sometimes called concealer truth. Or you could say concealing truth.

[15:51]

So, it... this way of talking about it is a concealer truth or a conventional truth is a truth that conceals the ultimate truth. And it's called a truth because somebody thinks it's true. And the one who thinks it's true is a person who has dualistic awareness. So when one has dualistic awareness what one sees are things which one thinks are true.

[17:11]

and the things you think are true conceal what is ultimately true, what is supremely true. And ultimate truths are, an ultimate truth is what is seen by a mind that doesn't operate dualistically. Yes?

[19:20]

Right, maybe that helps. Anyway, it's the truth for some beings. It's the truth for beings that are still operating. It's the truth for a dualistic consciousness. So it is a truth for them. Yes? I have some sense that dualistic experience is very much tied into some as long as one has, as long as one is trying or experiencing that temporal context, that, that the dualistic thinking sort of naturally arises from that. Um, yes. It's usually the other way around, though. The dualistic thinking, uh, is the, is the source of, of thinking in terms of time.

[20:39]

So the, um, I think first the mind comes up with dualities and then time is one of the fruits of dualistic thinking. It might be possible to have dualistic thinking but not yet come up with time. And that's another way, that's another kind of meditation is to notice when your mind is involved in time. And notice how when the mind is involved in time, that's the same as the mind involved in self and other. You might just notice that. But maybe before you even notice that, you might just do a meditative experiment

[21:46]

Whenever you get in terms of time, just insert being for time. Whenever you notice that the mind is involved in time, switch from time to being. to switch. So, like, if you feel like you're thinking of the past, instead of... I say you're thinking of past, but anyway, that there is a thought of the past, the past seems separate. Even thinking of the present, the present seems separate, sometimes, thinking of the present. Being present is not thinking of the present. Thinking of the present, the present is still me in the present. So if you're thinking of the present, you're thinking of the future, or you're thinking of the past, just switch from thinking of the present or thinking of the future to just being. In whatever category of time you're in, switch from thinking of that time to just being.

[22:54]

You can always make that turn. Try it right now, see if you can, see if you can get a feeling for that. If you have any sense of time. Yes? Do you mean like, your mind is thinking about something, like lunch today, or something that's happening, is it going to happen later? And then switch to feeling the floorboard. You mean that's it? No, a little quicker than that. Switch to is also kind of like into time. You know, like thinking of lunch and then switch to feeling the floor. That's a little bit like time too. It's more like you're thinking of lunch, you have this thought of lunch,

[24:00]

and you think it's in the future, out there. So like, just switch to being with the thought of lunch. Then thinking of the thought of lunch, which you have some ideas in the future, or thinking of breakfast, which you maybe think is in the past, That they're the same because in both cases you're in a mode of being with both of them No, it's like you already named it and you switch to being after you named it you already named it future and Put it outside. You already named it past or you already named it present You're caught in time, which means you're caught in dualistic thinking. So don't name it, don't do anything.

[25:02]

This is like, I'm saying this word, but this is just like a little, I'm just poking you to sort of like jump from self-other to being. You've already got the names, self-other or past-future, and now you've got a past out there. So just... So then noticing that you're thinking about another one? You mean, like, instead of thinking about lunch... I mean, not lunch. Sorry, I even brought it up there. Thinking about lunch, and then make the leaping, noticing thinking about lunch. That's the first step. Just like the first step is to hear the creek.

[26:05]

Hear the sound of the creek. Okay? Then you're going to train yourself now at in the sound of the creek there will be just the sound of the creek. Most people when they first hear the sound of the creek, they feel like I'm here and the creek's over there, or I'm listening to the sound of the creek. Okay? That's not in the sound, there's just the sound. Or in the heard, there's just the heard. Similarly, when you think of a later time or an event in a later time, when you first think of it, it's out there. It's separate, probably. Okay? All right?

[27:06]

So the parallel would be, in order to train yourself at the herd just being the herd, first of all, you have to hear it. Then you have to see if in the herd there is just the herd, or if in the herd there is the herd plus you. And there very likely will be. That you feel like I'm here listening to the creek over there. You have a sense of here and there. Or me and it. Okay? So you have not yet arrived at in the herd, there's just the herd. There's the herd plus you. Similarly with the future. some event in the future, there's the event and you. Self and other. Self now and then. So, first of all, you have to be aware that you're thinking that way. That's the first step. So be aware, I'm thinking of this afternoon. My mind is thinking of this afternoon. And maybe also be aware, I feel like there's a now and a then.

