Yeah, right, right. The conversation could be the thing you're indulging in. And then you ignore some simple information about your life. And just taking care of that simple information would actually be the middle way. And giving up this big important conversation and just being a normal animal. And maybe getting in trouble for it. You're bringing up going to the toilet when I'm talking to you about this. Someone might have a problem with it. It's possible. But the point is, we don't know what they're going to do. We've got attachments here, and we're suffering because of our attachments. And that's what you can notice. And noticing that is the middle way. And you're not distracting yourself from it. It has to do with these little things. So you can notice it without speaking it, right? Yeah, if you notice it for yourself, that's the main thing.

[01:03]

That you've registered it, and then you're more present because you've identified what it is that's bothering you, or not bothering you, but that's stimulating you. You're facing it, you're settled with it, and you keep feeling it when the pulses come to you, and you're there. Then you can continue the conversation, but you know you know what's going on and you can tell. And at a certain point you realize, even though I've noticed this, I'm not able to, I can no longer pay attention to the conversation. And then you think, no. In some cases, it's helpful to the other person to be there pretending like you can pay attention. Actually, it sometimes is helpful. They sometimes need that. So you might stay even though you can't hear a word they're saying anymore because your inner state's so strong. But you still might stay. And it's not a distraction because you're feeling the pain very strongly.

[02:06]

You can barely hold it. But you feel, you know, it's still helpful maybe because maybe they're going through something and they need you to hold their hand for it. And it seems like sometimes it's just not appropriate. I mean, if you think about attachment life, At a party, if you're talking to someone, you think you're really, you know, you notice, oh, they're so cute. You don't want to say, oh, what shoulders you have. You know, but you notice it's in a way. Like you're wanting them to smile back at you. It's not appropriate to like just... It doesn't feel appropriate to have everything internal being mobilized. Right. It sometimes isn't. But one of the key reasons, one of the key ways to look is... what's the motivation for not saying it and what's the motivation for saying it? Are you holding it back to distract yourself from how you feel? And or are you saying it to distract yourself from how you feel? Like, I often have the experience, you know, that I'm with someone

[03:20]

And... And... Like in one particular case, I remember I was with this man, I was riding in a car with him, and I wanted to say something nice to him. He had just given my daughter a ride to the airport in Paris, and we were just driving along and neither one of us were saying anything. And I wanted to say something nice to him. I think I had already said thank you for giving the ride, but I just wanted to give him something. And so what I was giving him at that time was silence, which I didn't know if he appreciated it or not, but that's what I was giving him. But I felt like I wanted to give him something else. But I noticed that almost everything that came to my mind seemed to be really derivative and motivated from trying to basically get away from this uneasy feeling I was having.

[04:32]

And it just didn't really seem good to say any of the things I was going to say. They all seem to be like me trying to escape the way I felt. And not, wouldn't do him any good. It wouldn't hurt him either. But would basically distract me from how I felt. And probably distract him from the way he felt too. Because he was driving, who knows what he felt. Maybe he was feeling like I'd like to say something nice to him. You know? Or why isn't he saying anything nice to me? I don't know what he was going through. But there's certain kinds of things which would distract, I think, distract him. Most of the things I thought of saying, I felt like would distract him from any awareness he had of himself and would basically be running away from the way I felt.

[05:32]

So I, in fact, I did drive all, I drove quite a ways with him without saying anything of these derivative comments like, how long have you had your present job? You know? I really wasn't that interested in how long he had his present job. It's not that important to me how long he was in this job. I mainly was saying it to him just to sort of like talk and get away from this very strong feeling I had of wanting to give him something but not know what it was. That would have been really nice, I think. that would have been really nice. Or to say, you know, it was really kind of you to give my daughter a ride, even though I had already thanked him. There are certain intimate things I could have said to him. And after I got home, I thought of various intimate things to say to him, after I got back to his house.

[06:45]

But, you know, I thought of those intimate things because I didn't say the derivative. I still might have thought of those things if I hadn't said the derivative things. But anyway, I had a strong experience. He had a strong experience. And I felt, you know, I learned a lot from that ride. But it was difficult. And I had to... And it wasn't, it was a pleasant ride. He has a nice car and he drove nicely and we're driving through Paris, you know, and he was trying to give me a nice tour, a nice way back to the house. And it was all pleasant. The hard part was I wanted to do something for him. I wanted to, but I couldn't find anything real. And that was painful for me. So I just stayed with it and I still feel good about what I did. I was very poor in terms of doing something for him at that time. But later, later I got my chance. Isn't that part of the dilemma, though, that time feels collapsed around these things sometimes, like you feel like you have to respond before you're ready?

[07:59]

You feel like you have to respond before you're ready, yes. But also, he said, time's collapsed. And for me, time was collapsed because I really felt like talking about past and future were distractions. That's another way I felt time was collapsed. In that being with how I felt with him, there was no past and future. But I noticed that I wanted to go into the past. I could think of a lot of things in the past and the future to talk about. But in the present, they're just... Guess what? You and me are in this car together, Jean-Francois. And what is this? You know? So, feeling what's happening, then time does kind of collapse. There's still past and future, but you're not leaning into them. You're not using them as distractions from what it feels like to be here now. Yes? Is the pain and unease that you're seeing, are you... versions of the small PTs ends with Kennedy.

[09:05]

Is each of those really our small version of the larger P of being dualistically and not realizing non-separation? I guess so, yeah. Does it sound like that you're writing with Jean-Francois although we were together? there wasn't, in that moment, the intimacy of realizing the non-separation. Something like that. Would most of our suffering happen? Why not? Yeah. Most of our ongoing anxiety is coming from that place. A broken... The pain from a broken leg is not coming from that place. That's a good... I was going to say it's a good one.

[10:11]

The other one isn't bad, but just... The other one indicates a different kind of a problem. A broken leg indicates that a pain... The pain in a broken leg indicates that your leg's broken. Our anxiety, our basic anxiety, indicates that our mind is broken. Our mind's split into two. And we don't understand that. We take it as the way things really are, that we're separate from other beings. So there was a basic anxiety between me and Jean-Francois. But if I could address that in some way, that would have been fine. But I couldn't figure out a way to do it. And all the things I thought of saying were distractions from what was going on between us from my point of view. And I think to address what was actually going on, in terms of discomfort and so on, would have been fine. A little shocking, perhaps, to him. But he would have been fine.

[11:13]

Just after the shock, he would have been fine. I think. Maybe you wouldn't have. I don't know. You don't do it because the person's going to feel fine. You do it because you think it's helpful. It seems helpful and honest. And, yeah, you think it's helpful. So I hope this is practical. This is a practical mental way to see if you can identify in yourself, not in others, but in yourself, the way we tend to lean to these two sides and how they have to do with running away from our basic situation, our basic pain.

[12:14]

And this sets up the next part of the sutra, which is about the Four Noble Truths. This is the practical, middle way to approach realization of how suffering happens, how it comes to be. But you can hear about how suffering comes to be, but to actually witness it, you have to be sitting in the middle of it and sitting still and clear. And not just, you know, for this moment and this moment and this moment. So you can repeatedly zero in on how it arises. And right in the middle of how it arises is the end of it, but not the end of it in the sense that Wendy was worried about. It's not the end of it by trying to get rid of it. It's the end of it because its condition is not there.

[13:20]

And its condition is ignoring ignorance. When you see ignorance, you see it's the end of ignorance, and the end of ignorance is the end of suffering. So, you can have lunch soon. Thank you very much.

[13:49]

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