Today I thought we could talk a little more about this second meaning or second use of the word samadhi that I drew in this circle, second circle. So the center circle is, I thought maybe we could say samadhi The fact of samadhi, moment by moment, the fact that that's the way the mind is, is that it's samadhi. It has that quality. Cognitions have the quality of samadhi all the time. Unwholesome states of mind, wholesome states of mind, awakened states of mind, unawakened states of mind have this samadhi quality.

[01:08]

The second circle is sort of the situation where samadhi is the situation. So although in all states of mind the fact of samadhi is so, there is samadhi, it's not really what we ordinarily call the situation when we feel very distracted. When we feel very strongly that what we're aware of is separate from the awareness, when we feel very anxious and afraid, then the fact of samadhi is we don't believe it. It doesn't seem to mean anything much. But in the second circle, the situation, the state of affairs is samadhi.

[02:10]

And that's part of the meaning of the word state. A state is like the actual condition of the circumstances. So the samadhi is, we're absorbed, the mind is absorbed in samadhi, in the second kind of samadhi. It's not just a factor of every moment, we're absorbed in that factor. And so the second kind of samadhi, which you can also call dhyana, and jnana has the nature of samadhi. Its primary quality is samadhi. Jnana is often translated as absorption or trance. So it's like we're entranced with samadhi.

[03:15]

Now we can be entranced with other things, and if we're entranced with other things, we don't call the state samadhi. You can be, the mind can be absorbed in many things. But when it's absorbed on Samadhi, we call it Samadhi. Call the whole state of mind Samadhi. Perhaps then we can just look at this kind of samadhi today. and a lot of exercises in meditation are designed or intended to support and develop this kind of samadhi.

[05:06]

For example, the famous practice of following the breath, or counting the breath. Counting the breath itself is not, strictly speaking, samadhi, but in the process of counting the breath, people sometimes fall into being absorbed in one-pointedness. Even if they're not thinking of the word one-pointedness, they become absorbed in the one-pointedness of the consciousness and the object called the breath. But the mind being on the breath turning the mind towards the breath, in a sense, is antithetical to Samadhi, because it's as though the mind and the breath were separate.

[06:21]

So what Samadhi is, is actually that the mind and the breath are never separate. So how can we give ourselves to the realization of this already available one-pointedness of thought? And we've got to be careful not to do too much because if we do too much to avail ourselves or give ourselves to this one point of innocent thought, we get into acting out a sense of lack of confidence in it. the main message, or the main goal of what you're conveying, but is this something that in the next weeks we should be focusing on right now?

[08:14]

So are you asking me if I'm recommending that you should focus on focusing on your breath? That we take up the practice of focusing on the breath in order to develop it. Am I recommending that? No. I'm just telling you that the intention of offering that kind of meditation, the Buddha offering the meditation of counting the breaths and Buddha's disciples offering the meditation of counting on the breath, the intention I think that they have in offering that is to promote samadhi. I'm telling you that, but I'm not necessarily suggesting that you also adopt that type of Samadhi practice, that type of exercise in order to realize Samadhi, in order to become absorbed in Samadhi. I'm just telling you that it's a possible practice.

[09:17]

But I'm immediately cautioning you, because if you would like to follow your breathing or count your breath in order to encourage the realization of absorption in one-pointedness of thought, samadhi, be careful because you may start with an attitude which is actually undermining the fact of Samadhi in the first place by thinking that you or somebody or the mind is going to be directed or direct itself onto some object. Because that attitude is like saying, my mind isn't on the object so I'm going to direct my mind onto the object of my breath. And then if my mind is paying attention to some other object, I'm going to direct it away from that object over onto the breath. But directing the mind away from this object over onto the breath might miss the opportunity of realizing that there's samadhi already in the moment of consciousness where you're paying attention to something other than the breath.

[10:28]

Now if you want to follow your breath, If you're interested in your breath, I would say, fine. But if you're interested in following your breath and then you change your mind and follow your something else, then what I would recommend is that you avail yourself to appreciate that samadhi in both states of mind. In other words, that there's one-pointedness where you're looking at what you said you wanted to look at and while you're looking at something other than what you said you wanted to look at. But some people feel like, well, people aren't, you know, people are too deluded to practice like that, so just tell them to follow their breathing. and then gradually wean them of this idea that they're going to get samadhi by putting their breath onto some topic rather than other topics.

[11:34]

But in fact, one of the, as I said yesterday, one of the advantages of forcing you know, of the illusion of forcing your mind onto some object, as though you could do that, if that object is wholesome, one of the advantages of forcing your mind, of deludedly forcing your mind onto wholesome objects, is that by that coercive program of wholesomeness you gradually win yourself from coercing yourself into wholesomeness and just practice wholesomeness because you find it interesting or, you know, enjoyable. So you're actually just paying attention to it because you're interested rather than you're forcing yourself to be good. But still, forcing yourself to be good tends to promote you eventually being good without forcing yourself. So that's why it's called good. It's why it's called wholesome as opposed to unwholesome. But what I recommend, actually, more than following your breath is that, because breath is just one of the things

[12:41]

One of the techniques that people use to encourage people to realize finally that the self does not direct the mind all over the place, that the self is actually a mind product. One of the ways to wean ourselves from misconceptions of the self is to start by practicing Samadhi in a more spontaneous way. That's what I actually recommend, that's why I say more, just meet all objects the same way. So, meet your breath the same as not your breath. And if you meet your breath the same as not your breath, in fact, you're training yourself on to the way the mind treats everything the same. And then if you are paying attention to your breath, fine.

[13:54]

And you may find that sometimes you're paying a lot of attention to your breath. And if your mind moves to something else, you're treating that something else the same way you treat your breath. Namely, you're not grasping it. You're not seeking anything other than it. which means you're giving, put it in terms of, I don't know, in terms of giving something up, you're giving something up. In other words, usually the way we treat things is that we do grasp them and we do seek something other than them. And we do tense up around them. And so to treat everything the same would sometimes be what we would usually do, but a lot of times it would be giving up the way we usually relate to things.

