So I just got back from Tassajara and some people here were there with me and we did a little retreat on Eightfold Paths. Who has not heard about the Eightfold Path? Just raise your hand if you haven't very well. The Eightfold Path is a description that the Buddha gave of the path to freedom from suffering. And actually, it's the path of freedom from rebirth. So the eightfold path, one way to put it is it's the middle way. Another way to put it is it's a path to the end of suffering, but it also could be put as a path to freedom from rebirth, from birth and death, birth and death. So the Buddha taught a path which he called the middle way.

[01:14]

And the middle way avoids extremes, extreme views, like the view of existence and non-existence. And if you can understand this middle way that he taught, understanding and practicing that middle way gives freedom from birth and death. Okay? That's what we're talking about. And that's last week, Tassar, and that's what, you know, many people have been talking about for a couple thousand years. Over most of Asia, people have been, millions, billions of people probably have been studying the stateful path, some apparently successfully in terms of actually finishing the course and becoming free of birth and death, and sharing that freedom, and teaching that freedom.

[02:28]

So the Eightfold Path has eight elements. You've seen symbols, you know, like the symbols of Buddhism, symbols of Christianity and Islam and Judaism, right? Judaism is the Star of David usually. Christianity is usually the cross. Islam is, what is it? A star and a moon. A moon and a star sitting in the moon. And Buddhism is often, the symbol that they use is a wheel. with eight spokes, and those eight spokes are usually understood as eightfold path. So the eightfold path is right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right...

[03:39]

right mindfulness and right concentration. And right view, first element in aikpo path is is the understanding or the view that action has consequences. That's the fundamental view on the path to freedom. That action

[04:42]

as constants. In particular, it means action that you or I do. that our individual actions have consequences. That's the basic view. That's the fundamental view. And if you practice all the other elements of the Eightfold Path, that view finally becomes a view you actually see. the end, you have to witness the process for the arising of suffering and the end of suffering.

[05:49]

So Right View is, at the beginning, it's seeing and understanding, to some extent, that actions have effects or actions have consequences. And at the end of the path, this right view is to actually see the end of suffering, to witness, understand, and realize the end of suffering. So right view is the beginning and end of the Buddhist path. It's the beginning and the end of freedom from rebirth, of freedom from suffering. At the beginning, it's As I said, seeing and understanding that actions have consequence, in the end, it's seeing and understanding freedom from action. Through the study of action, we realize the freedom from action.

[06:52]

So the whole path starts with the conviction that studying action is worthwhile because actions have consequence. And also, studying actions is worthwhile because studying actions sets free from the mechanical bondage that action and result set up. Result. Set up. action-result, and then because of result, there's more action. Action leads to result. You respond to the results by more action, which leads to more results. And this is the cycle of cause and effect. That is the world of suffering, the world of birth and death.

[07:55]

Now, Charlie wanted to know what, I think he wanted to know what the teachings of karma have to do with just sitting. So I'll tell you right away, so if you have to leave, you can leave. Just sitting, the Zen, or what we call Zazen, Zazen is absorption in the process of karma. It is a contemplation of how karma works. But it's not just a contemplation, it is an absorption in this awareness, complete settling into the process of the cause and effect of action. So studying karma in Zazen is the same thing. Zazen is not the same as karma.

[09:02]

Zen meditation is not the same as karma. Zen meditation is the study of karma. And when Zen meditation matures, Zen meditation is inseparable from the actuality of how karma works. And if you're inseparable from the actuality of karma, that inseparableness from the actuality is liberation. Actuality of karma is liberation. Confusion about karma is bondage to karma. Studying karma and studying the confusion about karma is the path to freedom from karma. So this week is, you know, an amazing opportunity for you people to actually enter into the process of liberation if you want to.

[10:13]

So this is an opportunity for us to study the very thing which we need to study in order to be free. And the way karma works is an example of the way everything in the universe works. Everything in the universe works with a causing effect. everything in the universe happens by what we call dependent co-arising. Everything in the universe happens in relationship to everything else. Our entrance into the actual working of the entire universe is a meditation on how our human action works.

[11:24]

If you completely understand human action, you... start resonating with the action of the entire universe. Same principles, but we can't enter into, you know, through our awareness, we can't directly enter into the way subatomic particles function in a way, you know, galaxies operate. We cannot be directly aware of these things, but we can be aware of awareness and the way they work is the same principles as the entire universe. Same principle of cause and effect. So this topic is the beginning and the path of freedom. And zazen is basically to be absorbed in this in this meditation to the point of where your life is completely one with the process and thereby liberated from the process.