[28:10]

Or a me and a that. That's the first step. And that's compassion. That's an aspect of compassion, is you're aware of where you are, of what's going on with your mind, and what that's like. And there's a little bit of anxiety about me and my future. If you think of yourself and your future, you're at least a little bit anxious. And of course, sometimes when we think of ourself and our future, we're extremely anxious. Right? But always a little bit when there's me and my future. Even if it's a nice image of my future, I'm a little anxious. That's the first step, is to be aware. That's compassion. I take my seat in the middle of a body-mind that's thinking of some other time. And I feel what that's like. So to say you switch from thinking in terms of that time to just being is similar to this training of in the cognized there's just the cognized.

[29:24]

So you have this cognition or this idea or this imagination of a future that feels a certain way that's a certain kind of a problem for you and you just be there with it until there's just that cognition of the future. They're just being there with it. There's just the heard and just the tasted. And a leap can be made with volition? Pardon? And a leap can be made with volition? No, I don't think so. I don't think it can be made with volition. Or maybe it could be made with volition, but then the next volition might be to leap out of that. So your volition This is more like, you know, I'm saying these words and me talking and you being there, this practice might arise. But it's not by your own power or your own volition.

[30:29]

Now, you might be willing to do the practice. You might say, I'm willing to do that practice. I'm willing to train myself at having the herd just be the herd but then you might not do it. Or you might even say, I'm definitely going to do that practice, and you might not do it. But you might not think in terms of, I'm going to do that or not going to do it, and you might do it. So I don't think volition is necessarily part of the transition from a life where there is me in the heard, me in the seen, me in the tasted, me in the cognized, to the world where there's just in the seen, the seen, in the heard, the heard, and so on. That transition is not made by willpower. It's made by... The way it's made is by the way things actually are.

[31:38]

it's made by means of the truth. The truth is what helps us move, the ultimate truth is what helps us move from the relative truth of where we're separate and where we do things by ourselves, separate from others, and where we engineer our life, and where we, you know, power our way through circumstances, to a world where we're working together with all beings. So, the Buddha's teaching appears in your life, sometimes in the form of sounds, English words. You hear them, and when you hear them you're transformed. Your life is different. And sometimes the way it's different is a practice starts arising in your life called training yourself thus.

[32:43]

Now you, again, there might be an element of volition there, like you might say, I'd like to do this practice, but you're not in control of the arising of that volition. because some people hear that teaching and they don't think I'd like to do that but it's not because they're not they don't have themselves under control that they can decide what they want to do and somebody else you know isn't under control so they can't decide what they want to do we cannot decide what we want to do you can't decide who you like you can't decide that you want to do something I don't think... There's many factors that decide what we want to do and what we don't want to do. But, even though there are many factors and we have many desires arising in us, moment by moment, still, sometimes we hear the Dharma and there's a change.

[34:05]

So we hear the Dharma In the herd, there will be just the herd. And somehow, and then maybe it goes on a little bit. And he says, when for you, in the herd, there's just the herd, then you will not identify with it. When you don't identify with it, you won't locate yourself in it. When you don't locate yourself in it, there will be no here and there or in between. So how does it happen that some of us hear the instruction, train yourself thus, and the training starts happening? How does that happen? very complicated how it happens. How does it happen that some of us hear that instruction and the training doesn't start happening?

[35:06]

It isn't just that the person who hears it says, I'd like to do that practice. Or that the person says, I don't want to do that practice. Some people might say, I don't want to do that practice, and the next minute it's happening. And suddenly there they are, just boom. In the herd, there's just a herd. Somebody else may say, that sounds like a great practice, but somehow it doesn't seem to be happening right away. When there's no here or there or in between, that's the end of suffering. When there's a here and a there and in between, that's suffering. And what I mean by when there is a here... a there and in between. That means when for me or when for you there's a here and a there and in between. Because really there is no here and there and in between.