[15:02]

And that would be unusual and some of our sense of self is tied up in the way we relate to things. or a great deal of what our self is, is the way we relate to things, so if we start relating to everything the same, then our sense of self will start to shift too. So that's part of what makes it hard to make a shift into this kind of Samadhi, because our identity is challenged, threatened, reoriented, disoriented, because we're not we're not relating to things in different ways anymore in accordance with the pattern of the way we usually relate to things in different ways. And we even think, you know, it's dangerous to do that. So that's why we have a meditation retreat where it might be okay to treat wholesome things, to respond to wholesome things and unwholesome things, to respond to kindness and cruelty

[16:16]

the same way, whereas out in the street you might feel like, I can't respond to kindness and cruelty the same way, that would be dangerous. Actually, it wouldn't, it would be Samadhi. I mean, it would introduce you into a Samadhi in that situation where things are kind one moment and cruel the next. And then the Samadhi would be, there would be absorption into Samadhi to deal with this changing world. But maybe in meditation hall, if there's some cruelty happening and some kindness happening, maybe you could just say, well, the Eno can treat those things differently. The person in charge of meditation hall, they can discriminate between cruelty and kindness, and I'll just treat them the same. I won't grasp kindness and I won't grasp cruelty.

[17:18]

I'll relax with both of them because it will be safe. I'll try that. And maybe that's not so scary. A little bit scary still, but maybe okay for just for part of a period sometime to like treat everything, everything the same. So, if enlightenment comes, kind of like, relax. Delusion comes, I mean, severe delusion comes, relax. If something really, really, really dangerous comes, relax. Yeah, try it. If something really, really safe comes, relax. Really? Not grab it and hold it forever? Safety? If peace comes, if war comes, whatever comes, welcome it.

[18:25]

And this is what I'd recommend as a way to enter Samadhi. In other words, this is also called think not thinking. So at this level, think not thinking is a practice of entering Samadhi. Think not thinking means just give up your thinking. And we use thinking to determine, this is bad, this is a bad situation, this is a dangerous situation, this is harmful, this is not good. We use thinking to figure that out. A lot of times anyway. Sometimes someone else figures out it's a bad situation and they tell us, and then we use thinking to verify whether they're kidding or not. And if we think that they're not kidding and it's true, they're a reliable source, then we think also, this is dangerous.

[19:28]

Okay, fine, so just let go of that thought that this is a dangerous situation. Let go of the thought that you are being insulted. Let go of the thought that you are being praised. Let go of the thought that your meditation is going really well. Let go of the thought that your meditation is going really badly. Let go of the thought that this is a breath. And letting go of the thought that this is a breath, you enter the Samadhi, which is being absorbed in the oneness of your awareness in the breath. but if you hold on to, if you grasp and you tense around the breath, you keep the breath over there. And although you're with the breath, you're still not really calm because you think like you and the breath, or the awareness and the breath are two. But when you relax with the breath, the samadhi asserts itself.

[20:30]

When you relax your grip on the breath, the samadhi asserts itself. So in fact, following your breath, counting your breath, what do you call it, through the give and take, through the bump and grind, through the struggle and confusion of a life of intimacy with your breath, you finally stop treating it that way as an object. You become intimate with the breath and you stop grasping it, you stop rejecting it, you stop possessing it, and again you start then not to grasp the breath and then the samadhi asserts itself. So hanging out with your breath, eventually you'll become one-pointed with it. Yes? Who is it that relaxes? Who is it that relaxes? It's not really a who that relaxes, it's that the grasping that can… So you can have, you can have what do you call it, consciousness, object, okay, and you can have grasping of the object.

[21:36]

So, it isn't that the consciousness makes the grasping drop away, it isn't that the object makes the grasping drop away. It is that the dropping away arises or the dropping away is realized, I would say, through the dropping away really. And there's conditions for dropping away like somebody saying to you over and over again, body and mind drops off, good news, give up grasping, give up clinging, you hear this stuff, somehow it arises that you're in a situation to hear these words and sometimes these words stimulate the body-mind situation and the conditions for the dropping away of the grasping occur, but actually the grasping is ceasing moment by moment and arising again moment by moment. So somehow your attention can be tuned or turned, the attention can get turned towards appreciating that there's no grasping, the grasping has ceased.

[22:41]

And then, oh, it ceased, and this is what it's like when it ceased. This is what it's like for the object to be known by the subject without any grasping in conjunction with this knowing. This very close relationship now has dropped off and nobody did it. Buddha didn't do it, I didn't do it, you didn't do it. The mind didn't do it, the object didn't do it, the subject didn't do it, the self didn't do it, the other didn't do it, but dropping off does happen, and it happens actually each moment. So we're trying to develop this art of somehow joining this dropping off, which is already going on. It is our life actually, but like that story I've told so many times of the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says, My brother thinks he's a chicken. And he says, well, why don't you tell him he's not a chicken?

[23:42]

He says, I need the eggs. So we think we can grasp, you know, so why don't we stop? Because we need the grasp. Grasping is, fortunately or unfortunately, and we may have time to go into this during this practice period, how useful grasping is to our mind. But basically there is a use in grasping. It is useful to our life, to our biology. It's a powerful device of our mind, this grasping thing. It helps us get information. So to give it up is not easy. but it is actually an illusion. We actually are not chickens or ducks, yes? I mean, I wonder, in watching people die, I've really been struck by how much the body claims to life, and how it really does. That is the job of the organism, and that seems to be the job of everybody around to help that being claim the life.

[24:49]

So I'm wondering if it's I think it is, and also there are subtle renditions of grasping that human beings have developed, and actually other animals too, which in addition are tied in. Part of our survival is how we get and understand information, so the basic grasping to life is there. derivative graspings, which are also useful, but those graspings can be dispensed with while the body maybe continues to grasp life. And some of those additional graspings, which are kind of byproducts or offspring of the basic grasping, those are very useful to us in certain phases of our life and then later in other phases they're very unhelpful and they can be used at the right time and then given up when they're not useful anymore.

[25:57]

So part of what the teaching is about and part of the teaching of the Samdhinirmocana Sutra is, and Samdhinirmocana, the full name of the sutra is gambhira artha samdhi nirmocana gambhira artha gambhira means profound artha means meaning or object and samdhi nirmocana means to untie the deep meaning and the way to untie the deep meaning is to pull away the grasping around the meaning of our life And we use grasping originally to get meaning from things. We use grasping to get meaning out of objects. Objects can be known without meaning. But we have the ability, our minds have the ability in a sense, excuse the expression, but to suck meaning out of objects.