[12:35]

Okay? So my... My little, what do you call it, slogan for last week was, what is it, you know, one of the main slogans of the Buddha is dependent co-arising. In other words, everything dependently co-arises. Studying the wheel of karma turns the wheel of dharma. When the wheel of dharma turns, beings are liberated. You and all beings are liberated when the dharma wheel turns downward.

[13:37]

It's the liberating truth. So if you study karma, you'll start to have the truth, the liberating truth, the very guiltiest. So I'll say this, hopefully I'll say this quite a few times, and that is, in the midst of all that happens this week, in the midst of, for example, me talking about karma and how it works, or me talking about regretting it, or you asking questions, or you saying what you think, or you walking around, or you eating or sleeping, or whatever you're doing all week long, The most important thing is to actually be studying karma as it's happening right now.

[14:38]

We'll probably... all week, for all of us. And unless you're a very unusual person, you will be involved in the very process yourself. The whole week, the actual thing we're studying will be happening to you all week. So every moment this week, we can study this. We don't need... But if you do read a book, while you're reading a book, you can study it too, because while you're reading a book, you probably also will be doing the reading of the book. So, study right now. See if you can try to get a feeling for what it would mean to watch your action. That you're acting right now. And I'll try to help you get more and more familiar with how you act and what we mean by action. Okay.

[15:41]

Any questions so far? Yes? She thought I said that when you said zazen, you're not producing karma. When your zen meditation practice is mature, that practice itself is not producing karma. Okay? The zazen practice is not producing karma. You can always sort of like say, well, what we mean by zazen is not, does not produce karma, and karma doesn't produce it. Okay? However, one can be involved, a person could be involved in karmic activity, and meditating on that karmic activity is zazen.

[17:27]

The karmic activity is not zazen. This is, see my hand, see that thing that's happening there? If I think that I'm doing that, then that's what we mean by karma. If I move my hand like this, I think I intend to move my hand. That's karma. But a meditation on that is not karma. To be aware of and absorbed in the meditation on this karmic activity is not karma. That's the zazen. Pardon? In other words, do you think If you think you're doing zazen, then you're making the concept of zazen, if you think you do, and that's another kind of karma. That's not zazen. That's just a kind of karma called zazen. All right? You can catch yourself and say, oh, I've made zazen into something I'm doing. That's fine. You can do that. But being aware of that, as it's actually happening, that really is zazen.

[18:32]

The awareness, the meditation on the karma. including the kind of dreaming that we do in Zazen. Let's just read the beginning paragraph and the first section, Action is Thought-Volition. Let's read this aloud. The teaching of action forms the foundation of the whole. Ashes is the ultimate explanation of human existence in the physical world. Great glory to the Sages of Ashes. The Sages have constructed their philosophy of liberation from the world of Ashes. The Sages of Ashes have expressed in a few words what Ashes thought of Ashes. The action of the saintly thought is very unconscious, and its consequence morally quantified as true or vain.

[19:36]

I'm out. After every worldhood, one accomplishes actions by means of body, voice, and heart. You can thus say wish two or three times of action. Two actions. One wishful action. Action after action. Actions, mental action, vital reaction, vocal action. OK. So that's enough for tonight. That's just looking now at what we mean by action in Buddha's teaching. And maybe tomorrow for our blackboard, I'll draw the Chinese character. or chetana. But anyway, I left the Sanskrit in there, chetana. Action is, it says there, thought, volition, thought, volition, dash, chetana.

[20:42]

That's C-E-T-A-N-A. It's a Sanskrit word. And, uh, You could also write in there if you want, thinking. Actually, this thought will be chetana. So tonight, and I'll do this more throughout the week, probably for the rest of my life, talk about this, what is karma itself? So, um, There are many kinds of actions, but not all actions in the universe are karma. For example, what is it? You know, like, they have this thing in Asia, they have these things called, I think they're called scare deer, a deer scare.

[21:51]

Is that what you call them, scare deer? They're these things they have in gardens in Japan and China. These little bamboo tubes that open at one end and closed at the other. And they're like set in some like little stream or little sort of what we call man-made stream that runs through the garden. or maybe a little spring that overflows and drips, and the overflow drips into the open end of the bamboo. Can you picture that? So you've got a bamboo tube, and the bamboo is on a pivot. Can I use your pen for a second? So, like, a bamboo is on a pivot, like, so that, so that, how would it work? Anyway, it's like, one is up, must be up to catch some water.