[36:09]

There's only a here and there and in between for a person who has dualistic consciousness. In other words, a deluded person. Okay? How are you doing, Liz? Good. Yeah. When we think that something's out there, we cannot help but grasp it. So, the training, training yourself thus, is to train yourself at non-grasping. To train yourself at non-grasping. So, like you hear a sound, or you see a sight, and so on, and you try to train yourself at not grasping it. Not grasping it also is like, just use your imagination to take the grasping away from what you're seeing or hearing.

[37:16]

But, the context of accomplishing that is the practice of compassion. which is that you've already admitted that you're living in a world where you are grasping things and you're suffering because you are grasping things. So you've already taken your seat in the world of grasping and in that world of grasping now you train yourself in non-grasping. Which isn't really that you try to stop yourself from grasping, you just you know, you take this particular instruction, and there's other ones, of trying to let what you see just be what is seen. Try to learn how to appreciate that reality. Or like I was saying, when you've got, this is like another category of objects is time. So you see a time, there's a time, an object, like a future, and you just go be there.

[38:25]

So you're mostly like, okay, here I am, I'm mostly being in this future, in this thought of the future. So whether it's past, present, or future, you practice the same way. You've got this little mind that's cranking out these temporal objects, but you respond to them by being, being, being, being. That's another way to train yourself thus. So, future, thus. Present, thus. Past, thus. Thus, thus, thus, thus. But not abstract thus, but thus in the midst of practicing compassion where you're already there feeling what it's like to be in the temporal rat race. be in the anxious world of time.

[39:29]

Yes. What if it's the opposite? Uh-huh. My thoughts were on being in the face of anger and frustration and hostility and being grasped by it, and yet saying to myself, having compassion was not to get angry with myself, allowing myself to fall into the it of anger, frustration, and hostility.

[40:44]

Yeah. Are you saying that you're feeling, sometimes you feel anger and hostility arises in your life? And you don't want to get yourself, you don't want to be angry at yourself for feeling those things. Yes. Yes. And the anger doesn't always arise just for me. Meaning that when it comes for me, I seem to sometimes be able to sit with it. But in these cases, it's outside of being with other people that I care for. And to be able to sit there. and not be put in and pulled into that anger and be able to sit there and feel compassion for both of us at once. Well, what occurred to me is that you might be able to sit there even if you're being pulled into, as you say,

[41:54]

You said to sit there without being pulled into? Well, that's fine, but what if you are being pulled into? Right, but I'm saying in what's not fine is where you're not sitting. Then you're saying, I can't sit here. And maybe you can't, but maybe you should, again, it would be too good to maybe check with your teacher to see if your teacher agrees that you can't also, that it's too advanced for you to try to sit... But you're saying not okay is not compassionate. That's where I tend to go, is that I'm not showing. Because I meet that other person there, I become irritated with myself for feeling that I'm not strong enough to stay seated where I am. Okay, so here's the situation. There's a feeling I'm not strong enough to sit where I'm at.

[43:04]

Okay? So can you sit there in the feeling that you can't sit? Okay, well that's... And I would say, compassion is to say yes. Say yes, when I feel like I can't be here, I can be here. Whatever it is... In fact, I can sit here. I can not run away from the situation which says, I can't stay here. I can't stand that. I can't stand this. You can be present while you say, I cannot stand this. But I'm here while I'm saying that. I'm sitting quietly in the middle of saying, I can't stand this. Well, you said it.

[44:12]

You said, before I know it, I get into X. Before I know it, I get into the anger. So compassion is not before you know it. Compassion is you do know it. You know how you feel. You don't practice compassion, you know, theoretically. That doesn't count. You have to practice it with what you're knowing. And what you're knowing is the concealer truth, the conventional truth. You're knowing. What you know is you know a world where they're out there. They're separate from you. That's what you know. So in order to practice compassion, you have to practice compassion with what you know. And what you know in this case is painful, maybe very, very painful. So compassion is not to run away from the pain which arises with what you know. And the conventional truth that we know, or what we know as truth conventionally, is painful.

[45:19]

Compassion is to take your seat in this painful world of self-other separation, which goes from very painful to a little bit painful. Sometimes it pains so little we don't even notice it, so then we can't practice compassion either because we're like, it's small enough so we can deny it. So then, we've got our dualistic thinking. We know conventional truth, that we're separate. We're anxious and we're in denial about our anxiety. So, you know, that we think dualistically. We're also in denial that, or not noticing anyway, that we feel separate from each other. Noticing that you feel separate from each other promotes being aware of the pain of that. Noticing the pain of being separate promotes the awareness of the sense of separation.