[27:07]

And we use grasping to pull the meaning out and bring it into our awareness. But then, because we use something to get the meaning, we feel separate from the meaning. So the grasping is useful to get meaning, but then the grasping intercedes between our life, our awareness, and the meaning. So then we have to get rid of the grasping. So it's kind of a wound that's created in this relationship in order to promote meaning of the relationship. So it's like you have this relationship and everything's going fine, you know, there's awareness, but then the possibility of getting meaning out of this relationship arises. In order to get meaning there has to be grasping. So there is grasping. So then we get meaning. But then this wound is created in this unity. So then we have to get rid of the thing by which we got the meaning. Yeah, get rid of, let go of the thing by which we got the meaning, so that now we have the meaning, but now we have unity and the meaning.

[28:18]

Yeah? Well, the meaning is extra to begin with. The meaning is extra to begin with, right. So you're already in a cycle, a divisional cycle. It's extra in the meaning, but we need it. We need meaning now. So in some sense you have to be willing to give up meaning too, besides the grasping. But the thing is you won't lose the meaning, and you won't lose the grasping, you just let go of both, and you still have both, but they're not interfering anymore, they don't cause suffering. So we get to be beings who have evolved beyond a previous level. And so the story that also I've told many times of the Greek myth of Amor and Psyche, when Amor or Eros got together with Psyche or the mind when they originally got together and that was a happy situation, but Psyche didn't know what love was. So, but it was still like, it was love, you know. A consciousness was united with love, but the consciousness didn't know who or what love was.

[29:28]

So it was tempted to bring light to know and then when it brought light to the situation and when it knew what love was and it turns out love was, it was great before knowing and then afterwards it was, it was like, it was better than I hoped for or whatever, you know, it was great, but that knowledge separated the psyche, the consciousness from what it knew. in order to get the meaning separation is set up. So it's useful and a kind of unavoidable temptation which we have succumbed to and now the question is how to recover from this separation which we set up for good reason. And part of the process is then to like let go of the grasping. as much, you know, let go of the grasping, enter into the letting go of the grasping at whatever, and then as we settle into that we start to enter into the second samadhi and then from there we move on to like, you know, actually removing or eliminating various levels of grasping.

[30:47]

not just by letting them go, but actually like permanently understanding such that they don't adhere anymore. So now while they still kind of stick, we need to admit and confess that they're sticking, admit and confess that they're sticking, confess and confess and confess, until we see that they're dropping. And then in that state of calm and concentration, we then can start looking at these things and understanding what they really are, and then that understanding never gets ... it doesn't understand that way, that greedy way anymore. Yes? So I can imagine the wholesomeness of the awareness and letting go of this grasping of daily life, daily activities. I want to think of something like, say you're a lifeguard and you're saving lives and there's an event of a child that's drowning or something and there's a chemical reaction in the lifeguard's body and an intense drive to perform certain actions to save this person.

[31:57]

It seems like grasping might come up in a way that would be helpful. Do you think her question picked up on the machine by any chance? Yeah, I do. You think so? I think it picked up on yours and not this one. So that's an example I said of something dangerous in daily life and we think, how can I relax with something dangerous? Or another way to put the question is, if somebody doesn't relax and saves the drowning person, wasn't that lack of relaxation good? And I would say, Well, it was kind of okay that the person got, you know, basically upset and helped the person. The upset wasn't that bad because they helped the person, okay, but they could have helped the person without getting upset. So let's imagine a big Bodhisattva lifeguard, okay, somebody who's not just saving one person, you know, but saving innumerable people every morning.

[33:02]

They can't afford to get upset for each one. So there's no attachment to saving this person? Exactly, there's no attachment to saving the person because they don't think there is another person. They're saving person after person without thinking that there's some other person. If you think there's some other person, that tires you. You can save one or six people each morning, probably, if you're healthy, from drowning. and still think they're other. And each one you save is going to tire you out because you think they're other. And if you lose one, then the next one that drowns, you're going to be totally wiped out on the beach because you lost one, and you're not going to be able to go out and help the next one because you're totally upset that you lost this last one. If you lost them, you lost them. But somebody else needs you now. Come on. So, if you get upset and you go off with this big chemical reaction in order to help this person, helping them is good, but the chemical reaction tires you.

[34:08]

But the chemical reaction is involuntary. It's involuntary, yeah, it's involuntary, but for some people it's not involuntary. For some people, because they have this job of saving so many people every morning, they can't afford to have this involuntary reaction, so they train themselves out of it. Or maybe they respond to it in a certain way. They respond to it in a certain way. The way they respond to it is they don't grasp and they just take a hold of the person without grasping them. They enter the water but there's no outflow. So that's the thing. This is called outflow is when you lose energy or gain energy around your relationship with objects and that tires you or inflates you and tires you and wears you down so that it's not the end of the world. In Buddhism we get another chance. to try again, but to really smoothly work to help people, we need to find a way to do that where there's no gain or loss involved. So the situation, you see someone needs help and you go into the water, but that someone you're helping is not other than you, and therefore you don't lose a lot of energy.

[35:21]

Through the view, that they're other, or through the view of who you think you are. Like you think, well, I'm a lifeguard and I can save people, and then if I don't save people, I'm not a lifeguard anymore, so what am I? You don't get into that. You have a certain skill level and you can use it as well as you can use it. You use it to its optimal level. Some people may be more ... a very skillful person can wear herself out and a less skillful person, although they're not as skillful, if they understand properly, they don't ... each step isn't as skillful but they don't get tired out. by getting emotional about this other person who's separate from them because they're in samadhi. So a dull-witted samadhi person over the long haul is more helpful than a really smart person who's like really doesn't believe in the samadhi because they get tired by the interactions. They're still somewhat useful but they're eroding their usefulness

[36:25]

by tensing up around their activity, that ex-ditional tension, you don't need it. And you say, well what about like a mother lifting a car off her kid, you know, would she be able to do that without that adrenaline hit? Okay? Yeah. And I would say, I really don't know. In fact, it might be the case, it might be the case that that particular kid under the car would not get saved by the mother because she couldn't lift the car up. So she might lose that kid. But then the next kid, and the next kid, and the next kid, and the next kid, she could maybe help them because not every kid needs a car lifted often. So you might lose one who requires some superhuman effort that you can only do once a week. And you might be able to help 10 others that didn't require that superhuman effort. You don't need the full adrenaline every single time. Not to mention the fact that right after you lift the car, then a few days, a few steps later, you fall on your face, right?

[37:28]

All the, after the endorphins wear off and everything, then you collapse. And then like somebody else has to take care of the other kids that are in trouble. So in fact, we might be built for like taking care of a small number of people at a, you know, Because usually that's the number you have to take care of, rather than have a life where you're taking care of person after person after person after person. So we're built in some ways, and a lot of our habits are around total effort, you know. So we generally speaking, you know, when it comes to making a big effort, we overdo. We use more muscles and more energy than we need to, just to make sure, you know. We do overkill. We learn that from our body. And when we relax, we underkill. So we swing back and forth. So to bring just the right amount of energy to each situation and use just the right muscles, that's the way that you can do consistently. And consistently means moment by moment by moment with everybody.