[22:54]

So the water, the water fills up, starts filling the bamboo. I see what happens. The water fills the bamboo, water drips down in the bamboo, fills the bamboo from the bottom up, okay? The water fills up like this, okay? And then when it gets up here, because the water is filling the bamboo, the bamboo starts tilting this way, right? and the water pours out, okay, empties out, and then the thing falls back like that fast. Can you see that? It's like this, and it fills up, and as it fills, it tilts, and at a certain point, it drains out, but it falls back fast. So when it falls back, it goes, and it scares the deer away. you know, pop!

[23:58]

Your son went, pop! And he scares the deer, like beating them in there, whatever. Does that make sense? So that, the way that acts is not karmic. And actually a human being can act like that too, in certain circumstances. So last week I was using this example, which... This example... That's not karma. Now this may or may not be. This may be karma. Good. Now watch. See, I'm not just kidding around here. That's not karma. That's not karma.

[25:02]

This may or may not be karma. This is my moving my hand down to touch my knee. But the reflex in my knee is not karma. There's no volition in that. There's no intention in that. This is not arising from a mental act. It's arising from, I guess, touching the... or the tendon in such a way that it creates this reflex. I don't know what happens, but anyway... The reflex of the knee, the knee jerk, is not karma. It's not volition. It isn't originating the mind. And my hand moving down to touch, depending on my meditation practice, would or would not be karma. If I go to the doctor's office, the doctor taps me with a little hammer, the doctor's tapping my knee is not my karma either. and I don't know whether the doctor is thinking, I'm doing this. It may be that the doctor doesn't even get into that.

[26:04]

Maybe the doctor doesn't even karma, because they've become so intimate with the process. You wouldn't know. But that's not karma. What karma is, is fundamentally karma is, essentially, it's a mental event. It is mind-factor. And so, again, they sometimes translate it as volition and so on, thinking, will, intention, purpose, things like that. The Chinese character is nice because it has the Chinese character for this chetana. is composed of two characters. One, the top character, is a character for rice field. The bottom character is a character for mind. And the character for rice field looks a little bit like a rice field.

[27:07]

It's kind of like a square with some lines breaking it up into little sub-squares or sub-sections, like in a rice pad. or rice-bill, the way they break it up into little patties. The point is, it's a... the thinking or volition is a pattern, the shape of our mind. So, the way your mind is shaped is the... is the essential... the definition of the source of this... a phenomenon which we call action. Another way I sometimes would translate it is of your mind. If you look at your mind, you would see how your mind is, if there's any tendency in your mind.

[28:10]

Your mind seems to be intending one way or another in a given moment. We're talking about a given moment now. If there's any leaning or bias or tendency or direction in the mind, that's the cetana. Another definition of cetana that they have in some books is like cetana in a given experience which has many elements in it which determine its quality. Cetana is like the foreman of a crew. All the different elements of the mind are like workers, chaitanya is like the foreman or the straw boss of the crew of all the different elements of the mind. Except it's not . It's more like if somebody told all the workers to do such and such, and then they start moving in a certain direction.

[29:12]

would be more like the effect of the order rather than like somebody standing over there ordering. Another way to put it would be is like if you had a bunch of iron filings on a piece of paper and you put a magnet under, and then the filings start orienting in some particular way towards the magnet. That pattern of orientation would be the of those factors. of those iron filings. And by watershed, I don't know if you remember that term, but if you looked at a topographical map, the watershed of the map, or the watersheds on the map, would be if rain falls on the surface of the map, the watershed is where the water tends to collect and run. So the water falls all over the hills, equally, maybe, you could say. But then, if the hills are shaped like this, the water falls all along the hill here to this place.

[30:22]

So it sheds in this way. So the tendency of where the water runs is the watershed. In the same way, if you look at your mind, the tendency of where your mind seems to be running is the is the action. And even before you pour the water on a landscape, you can guess where the water would run. And you could test it, and gradually you could learn by studying landscapes and pouring water on them. Because if you pour, then it tends to be at one place or another. But if you rain or sprinkle water on the landscape, and you guess, I think if you sprinkle water in this landscape, the water would run that way, you could do that and say, well, sure enough, it ran that way. In the same way, if you look at your mind and study it, you can gradually learn where it's going. The tendency of a given mind.