[46:27]

So that's why compassion, you feel the pain, you start to realize what you're really painful about, what you're feeling pain about is what you think is going on. It's your truth that's bothering you. So being aware of that pain and being able to sit there is the context for seeing what it is that's bothering you. What's bothering you is what you think the truth is. You're not bothered by what you don't think is happening. But what you think is happening is that person is not you. And that's painful. And compassion is to sit there in that pain. That's patience and that's very kind of you to let yourself sit there in this world where you feel separate. It's very painful to sit in the world where things are out there on their own, separate from you.

[47:31]

So, That's what this workshop is for, is first of all to encourage you to sit there with the encouragement being focused on the proposition that this is necessary in order for you to understand your present truth and open up to a truth that will set you free from suffering. Ultimate truth liberates you from suffering. Conventional truth basically is suffering. Who am I referring to? I guess I'm referring to somebody who practices, in this case, somebody who has practiced compassion quite a bit. A teacher of compassion.

[48:34]

Not just a stimulus who gives you an opportunity for compassion. Like some people say, so-and-so is my teacher, right? Like my wife said that her daughter is her greatest teacher because her daughter stimulates her in such a way that she's challenged to stay present in her body. So, you know, or some people say cancer is my teacher. And I would say more like cancer is an opportunity to practice patience. But what I mean by your teacher is somebody who can help you practice patience with your cancer, who can tell you how good it is for you to stay present with your disease. Somebody who has confidence in compassion. Somebody who has confidence in the practice of compassion, in the practice of patience.

[49:36]

And somebody who could tell you, you know, if something's too much for you. If you thought, well, this seems to be too advanced, somebody could say, yeah, that's too advanced. Take a step back, do this other practice. You're skipping over something you should be doing first. So I mean like a regular meditation instructor is what I mean. when I was sitting in the second half, I became aware of fear and I wanted to read the Zendo. And this was a recurring thing that I would feel fear and I wanted to read the Zendo until the last bell rang. I'm also aware that everything is changing inside and outside myself and that I welcome certain things and try to push away certain things and that this is causing me a great deal of sorrow.

[50:40]

What if we sense, if we think that time has passed, or what if we feel that those things have time left in the past? Suppose, like, whatever took place down there about lunch. If I do not think about lunch, I do not think about lunch. So, Everything seems like a rule to time reference the past or future to think about new past and all right or wrong, whatever the present is. It seems like you don't quite reduce anywhere time limit. I mean, it seems like Well, without time and space, we do not exist.

[52:16]

But existence is suffering. Non-existence is not an issue. And to not slip into non-existence or existence is liberation from suffering. To not slip into existence or non-existence is liberation. That's next week's class. The middle way. The middle way is not to slip into existence or non-existence. Existence is time. Okay? Existence is time. That's why I say, when you get caught up in time, switch to being. Being doesn't have to be existence. Pardon?

[53:19]

Yeah, well, I think maybe being a little lost would be good. I mean, you know, when you know where you are, if it's past, present, and future, you know you're suffering. So, first of all, you suffer. But then, just be with the suffering. Rather than trying to, like, you know, manipulate past and future... and present, even if that's still going on, that manipulation, try to just be there. In other words, let whatever you're working with just be that. And you might say, well, I feel lost when I do that. Well, then just let that being lost be being lost. So you have a cognition.

[54:21]

You let the cognition be just a cognition. You might say, then you might have another cognition called, I'm lost. See, usually there's a cognition and I'm over here and I have the cognition, but I'm not lost. I'm just miserable. But at least it's familiar to me. If I switch to training myself this way, I may have new cognitions called, this is unfamiliar to me and I don't know what to do about it. Pardon? There's nothing I can control. Yeah, you give up your control, right. Usually you can control things and therefore you can be miserable. Because you're always trying to control. A little bit more past, please. A little bit more present. No, no, past, get away future. You know, this is your control thing. This is called suffering. This is called existence. If you just start letting things be what they are and train yourself that way, You have no... You're not controlling things anymore.