[38:33]

That's the way the Buddha is teaching. It's more like how can we find a consistent way So it isn't that you have insight and then you fall back into laziness and stupidity. It's that you can develop a steady, reliable meditation practice eventually. And you can do your best But maybe certain superhuman feats you couldn't do, maybe sometimes, but we don't know for sure. You might be able to, instead of lifting the car yourself, you might be able to get somebody else nearby to lift the car for you, or might get three people to lift the car. Other kinds of possibilities arise there, other than that superhuman animal adrenaline thing, which has been very useful in many situations for the survival of some people. But there's other ways. And that attitude then pervades situations that aren't life and death situations, the attitude that we can't relax.

[39:34]

But again, you know, I often use this example too. I was in the airport of Tokyo one time in Narita and I watched his mother follow her son and she was with him wherever he went. She didn't strap him down to a chair. She didn't try to control him, and she also didn't just let him run around the airport. She was with him wherever he went. She kind of bent her knees, and had a sort of a wide stance, and just sort of shuttled behind him, a little bit like a crab, moving with him wherever he went. She was always ready to catch him if he fell, if he was going to fall and hit his head on something. And he was too little to hurt anybody else. But he could get hurt, but she was with him wherever he went. And he just did what he wanted, he knew she was there. and she was really there, but somehow she did it in such a way that she, you know, she didn't get super excited, but she could be steady and be with him. She wasn't like, ha, or you know, oh, you know, she's just steady, steady and attentive and consistent and, you know, it seems like a nice, it was a very nice

[40:44]

It was just a nice samadhi in a way that I saw there. It was lovely, he was cared for, she was enjoying it, she wasn't like really stressed out, I felt. But anyway, there's a possibility that we can be that way with things. Okay, there was a bunch of hands. Yes? Somebody might have thought that, yeah. Can I mention one thing before you go on? Some other people might have thought that she shouldn't let him run around so much. Right, right. Okay, so what's the pitfall you're concerned about? sort of, maybe, you know, like, whatever.

[41:53]

And so they kind of just, like, they found themselves in kind of a heavenly realm and just kind of went with whatever. Yes. And didn't really, like, find themselves in a situation where one to six people even really seem to need saving a day. And it just kind of, you know, Does that seem like a little bit of a pitfall? It's a big pitfall. It's a bigger pitfall than the other one. The other one is less of a pitfall. The pitfall of trying to help people, of being a lifeguard and saving one person or six people and doing it without flows, that pitfall is a better situation than sitting there and saying whatever. And the reason why it's better, I would say, is that if you're trying to help people and then you do it in this way where you're not in samadhi, it hurts you then when you reach the limit of your energy and notice that you can't help the next person.

[43:01]

That hurts you. You want to help these people and you notice that you're becoming ineffective. because you're managing your mind in a less than samadhi way. So that pushes you to find a more and more efficient samadhi. So that's a better pitfall than the one where you just sit there and say whatever. That one, however, you're not really practicing samadhi because if you actually say whatever and you relax with that, you won't stay in that state. You won't stay in the whatever. The relaxation around that will let that go and you'll let other states come, like being concerned for these people. Now you may relax with them, but you may relax and enter into getting up and acting to help, because you actually want to. But if you're helping not because you want to, but because you think you should, okay, That still may be a better pitfall to act because you think you should rather than you want to.

[44:06]

That may be a better pitfall than to not act and not help because you don't want to. That may be better, but they're both pitfalls. Well, one of the ways I think is to, you know, have a sangha, have other people who are also trying to distinguish, who see that dynamic, that balancing thing of where they realize, you know, that there's pitfalls on both sides. Somehow we can be slack on either side, we can be like negligent on either side of the balanced place and we need people to give us a sense of, you know, I think you're too relaxed. You know? And then you might have a kind of relaxed reaction to that and they might say, you know, I don't mind that you were relaxed when I told you you were too relaxed.

[45:11]

That was okay. Now, would you please come with us now and come over here and help us with this? And you might in a relaxed way say, no, I'm not going to. And I say, well, what's the reason? And you tell me, the reason why I'm not going to help you is because such and such and so and so. And I say, wow. amazing that's right we shouldn't do this you know and you actually maybe you relaxed and because you were relaxed they could criticize you and you stayed and you were relaxed with their criticism and because you were relaxed with their criticism then they could ask you to do something because they felt like you're listening to them and then they asked you to do something but in your relaxation you could see that it was not going to be beneficial what they were doing and you were relaxed and you could tell them you know I don't think it's helpful it isn't that you said whatever and went along with them Because now they're asking you to do something, you know, to do some work. It isn't that you relax and say, whatever. You said, no, I'm not going to do it. It's not helpful. And they listen to you because you're relaxed. And you're not like, oh, I'm right and you're wrong.

[46:12]

So out of the relaxation, you say, I'm not going to do it. And then you tell them why. And then you don't do it. Or the other one would be, you're relaxed. They're criticizing you. They ask you to help them. You look at the situation. You see it's good. And you do it. You're happy to do it. Now it's kind of a circle between relaxation and enthusiasm about doing good things. Samadhi sort of is predicated or supported by enthusiasm for doing good things and also from Samadhi comes enthusiasm for doing good things, so part of this realization of this state of total relaxation, the state of like mental one-pointedness and calm and absorption in the one-pointedness, is that you do naturally, as Grace said, you naturally, your body cares about survival. But you care about the survival of everything. Because you understand that everything is you. Because you understand that the things you're looking at are your mind, are your life.

[47:14]

So you naturally care for things, your body naturally tells you to care for everything. So you naturally do, but it doesn't mean you do everything that's possible to do, you do actually what you think is wholesome. So if you hear about practicing Samadhi and you hear about practicing meeting everything with a welcome. Meeting everything with a welcome, including enemies and dangerous things, you meet them with welcome. You meet them with, okay, welcome. You do that because you think that's a wholesome thing to do, and you feel enthusiastic about that, and if you're enthusiastic about it, meeting everything with welcome, you enter Samadhi. So the wanting to do what's good is the motor of actually entering the samadhi. So the vigor and energy and enthusiasm for wholesome dharmas is the fuel for the samadhi practice. So you're naturally already in trying to do what's wholesome when you enter the samadhi. And it's just that if you want to do wholesome things, relaxing helps you be one-pointed about the wholesome things you're trying to do.