[31:26]

And another word which sometimes has been used to translate this chaitanya or to define karma is synergy. Synergy. is, I think, I don't know how to talk about it, but it's like, it's something more than the sum total of all the elements. So, like, the synergy of this group is not less than all of us, but it's like something more than all of us. And right now, um... if someone looked at this group of people and added up all the different people, they might say, well, you've got all these people, you know, Jenny, Jenny and Martha and Breck and so on, got all these people, each one of them, you know, all their qualities, like male, female, older, younger, whatever, all the elements and all their qualities, add them all up,

[32:38]

And then would there be something more ? Yes, and what would that be? Maybe quite a few things you could think of. What more than on the sum total of all of our elements could you say? Well, the pattern room. We're sitting kind of in a square. That's more than , isn't it? Do you see? And also, we have a position. Each of us have a position. And also, we have a relative position. So you say, OK, add those in. Add those. You could say, not only are there different elements, but there are relative positions. Anything more than that? Well, in the whole group. But also, does this group look like it's going someplace? I don't see a clear direct... But if we reformed in a certain way, if we lined up in a certain way, it might look like we were going somewhere.

[33:49]

For example, if we, like, opened a door and we all sort of, like, formed a kind of, like, wedge towards the door, it could be going out the door. Or, particularly if we opened a window... and we're all sort of like jumbled up towards the window, and some of us, we're like, it looks like we're leaning into some other people, you know, towards the window, that people might say, it looks like they're heading out the window, even if we're still, not moving, right? And then, the tendency of the group seems to be out that window. The group seems to be mostly over on that side, towards that open space. Okay, did you see that? And then someone might say, and not only that, But you might say, what is the, is there some quality to the tendency they're going in? And some kind of dangerous, because they might fall out the window on the ground. So that would be like all the elements, and something more than all the elements is a tendency of all the elements, and also whether the tendency looks to be good for the health of the elements.

[34:55]

In this case, a little bit dangerous, because somebody might fall down and get hurt. In that way, your mind is like that too. Various elements of your mind having an apparent direction, and does the direction look like it's harmful or helpful? How is karma like synergy? I think one of the definitions of synergy is something more than the sum total of all the elements in some field. Like, for example, a piece of paper with iron filings on it. There's 752,000 iron filings on this piece of paper. Add them all up. the synergy is any more information besides the sum total of all the... And what the synergy could be is that they seem to be heading towards, you know, towards some kind of... They seem to be... They look like they're drawn or attracted in some direction, which you might attribute to... Say it's probably a magnet.

[36:18]

It looks like there's a magnet on here or something. ...that way. That orientation and the apparent tendency for them to be moving there, or maybe they just got moved. It looks like maybe they just got moved in that position. It doesn't look like a random thing somehow. That is the synergy of the pattern of the iron filings. And the same way the elements in your mind can have those patterns, and that pattern of synergy of your mind over and above all the different ingredients in your mind That's the definition of karma. That's also, and that's also, could be called the way you're thinking. It could be called your thinking. Or it could be called your volition or your intention. Yes? Is it the source of karma? Any thinking that's not the definition or source of karma? No. In a given moment,

[37:20]

Whatever kind of thinking is happening in your mind, that is the definition of karma at that moment. There's no thinking that couldn't be used as a definition of karma. I might say, except, what kind of thinking wouldn't be a definition of karma? Well, I just said, what did I say, Stan? I said that there's no kind of thinking that wouldn't be a reasonable definition for karma. What kind of thinking wouldn't be karma? No kind of thinking, or no thinking. Even no kind of thinking is better than no thinking. But no thinking or no kind of thinking, and no kind of thinking or no thinking, that's the kind of thinking that's not karma. That kind of thinking, that no kind of thinking, is what we call the kind of thinking that we do in Zazen.

[38:27]

That kind of thinking is the kind of thinking which liberates us. Right, it's not patterned. And what would that kind of thinking be like? Because Stan just asked me, is there any kind of thinking that wouldn't be patterned? And there's no kind of thinking that wouldn't be patterned. And any patterned thinking is a perfectly good definition of karma. So what kind of thinking would... It would be the thinking about whatever kind of thinking there is. That's the kind of thinking it would be. Study? Is that study? Yes, study. Meditation. In other words, this... Let's say I make a pattern, okay? Boom! There's a pattern. That is a pattern of my mind. Whatever pattern my mind has, that's a perfectly good stab at, or, you know, attempt at, thinking.

[39:35]

Whatever pattern your mind has, that's thinking. There's a variety, okay? And no matter what variety it is, if you want to know what the karma of the moment is, it's that shape. And those patterns come in three varieties in terms of the karma. Wholesome, unwholesome, and indeterminate. Those are the three varieties. And wholesome could also be said skillful, unskillful, and indeterminate. In other words, you can't tell whether it's skillful or not. Just like, again, we had a pattern of the people in the room. If they're all sort of like apparently in the shape which looked like someone was going to push out of the room to the window onto the street, that would be a potentially dangerous pattern. Okay? Now, if we're all sitting in another pattern in the middle of the room, and all our bodies look upright and alert, that would be kind of a healthy pattern.