[55:26]

Compassion is not a control thing. You don't try to control, you just feel it. You don't try to control, you just don't run away. Accepting, opening, yes. Loving... So it's switching from power to love, switching from control to patience and compassion. This sets the stage for a new vision. But if you're still involved in these power control things, it's going to be hard for you to switch to the world where you don't have power, where you're in the realm of not being the powerful one relative to the other, or the helpless one relative to the other, whatever, you switch to a world where you're working together with all beings, where there's nobody out there.

[56:29]

But you have to stop some of your old habits in order to make the transition. It's kind of like, you know, we're going to the realm of Buddha now, I still have some more work to do before I go. You guys go ahead. I've got to finish my income tax. Renee, did you... It seems that in this so-called switch of the being and sitting in the dust, that it's not just... morality and compassion and love, in a sense, can't be experienced in a way that the extremists or talk about them in a dualistic sense, where it's not something to be prevented.

[57:42]

There's in fact no momentum. So that even our language drops away. Language and thoughts are ways of creating separateness. It all becomes a kind of abstraction. I'm not even sure if that's a question. I don't know what would be... Well, I agreed with you until you said it all becomes an abstraction. I think that these abstractions, the culmination of these abstractions is something that I don't think is abstract. It's painful. Misery, we don't really say that misery is an abstraction. Misery is a real important issue for us. But it's abstractions that are at the core of misery, like abstractions of the other. It's an abstraction. It's just a concept. So, it's the abstractions that build up the things which you say drop away when you're just being, or just thus.

[58:47]

The abstractions drop away. But these self-other things, they're abstractions, but the results of them, the pain of them, is not an abstraction. No, the conventional ways of them are very real. They're real. They get it. They're truths. They're truths for us when we're functioning dualistically. They're truths. They are our truths. They're what we see. And pain lives all around them. So we need to be compassionate with the world that's created by this dualistic thinking.

[59:49]

We need to sit down in the middle of it. And when we sit down in the middle of it, the willingness to give up dualistic thinking, which is the same as the willingness to let go of our attachments, arises in us. And the more the willingness, the more we're willing to let go, the more we are ready for the letting go to happen. We can't do the letting go, but we can be ready for it. Because in fact, Letting go is ultimate truth. Because in ultimate truth there is no clinging. Because there's nothing out there to cling to. So letting go and non-duality are already established very nicely.

[60:59]

And they keep being established every moment. we have to be willing to live in that world that's right under our nose. But we can't, like, run away from the world that we're now living in. We have to accept the world we're now living in in order to realize that the ultimate world's right there, too. There's only one world and we're in it. We just are perceiving it incorrectly. So if we run away from our perceptions, we run away from the world. But if we don't run away from our perceptions, we have a chance to understand our perceptions and let go of them.

[62:02]

But the world we usually live in is a world where we act upon our perceptions. We see that as our main occupation, is to act upon our perceptions rather than to turn the light around and look at what they are. Well, it's the part of compassion which is to contemplate. So compassion includes contemplation. So we take our seat. That's very much like patience. We're enthusiastically present.

[63:14]

We're careful of each thing we do, which is also to help us be aware of our actions, which are based on our perceptions. And then we try to actually look and see what kind of perceptions we have. What are our attitudes? What do we think is true? And how is that? being patient with our pain means to some extent we have to be contemplating our pain contemplating our pain and being patient with it staying present with it we can also see what kinds of thoughts go with our pain so we start to be observing our thoughts what kind of truths go with this pain so we start to see what kind of truths we have All that's part of compassion. Ignorance is that we ignore what's actually going on.

[64:22]

Wisdom is non-ignorance. Wisdom is when we stop ignoring what's going on. By practicing compassion, we dare to stop ignoring what's going on. By practicing compassion, we dare to stop ignoring what's really happening. For example, we dare to face that we're powerless. That we, as an isolated individual, has no power. We can face that if we have enough compassion. And facing that, then we can face another thing, which is really quite nice, and that is although I have no power, everybody in the universe is helping me in my powerless life.

[65:31]

Everybody's helping me. So although I have no power, I have infinite support. So who cares if I have no power if I've got that much support? It's like a poor person who has infinite number of billionaire friends who are devoted to taking care of him. But the only reason why they're billionaires is because everybody's supporting them. So how come we have trouble facing this incredibly wonderful true world? Because we have preferences.