[48:23]

So, I'm not emphasizing the Paramita or the practice of enthusiasm and courageous effort. I'm not emphasizing it verbally except right now I am, but that's part of what I'm trying to demonstrate in my enthusiasm for Samadhi is the enthusiastic joy about doing wholesome things. And I'm just emphasizing one important wholesome practice called Samadhi. But go ahead with your question now. Well, it's just, I guess, a question of situations where maybe you're going to go meet dangerous people that think they're your enemy. Yes. And then saying, well, you know, I'm actually working on this relaxation thing. And that's going to really throw me off. That's what? It's going to really throw it off. I'm going to stay here and like maybe surf or something. Yeah, right. Instead of like stopping and fighting over there. Exactly. I know I can't really do that and not be relaxed. Right. So you might do that actually sometimes of not go over to some situations because it's going to throw off your practice of relaxation.

[49:29]

You might actually do that. I know this young man who's just been invited to go to Japan or actually Okinawa. to be tested for his fourth degree black belt in karate. So in his case, he didn't say, oh, I think I'll throw my relaxation practice off to go and get tested this way, to have them swing iron bars at him and stuff like that. He's going to be attacked for six hours straight. as the test, you know, and he's actually, he's enthusiastic about going there, not to get the, not to get a higher degree of black belt, he says, but for the test, which is an initiation, right? He wants the initiation that comes through the test, but he feels ready, he's trained long enough, so he wants to do that. Now, in some cases you might feel like, okay, I don't really, I'm not, I'm not really ready for this test, I don't think I'm gonna do it very well, but considering that it might harm someone if I don't go, I think I will go. But some other cases you might say, you know, this is a tough one but I think if I go there I'm not actually going to help.

[50:31]

I'm going to blow it. And sometimes people come to me and they see some problem and they say, you know, I see a problem here but I can't talk to that person. Given my relationship with that person I can't bring this up. Would you talk to them? They just, you know, they just know that they're going to not relax and that going to talk to this person and not being relaxed It's not going to help the situation. The problem is going to continue, plus it's going to add one more log to the fire, so they don't talk to the person. But they know that that's their limit. But they still have the calm to not rush in there and cause more trouble, but to ask me or somebody else who's not involved in the situation, who doesn't have a personal thing in it, therefore can relax more to go in and say. So, although you might not be able to help the person, maybe you could ask somebody else to do it, who is more sort of in the mood or phase or whatever to take care of it. Sometimes you can do that and stay relaxed while you do that. So sometimes, and in fact,

[51:32]

Well, in fact, that's sort of why I originally came to Zen Center, is I wanted to do some things in the world, but I wanted to train myself better first, so I'd be more effective. And I originally intended to train myself, you know, for about, I was going to train myself for seven years, until I was 30, and I was going to go do some things I had in mind, but I haven't stopped training yet. So now I'm waiting, you know, for us to finally do something. But basically there is that thing of train more and do better, but sometimes you really feel like, well, although I can't do really well, I think I'm going to do this anyway. And it's not going to be perfect, but I think I'm ready for it and I want the initiation of this experience. I think it'd be good for me to do this experience, you know, not 100% perfectly, but still to go through this. And that will help my calming practice, actually, is to have this test.

[52:37]

And if I never, without some test, my calm is not going to get deep. So again, the one Zen teacher in Japan used to take his monks horseback riding in downtown Tokyo in the marketplace, you know, just to see if they could take that composure into the streets, into the hubbub and come back out. And there's many stories like that of the Zen monk being trained and then going into the marketplace and finding out that they weren't much help and going back to train more. and then coming back again and finding after further training that they could enter the marketplace and be a beneficent and beneficial factor. But sometimes you're just more trouble to the situation. You don't help it unless you have sufficient training so that you can stay calm in some hectic situations. So the Bodhisattva is trying to learn a meditation so we have a steady practice in a constantly changing environment. Changing means like, if it's good, okay, and now it's not good.

[53:43]

If it's not good, okay, now it's good. It doesn't just stay bad all the time. It's not just pure bad, you have to be alert that now maybe it's okay. It's not always your enemy. Sometimes your enemy changes sides, yet you should be able to recognize that. Oh, you're not my enemy anymore, okay. Yeah, I don't want to be. Actually, I'm done. I'm finished. I don't want to fight anymore. I'm done. You're done? Well, I want to fight some more. No, the fight's over. Really. Stop. I'm not your enemy anymore. You converted me. Oh, wow. Eleanor? I was wondering about afflictive emotions and the practice of not... Could you give me an example of an afflictive emotion? So I see a little blip of one of the afflictive emotions come up. I often have the thought, don't go there.

[54:44]

You're not calm right now. And please, let's practice with the calmness for a while so that we're in a stable place. But it doesn't work that way mostly. I actually feel like I'm sucked into it. So I wonder if there's a need. Well, let's look at that example right there. What? Can you back out of things? Anything's possible. But, you mean if you get in over your head in some situation? Oh. Okay, well. Usually, if you're in some situation, and whether you think you can get out of it or not, or whether you think you know how to get out of it or not, if you practice welcoming whatever is happening, you get out of the situation.

[55:47]

Because usually, you're not in the situation of welcoming whatever is happening, including if you think you can't handle it, if you had welcomed the thought that you can't handle it, you're now in a new situation. So, basically, if possible, I'm suggesting the same practice for these difficult situations, these afflictive situations, that you just don't grasp them, that you relax with them, that you welcome them as Buddhadharma. So what's your next question? Yeah, if there's greed, okay, welcoming greed, if there's hatred, welcoming hatred, the welcoming is not greed or hatred, it's just saying welcome. Welcome as an opportunity for me to be aware.

[56:52]

Now there's details about how to even get more intimate with this welcome. which I'll bring out later, but basically this is like a thorough welcoming. It's not a kind of like, okay, welcome, you know. It's like a really, it's a wholehearted, intimate following of the mind being involved in some afflictive mode. And in this mode you're relaxed, you're alert, you're present, and you're ready for awakening. You're not waiting for the afflictive emotion to go away before realizing the non-duality of afflictive emotions and non-afflictive emotions. It isn't that you're looking at a non-afflictive emotion when you realize the non-duality of non-afflictive and afflictive. You can be looking at afflictive when you realize the non-duality of afflictive and non-afflictive.

[57:57]

You can be looking at the turmoil of psychic existence when you realize the non-duality of the turmoil of psychic existence and freedom from psychic existence. You can also be looking at the freedom from psychic existence when you realize the turmoil of samsaric existence. Okay? Did you follow all that by any chance? You can look at either one. In other words, you can realize nonduality in nirvana or samsara, you can realize nonduality in non-greed, non-hate, non-confusion, and you can realize it in the others too. But the way of realizing it is through this non-afflictive approach called samadhi, which is, you know, samadhi itself is not a wholesome dharma. because Samadhi is in unwholesome states.

[59:00]

But what I mean by Samadhi as a wholesome factor is Samadhi in the sense of being absorbed in Samadhi, of realizing Samadhi, of dealing with all phenomena in such a way that you end the outflows, you end the drainage. So part of the practice, again, is to admit when you're not practicing relaxation. So if an afflictive thing arises, if greed arises and you think this is too much, I got to get out of here, and there's some charge on that, it isn't just you say, this is too much and I got to get out of here. You really like to think this is too much and there's no question about it and I do have to get out of here and really this is true. In other words, there's a charge on this and if somebody else says, Eleanor, relax, you say, get out of here, leave me alone, you're crazy, you know. And you say that also with a sense of that you're not just, this isn't a drama, this is like reality here, this is like reality TV.

[60:08]

You know, this is like really happening. There's no play in it for you. You're not playing. This isn't a play, okay? So then in that case, you say, okay, I confess. I actually think this is not a play. I think this is real and I got a charge on that. And anybody who disagrees with me, I think they're wrong. I confess that that's where I'm at. I'm like right out of a page of the Sandhya Nirmocana Sutra. I'm like what we call an unenlightened person. Because I'm really not here to play, I'm here to like win. And the only way I can win is to get out of this situation, because if I stay here much longer, I'm going to lose. And I really think I am going to lose. Over my head means I'm going to drown, I'm going to lose, this is going to be bad, and I'm not into that. And I'm not kidding, and there's no humor in this situation at all. I confess that, I confess that. This is not like a... So the shred of practices there while I'm being very serious about the hell I'm in, very serious, is I admit I'm... Who here is serious?

[61:17]

I confess, I'm serious, I'm taking this really seriously. That's the practice, is to admit that I'm really taking this greed, I'm taking this afflictive stuff seriously. And taking things seriously is included in non-duality. So, again, but when you understand non-duality, it takes the charge, it takes the poison out of taking things seriously. And if you ever do, you can confess it, and when you confess it, you're back on track again. You relaxed. You relaxed with this very serious situation where you're threatened with not winning, with not surviving, with not controlling. So you just confess, I think this is too much. But when you can say that, although you're in the cauldron called, this is too much, you're saying, I admit, I think it's too much.

[62:23]

That's exactly a mistake. I admit it. Because I think it's true. And then you realize, body and mind dropping off. Right there. Yes? In the second circle, is there an unwholesome samadhi like sorcerers have? Or is that only wholesome? Let's see, like I said before, there can be absorption in unwholesome dharmas, okay, and some people call that samadhi, but I don't call that samadhi, I call that being concentrated and, what do you call it, obsessed and absorbed in unwholesomeness. Samadhi, you see, is into the one-pointedness of the awareness and the object, unwholesome obsessions and compulsions, you don't realize the oneness of mind and object in those states.

[63:24]

So therefore you can do harm. So you can be totally obsessed about something and undistracted about it, but you do not understand the calm and relaxation and ease and joy and humor that comes when you realize one-pointedness. No, you're trying to kill the other. You're trying to kill the other. Right, the other is not you. And of course that creates hell and all that. for us. But a wholesome Samadhi is the same as Samadhi. Samadhi comes out of the joy in doing wholesome things. And so does Dhyana. So Dhyana is not applied, which has the nature of Samadhi, is not applied to unwholesome states. Even though unwholesome states are sometimes very concentrated in the sense of me concentrating on that. So you can be very concentrated and very agitated at the same time when you're concentrating on unwholesome dharmas which are other than you. But when you're concentrating on wholesome dharmas as not separate from you, then you're calm.

[64:29]

And again, I say when you do that, but the Samadhi is not you concentrating on it. The Samadhi is the oneness of you and the object or the subject and the object and that is calming and wholesome. And out of that state you will protect beings both Staying in situation and confessing? Yeah, saying that I'm afraid and it's okay to be afraid.

[65:34]

Yeah. Because I don't think I could train myself to be calm. Certain questions will always make me scared, right? Well, one of the ways to train yourself to be calm, I think you just said, was to confess that you're afraid. Confess that you're afraid when you're afraid. Don't confess you're afraid when you're not afraid. Confess when you're afraid, confess it. That's one of the ways, that's part of the training of calming down. But also, I wouldn't go into situations that made me afraid just to go into situations that make me afraid unless I thought that I had a good chance of being able to confess when I got there. Well, I'm not talking about avoiding, I'm talking about that you go in voluntarily as a test, like this test for this black belt. There's maybe some fear in there, but the possibility of going in there where there's this challenge and then can you relax with that challenge, which means confess the fear and you think, I think I'm ready to go in there and if the fear comes up I think I can confess it, you know, okay, fear, relax and go on with the test.

[66:53]

Like giving a talk to a large group of people or you know, being tested on various kinds of initiations, you might feel, I think there's a fairly good chance that fear will come up in that situation and I have my little, you know, talisman or my little amulet to hold on to when the fear comes. And what does it say on the amulet? It says, confess to fear. I was afraid. I'm afraid. Okay, and then move on. to the next phase in the process. And I want to go into that initiation because I think it will make me a more mature practitioner. to experience that test, so I want to do that. So we have at Zen Center, you know, for example, we have the job of being head student for a practice period. This is a kind of like initiation that we have where the person is the head student and sits in the seat next to the abbot and gives talks and stuff like that, but they put themselves in that situation and then hopefully they can work with their

[68:01]

you know, fear that comes up in having that big responsibility and relax with it and grow from that kind of test. And, you know, going to see the teacher is part of that too. People are somewhat afraid but they go in there to see if they can like relax with that fear of being tested and, you know, having iron bars swung at you and stuff like that. I wonder if you said that anything that arises out of a non-dual state is wholesome and for the good of all beings? Anything that arises out of the non-dual state? Arises out of the non-dual state. Let's see now. I don't know if the words are right. Well, first of all, ultimate truth is non-duality, okay? ultimate truth of nonduality does allow, it allows at least, the arising of unwholesome, terrible things.