[66:35]

Because we have preferences, yeah. But that's slightly derivative, your answer. Well, what I was wanting to ask, and I remember that, is because when you say everyone supports it, I mean, the first thing I always think is, oh, that means I can just see it. And I don't think that's what you mean, because it's someone's issue. They're supporting it, too, right? Right. And I can never quite get that. Come on. Well, when you're... And that's why I said it's derivative. Because when you're... The real reason why we have trouble switching is because... Not the real reason, but the basic reason is because of this ignorance.

[67:40]

You ignore your relationship with somebody, and then they hit you, and you interpret what they're doing to you, from the point of view of ignorance. So you can't see how they're helping you because you're looking at them from the point of view of how they're separate from you. You see that they're separate because you're ignorant of what's going on, you can't see how they're helping you. So sometimes you think they're helping you, sometimes they're not, but both cases, when you're making this judgment, you're making it from the point of view of ignorance. Yeah. So you're already off, and then within the context of being off, you're judging who's helpful and who's not. But your judgment of who's helpful is from the point of view of ignorance that you're saying that they're helpful. You don't see how they're actually helpful. It's just that this person, given your ignorant point of view, you call, say, is helpful, and that person you say is not helpful, and that person you say is neither.

[68:49]

But you're looking from this point of not seeing your true relationships. So then from that point of view of ignorance, you have preferences and so on. From the point of view of wisdom, of not ignoring our relationships, you see how everyone's helping you. You don't see anybody other than you who's hitting you anymore. There's nobody other than you. That's how everybody's supporting you. They're supporting you because you actually are nothing but them. There's not a Liz plus the person who's hitting there. It kind of feels different too. It feels different too. I mean, it isn't just... You're not just having pain by yourself, it's sort of, you're seeing their pain that they're getting you out of, too, I mean. You know, I don't have a choice.

[69:51]

I understand theoretically what you're saying, but to try to really, you know. To try to really be aware. Well, in order, you know, I understand logically what you're saying, but I'm not even mad about it. How does that help me? How does that help anybody? I mean, I see that we're not the... Can I? You do? No. You heard about it. And I see that there's not as much of a... I mean, there's a little bit of the oceanic... So when they're hitting me, it isn't just a personal thing, okay? It isn't just me getting hit. There is another connection point, right?

[70:56]

In the world of ultimate truth, okay, there isn't any other truth. There's no other. There's no self and other anymore. This duality collapses. It vanishes. And it's in that realm that somehow you can say, conventionally speaking, because as soon as you start talking you have to come back in the world where there's words, you can say, everyone supports me. because you actually see that life is nothing other than all beings you understand you know there's life here but there's no other and there's no self

[72:00]

That's the ultimate truth, is that there's nothing out there anymore. Now when you understand that, then if you were now seeing, you know, if you're back in the world where there seems to be things, you would understand that all these things were nothing but your life. Well, no, they're not just happening because when they happen, then there's your life. There's phenomena, but there's your life. You're alive because of all the things you depend on.

[73:07]

And you're nothing but all the things you depend on. But we think we're something in addition to all the things that we depend on. We do. There's nothing but relationship and relationship has made possible consciousness which imputes ideas in the midst of all the relationships, so we have things happening. But none of these things happen all by themselves. They all happen through interdependence, which we don't see. we see a world where there isn't interdependence, or we have this kind of like, just idea of it. So, that's the conventional world which we see.

[74:11]

And in that world, we think some things help us and some things don't. And if we're being helped, we're anxious. If we think we're being helped, we're anxious. because we think it's other than us and we know it could stop at any time. If we feel harmed, we feel anxious because we know it might go on and we might be hurt. So in the world of self and other, we're always anxious and we don't feel interdependent. We don't understand that. So to say that everything supports us is an ultimate truth, not a conventional truth. Conventional truth, we don't feel everything supports us. Matter of fact, we think we have a life of separation from some things. And some things we think we can see help us, others we don't, but basically we feel separate from everything.

[75:16]

That's the conventional truth. That's the concealer truth. That's the truth that hides the world where everything gives you life. So to think that there's me in the world and I interact with the world and I harmonize with the world, and I fight the world, or I practice Buddhism, that world is the world of delusion. It's the world of anxiety. Sometimes I think things are going pretty well, but I'm still anxious. They're going pretty well in this basically unworkable situation. Or they're going really badly. Really badly. But this whole world of where things go relatively well or not has an ongoing anxiety, an ongoing problem, has an ongoing ignorance.

[76:29]

It's built of ignorance. And it's everything that we're dualistically aware of. Everything that we're dualistically aware of is this conventional truth. everything that we're dualistically aware of, we think really is out there. And we're uncomfortable with that, more or less. So we have to be, take good care of ourselves under these circumstances in order to take our seat in these circumstances And then start to practice. This morning's example was let those things out there which you think are separate from yourself just be those things. Train yourself so that they're finally not even you and them.

[77:37]

Get ready for the world of not you and them. Settle into the world where there is you in them, which is painful. Be patient with the world of duality, which is painful. Take care of yourself in this sick situation, this diseased world of delusion. Take care of yourself there and get ready for the world of enlightenment, the world where things aren't out there anymore. And when things aren't out there anymore... Then when they happen, that's your life. It's not like this happens out there. It's like this is my life. When I was a kid, there was a TV show called This Is Your Life. Bring these people on the show and then they would tell the person their life.

[78:43]

That's it. This is your life, Diana Jarrett. She'd come on the show. They'd say, this is your life. And they'd show her her life. And then these people who she hasn't seen, you know, for 20, 40 years would come on the show. Each person that'd come, the person would feel it. This is my life, you know. Here's your high school basketball court. This is my life. But usually I got my life and then I got to deal with the world. I'm alive, I got my life, here I am, and I got to cope, basically, rather than... There isn't somebody here and somebody out there. So when something happens, it's not out there, this is me. Everything that happens is me.

[79:46]

In that way, everything supports you. It's like you're not there and then something happens. You've got a life. Because nothing is out there. Everything is you. This is a kind of a miracle when this happens, of course. It's not something that you make happen. It's already the way things are. But you have to give up the way you see things now. You kind of have to give up your present truth. You have to give it up. But not trash it. Just give it up. And how do you give it up? First of all, by practicing compassion with yourself in the middle of it. That's part of giving it up. Rather than acting from it, you know, based on my delusion, I'm going to do these things today and hopefully I'll be successful.

[80:54]

It's like, based on this delusion that I have, which I call truth, I'm uncomfortable and I'm going to, instead of like acting on this, I'm going to practice patience with it and compassion with myself in the middle of it. I still may, by force of habit, continue to do things in response to my conventional truth. But I'm going to try more and more to just be present with the consequences of my ignorance and be more and more ready to forget it, to forget my ignorance. But one of the things you've heard me talk about before is that the way to forget the ignorance is by fully expressing it, not by kind of like trying to deflate it.

[82:06]

That's like trashing it. You have to fully express your ignorance in order to get to the place where you forget it. That's part of what seems to be necessary. So for example, there's a sound of the creek and then there's an idea that I'm separate from it, that I got this separate life from the sound of the creek. That's ignorance. So I want to fully express that ignorance, fully express how I feel separate from that water, that sound. Whatever ways I can fully express that ignorance brings me closer to letting go of it. It's not to act upon the ignorance, it's to fully express the ignorance. So it's not that I hear the sound of the bell and then salivate or go get my lunch. It's that I hear the sound of the bell and I realize, oh, I feel separate from that sound.

[83:14]

and maybe say it to myself or say it to my friend, you know, I feel separate from that sound. And you know what? I feel separate from you too. And I'm nervous about that. Rather than just vaguely feel the nervousness we feel with each other, you might say so. This is a more full expression. And if you can fully express how nervous you feel being separate from people, you can forget that you feel separate Do you mean by fully express ignorance to invite the uncomfortable emotions to be with them? I wouldn't invite them. I don't think compassion is to invite suffering. I think compassion is just to sit in the middle of it. So part of fully expressing ignorance is to feel what it's like to be ignorant.

[84:23]

Inviting more pain could be a technique of distraction. Like some people who mutilate themselves, right? They cut themselves and stuff because they have an emotional pain that's almost unbearable. So they have maybe some superficial physical pain to distract themselves. That's kind of like inviting pain. We have, I think, you know, although some people may not think so, I think generally speaking we have enough suffering. And if you don't think so, just, you know, I would just say try accepting what you've already got for now and don't worry that maybe you don't have enough. Because if you accept the pain you have now, your reward will be is that you'll get more. So pretty soon you'll have enough pain. If you don't think you have enough now.