[69:05]

So, it's not like nonduality is in control of the world. If a person has realized nonduality, then their actions will be, the things that they'll do in the world, will be what we call teaching Dharma. They may talk, speak English or something, and make various gestures with their hands, and it will be coming from the realization of non-duality. In other words, they understand that their life and other people's lives are non-dual. They understand that pain and pleasure are non-dual. they'll naturally not do harm, they'll naturally not do harm, they'll naturally do good. More than just not do harm, they will act in such a way as to promote other people realizing non-duality, which will relieve them of suffering and help them act compassionately in the world.

[70:12]

That's the story. Of course, we can be somewhat compassionate and somewhat beneficial and somewhat harmless even without the realization of non-duality. But to do this bodhisattva thing of trying to work with everybody rather than just live in a monastery with other people who are trying to like keep themselves pure, but to be working with people who are not at all interested in keeping themselves pure at this point and actually are enjoying being as impure as possible, trying to learn how to be more impure, to how to embrace and work with people like that. and love them just as much as you love those who are… and forgive those who are trying to be pure. You don't dislike the ones who are into purity either, you love them too. So how to love everybody wholeheartedly like the Buddha does, we need to understand non-duality. That's our great realization which will make us most effective in all worlds.

[71:16]

But we can be somewhat helpful before realizing that. Some people are very helpful, who don't yet understand non-duality, which is like all of us, right? Some of us, among all of us, there's some of us who are helpful. Among all of us who have not realized it, some of us are quite helpful. Right? Like my surgeon was quite helpful. I think he did a good job. Things are coming along pretty well. You know, he paid attention, he got the bones back sort of the way they were at the beginning, you know? He didn't like have the head of the femur sort of off in the wrong direction so that my leg... You know, he was present with all this blood flowing all over the place. He did a little damage to my muscles, so I'm having some problem with atrophied muscles, because he had to like, you know, spread them out of the way and they got... It's not so cute over here anymore. But he got the bones all straight, you know? which is hard to do, you know, with a person practically dead, you know, they're, you know, on anesthetic, you don't have much time, the blood's flowing all over the place, you're trying to move the muscles out of the way, get the rod in there, drilling holes, you know, reaming out the femur, you know, you know, and watching to see when the reamer hits, you know, starts to hit hard bone and stop, and slipping the thing down there,

[72:39]

You've got to be present, so he did a good job. I don't know if he's realized nonduality, but he did a really… I felt like he was really there for me, to do a really good job for me. I really appreciate him doing a good job. So we can do a lot of good things, but to be able to love everybody, like, I think he loved me, you know, he was really nice to me. And I think he loves a lot of other people too. He just seemed like a really good doctor. But I don't know if he yet loves everybody, you know? Like when we started talking about the insurance people. He said, you know, don't get me started. But I didn't think he meant don't get me started on how much I love them. Just give me a chance to express my love to those guys. It's more like, if it comes to it, I'll talk to them.

[73:41]

So anyway, this is what non-duality makes possible. It's really like being able to do the right thing, the most helpful thing. So he can do it because he has this knowledge combined with a non-dual understanding. Yes, that's right. So like the Buddha, the Buddha had a knowledge of conventional He had conventional knowledge also, like he could speak whatever the language of the people was, so he could use conventional tools to express himself in such a way that they could be benefited, even though what he was expressing was not what he had realized.

[74:43]

Based on his realization, his expressions could be helpful. But we do need the Buddha as an example of someone that did resort to conventional means in order to help people. But the root of his helpful activity was something really unconventional, something beyond convention. Because non-duality is not conventional. We say non-duality, but non-duality is not just our talk about it or our thoughts about it, it's the actuality of how things are not dual. is what these Bodhisattvas, what the outer circle is about. The outer Samadhis are the realization of non-duality. But we also need conventional, we need to deal with our conventionality in order to introduce ourselves into these Samadhis. So we are living in a conventional world and part of living in a conventional world is in a conventional world there is the appearance

[75:45]

of grasping, and clinging, and seeking, and tensing, and gaining, and controlling, and discriminating, all this is going on in the conventional world. These things, in the conventional world, we say in the conventional world, let go of all this stuff, relax with all this stuff, and this relaxing, and giving up all this mind stuff, not possessing any of this mind stuff, will introduce you into the samadhi, which then can be developed finally. We can finally usher ourselves into not just this samadhi, samadhi number two, but samadhi number three and samadhi number four. But we get a conventional induction into a state which will take us beyond convention, into the ultimate, but we have to deal with the conventional first. So that's why we, you know, in fact we are working with this conventional stuff and the Buddha gave us conventional stuff like schedules and meditation postures to help us enter into the ultimate, non-dual.

[76:56]

Yes? For example, I have to, every day I have to go to work at a certain place for many hours where there is tremendous clutter. Terrible physical, you know, things are going around. Okay, are there situations which, what? In which there intrinsically from the standpoint of maintaining tranquility? No, there's no place that's intrinsically unwholesome. Unwholesomeness is not intrinsic. And there's no wholesomeness that's intrinsic either.

[77:59]

Buddha nature transcends wholesome and unwholesome. by working with these apparent things of wholesomeness and unwholesomeness in a skillful way. The Samadhi number four is, and we're trying to warm up to that, Samadhi number four is to be able to enter any situation and use any situation as an opportunity to transcend wholesomeness and unwholesomeness. Any situation, in other words, to realize awakening. And every situation is equally an opportunity for awakening. This is the Samadhi of the Bodhisattva. So Bodhisattvas do not say, OK, I hear a cry over in that work situation over there, but I'm not going to go over in that work situation because it's just too much. There's like no enlightenment over there. I can't practice enlightenment in that situation. I feel physically ill with all this clutter.

[79:05]

The Bodhisattva might say, if I go in there, I'll feel physically ill with that clutter. But then they say, and when I feel physically ill, that's a situation in which there's no opportunity for enlightenment because I can't be enlightened when I'm sick. So I only can be enlightened when I'm well. So I have to be in situations where I'm well. Realizing non-duality is what makes it possible for us to go into sickness, our own sickness, and continue to practice. So that's, for me anyway, as I get older, I'm interested in what kind of practice am I going to be able to do if I have Alzheimer's? You know? How am I going to have a practice that can go on when I don't even remember what practice means? How am I going to practice when I'm sick? How am I going to practice when I'm having a heart attack? How am I going to practice if my leg gets broken again?