[85:27]

People will bring you, if you get good at opening up and feeling the pain you have already, without inviting, more pain will come to you. I'm not sure I really understand. Say if I experience fear. Yes. And it has a physical, fear has a physical component. Yes. then the feeling is to get up and run. Yes. And the other thing is to sit there, but then what I thought you were saying is to think about what that fear is. I'm not sure whether you were saying that, to meditate upon it. So meditating, compassion is a kind of meditation. So compassion is to like... you know, part of compassion. Compassion is not just patience, but part of compassion is patience.

[86:31]

So if you have fear, somehow you try to be patient in the middle of the fear. Now, when you start practicing patience with fear, you start feeling the physical experience of the fear. As you do that more and more, the fear starts to lose its power because fear usually depends on thinking about time. What's going to happen next? Either what's going to happen next or how am I going to get out of here? Those two. What's going to come to me or how can I get out of here? This is like fear. And that kind of thinking has a physical consequence. Practicing patience with that is a kind of contemplation. But what I was saying was that if you can settle with whatever kind of pain you have, you will see in the middle of that pain the reasons for the pain, the origins of the pain. And then if you can be present with the origins of the pain, you will see the end of the pain.

[87:35]

Because the end of the pain is in the center of the origins of the pain. But you can't see the origins of the pain without facing the pain. you can hear about the origins of the pain. That's theoretical. But when you actually are intimate with the pain, you become intimate with its origins. And when you're intimate with its origins, then you're intimate with its end, or liberation from it. But you don't necessarily try, you don't seek to get the origin. If you're trying to seek to get the origin of your pain... you're not really getting intimate with your pain. Just like if you're trying to be intimate with a person, you're not trying to be intimate with them to get something. So, first of all, intimate with your pain, you become intimate with your conventional truth.

[88:39]

Becoming intimate with your conventional truth, you become liberated from conventional truth, which is opening to ultimate truth. But we can't become liberated from conventional truth until we're settled in conventional truth. Or put it the other way, we can't receive ultimate truth unless we're willing to face conventional truth. So if you're willing to face the pain of conventional truth, and you actually do face it fully, that's your price of admission to ultimate truth. And you build the strength to be able to take care of yourself in ultimate truth. So like Esme was saying, as she contemplates training herself to be intimate with conventional truth, she can tell beforehand, or maybe from past experience, that in the process of becoming intimate with conventional truth, you open to a world where the usual signposts are not there.

[89:44]

So then you become afraid of what will happen to you. And a lot of people think that either they'll fall into a great void. If they would stop grasping, that they would fall into a void. But if you can face the consequences the way it is, the way ultimate truth, how painful ultimate truth is, you become more confident that you don't have to worry too much about what's going to happen to you if you would let go of your attachments. Right. But just to jump into ultimate truth, to think about jumping into ultimate truth or even to jump into it, it isn't really ultimate truth. It's a kind of being spaced out or dreaming of ultimate truth.

[90:47]

Like pretending like everybody's you. Pretending like people aren't out there before you settle with what it's like to think that they are out there. So only when you're settled in the conventional truth are you ready to receive the ultimate truth. Only when we're settled with the world where we feel separate and are we patiently settled there and intimate with that, then we're ready to be intimate with the ultimate truth. Being settled with the conventional truth means settled with our suffering and our delusion. Which, you know, what's the good of that? I've got enough problems with my suffering and delusion. I don't need to get closer to it. I mean, even living at somewhat of a distance from my misery, I'm miserable enough.

[91:51]

You're asking me to get more intimate with my problems? More intimate with my delusion? Yes. Well, what's the point? Well, you can become free of it then. And it isn't just that you become free of it, like it drops away. It's also, it isn't just that it drops away and you've got nothing. It's just that what you get, which is kind of like nothing, is very meaningful. The ultimate truth isn't just relief from delusion. It's also a meaningful release. interdependence is very meaningful. The fact that everybody's supporting us and that we're all working together is very meaningful. So it isn't just that you get escaped from the world where everybody's hassling you all the time and where you're hassling everybody all the time, relatively, more or less.

[92:51]

It's that you enter into a world where you're not hassling anybody anymore, where you're in perfect harmony with everybody and where everybody is your life. But to enter that world, you need to have

[93:05]

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