[80:05]

Oh, not again! Like right in the middle of, oh not again, can I like wake up? I want to have a practice so I can wake up when my broken leg gets broken again. That's my goal in life. And I think if I can practice that way, that then I would have a chance to be with you when you break your leg again. Or I can go to be with you when you're in a situation where I will feel sick. But, you know, that's my goal, that's Samadhi number four, that's the Bodhisattva's absorption in non-duality, where you're like really in it and you can move wherever the situation would make you be useful and helpful. You receive a self and now what does the situation want? You can move that way. You're in this self-enjoyment Samadhi. So if people want you to be, if people means the whole universe wants you to be sick, say, okay, I'm sick. And then if you're sick and you say, but I don't wanna be sick, then you confess, I don't wanna be sick.

[81:12]

I'm sick and also I'm a sick person who doesn't wanna be sick. That's my situation. And being a sick person who doesn't wanna be sick, being a sick person who doesn't think she can practice, this is my opportunity for awakening. And if the greatest Bodhisattva is here, totally with me accepting the situation and using the situation, I would like to join this Bodhisattva in using this situation, and I just can barely accept the possibility that this could be an awakening. But again, I mentioned at the end of the Heart Sutra it says, gathe gathe para gathe parasamgate So, gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond, Bodhi, welcome. Welcome Bodhi. All the time, welcome Bodhi. Do welcome Bodhi, moment by moment. Beyond, you know, beyond like sickness and not sickness, gone beyond all this stuff, put aside all distinctions, no matter what's happening, can you welcome Bodhi?

[82:21]

Can you be in that Samadhi? Whatever it is. Or do you want to say, well, I want bodhi, I want awakening, but I'm not going to have it now. I'm going to postpone it till later because, you know, it's ridiculous to have it now. I can't have bodhi in a mess like this. But after I get things tidied up, then maybe bodhi would be okay. Well, that's more, you know, that's another kind of a samadhi. is dualistic. It still makes some sense. So, if you refuse to do the Bodhisattva Samadhi, we have another Samadhi called, you know, do Samadhi over where you're healthy and things are tidy, and then based on that Samadhi you can move into the Bodhisattva Samadhi. But I'm actually suggesting that all situations are opportunities. There are no exceptions. There's nothing excluded from this Bodhisattva Samadhi. Nothing is outside of it.

[83:25]

Nothing's pushed away. The whole ocean of non-duality includes everything. And if we can't accept that completely, then we confess, I just can't accept it yet. And continually confessing that I don't have faith that all situations are opportunities for enlightenment. All situations are opportunities to be awake. All of them. All situations are opportunities to be awake and then from that awakeness to do something beneficial. I don't believe that yet. I lack complete faith in that. We just keep confessing that over and over and gradually we start to like stop veering away from that teaching. Now, of course, you would only confess that you lacked faith in this teaching if you had some faith in this teaching. You're not going to confess, I have lack in faith in the teaching of non-duality if you don't have some faith in the teaching. But if you have enough faith to notice that you're not following that faith, that you don't quite believe it, and then enough faith to express that you don't believe in non-duality.

[84:40]

then you will eventually get to the place where you will not transgress from faith in non-duality. That's what the Ehekosa Hotsakamon is saying. If you continually say, you know, I think non-duality is wonderful, I understand that it is the real teaching of the ultimate in the Bodhisattva path, but I have some doubt in many cases in my daily life, and even in meditation I have some doubt. I confess that, I confess that, I confess that. The more I confess that, the closer I get to actually not doubting it. And not doubting it means entering the samadhi. And being able to act like these bodhisattvas who have attained the samadhi, which is, you know, an amazing and rare feat, but still we're... To aspire to this samadhi is to aspire to an amazing possibility of human life. to be able to actually practice in all situations.

[85:44]

Yes? except where I'm at right now in this lousy state of mind, totally overwhelmed by distraction. You just said, except that you're in this lousy state of mind, overwhelmed, or I think you said totally overwhelmed by distraction. You said except that you're in that? Right? So aren't you afraid of not being able to do that? Yeah. Yeah. That would be a feat, wouldn't it? To be able to accept that you're in a totally overwhelmed state? That would be a lot to aspire to too, wouldn't it? Yeah. But you dare to aspire to that? There's not a choice.

[86:51]

That's pretty good. That's how I feel about Bodhisattva Samadhi, I just don't see another choice. That seems the appropriate choice. If what you say is how you feel, that's not so far. To really accept being totally overwhelmed is very close to realizing non-duality. Non-duality would mean I really accept I'm totally overwhelmed. Or in other ways, what I said before, practice presence of mind, awakeness, you could be awake when you're totally overwhelmed. Because I think pretty soon, as far as I can tell, I'm going to be totally overwhelmed. The me that we have here now is going to be totally overwhelmed. This way of being is not going to be here much longer. It's going to get overwhelmed. And I hope that I can be awake. And I want to train myself to be awake when this kind of way of being is overwhelmed.

[87:54]

And I'm somewhat encouraged that when this way has been somewhat overwhelmed, that I was still there. That there was awakeness and a little bit of a remembrance of relaxation, even when this situation was significantly overwhelmed, but not completely. And I would like to be even more present when significantly or completely overwhelmed. That's pretty much what non-duality makes possible, is to be awake through all the changes that can happen. So it's not so much can you do it, but would you like to, you know? And if you'd like to, well let's, we just happen to have a practice here that's sort of totally devoted to that purpose, to that desire, to that wish. And about failure, you can't fail unless you reach the end, you know, like a final verdict. But there is no such thing as, like, you finally failed, because then the next moment comes and you get another chance to, like, now realize the way.

[89:08]

That's the nice thing about Buddhism, it doesn't say, well, you know, you can't really fail, you just, it's not like you're done, you failed, you know, it's like, that was a mistake, now you're in trouble, okay, now here's another chance, what do you want to do now? So it's not, yes? Does non-duality guarantee you can't fail? Does non-duality guarantee you can't fail? Yes, it guarantees you can't fail. As a matter of fact, it guarantees you're already a sex. Success. [...] You're already a success. It's just a matter of like, well, I'm already a success? Well, how's that? I don't get it. Okay, that's what we're here for. To teach you how you're already a success. We're not here to teach you how you can be a Buddha. We're here to teach you how you are a Buddha. which it's kind of hard to understand sometimes, given the way we behave, yes? Does it transcend it?

[90:13]

It sure does. It has nothing to do with success and failure? Well, on that note, May our intention be pleased. In every being and place.

[90:39]

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