[40:39]

But some other patterns, maybe, you know, some of us would be sitting here kind of slouching, and some of us might look kind of inattentive, and I say, well, I don't know if that's a healthy pattern or an unhealthy pattern. I mean, in a way, if there's an earthquake, maybe some of those people wouldn't even be able to respond, you know, or... Or maybe some people look kind of grumpy and like they're ready to punch somebody. Kind of like, oh, they're kind of happy and alert. You know, that's the way the mind looks sometimes. It has these kind of like, maybe somewhat negative states, but then some positive states, and maybe some negative states, but maybe some sort of care of those negative states. And so if you look at it all up, you think, I don't know if this is a healthy state or an unhealthy state. So anyway, if you look at the given moment, it has these three styles. Skillful, unskillful, and can't tell which. But the meditation, you see, isn't formed because whatever shape the mind has, the meditation is just about that shape. Because if you change to another form, the meditation would be that form.

[41:45]

The meditation always adapts to whatever form it is. So it's formless. But each form is the thinking. So the thinking always is what to shape for the form of the mind at the moment. That's the karma. That's the definition. That's mental karma, the shape of your mind. That's the thinking. But the meditation is just the actuality or the straightforward awareness of or study of that shape. So the meditation has no particular form. It's just whatever form there is. And in that sense, it's not thinking because thinking has a shape. But this kind of thinking, in a sense, doesn't have a shape. It's just aware of whatever shape there is. So this kind of thinking is not thinking, but it's not separate from thinking because it is about thinking.

[42:46]

So it's freedom from thinking right in the middle of the thinking. So it's the kind of thinking that a Buddha does. So a Buddha can be just a person, namely they can have karmic machinery going on, but that's not their Buddhahood. That's just their humanness. But their humanness becomes then the point of departure or freedom from humanness by that simple awareness of the nature of humanness. which is, we call that in Zen, non-thinking. And that's not karma. But it's not like, that kind of thinking is not like in another universe, from the universe of karma. That's why we have this, that's why we study karma, is you've got karma, and the practice is to bring awareness, this meditation, onto the karma, And by studying this, this meditation makes this liberated presence right in the middle of the karma.

[43:55]

Or we say, like a lotus in muddy water. But I want to be careful not to get too much into liberation before we even get caught. So we kind of have to go down in the mud of karma. And forecasting our liberation. So I'd like to postpone and make more talk about the great liberating awareness until we tune ourselves into the of karma and pain and delusion and that stuff. There seems to be, for me, there seems to be relationship

[45:07]

There seems to be a relationship between the witnessing and the thinking, could you say? A relationship? That's right. Well, they're interdependent. They're independent because there can't be an awareness of thinking if there's no thinking. Okay? But once there's awareness of thinking, thinking starts to change. So, again, I don't want to go too much into this liberating interaction. before we even can settle. But I'll say briefly that right view, the first, the beginning and end of the Buddhist path, right view is to bring, is to bring your awareness to karma, which means bring your awareness first of all to thinking.

[46:41]

Bring awareness to thinking. And also, it's not just to bring the awareness to the thinking, it is also understanding that there is thinking going on, and it does function, and it is important how this works, and it is important to understand it. So it is the actual meditation. Also, the understanding that meditation is important, and it is also understanding that there's something there to meditate on, and that the thing you're meditating on is the working of your life. All that, and much more, is the meditation. But as you start to watch how karma works, as you start to watch, your thinking will start to change. And the second... So, the beginning of the path is a cognitive awareness of how karma works. The second stage in the path is right thinking. So the first stage of the path is The second stage of the path is, after you see what's going on with your thinking, your thinking starts to change.

[47:46]

For example, once you see that thinking this way is very painful and harmful, and thinking that way is quite pleasant, developing your insight, that tends to give rise to thinking which goes in a more helpful way. which we call right intention. So as you watch and you see how clinging and ill will and harmfulness, how that works, how that kind of thinking works, and you see how renunciation and detachment and loving kindness and harmlessness, all that, you tend to start thinking more about renunciation, loving-kindness, and harmlessness.

[48:49]

So your karma starts changing as you meditate on karma and see how it works, your karma starts changing. So there is an interaction. However, even though your karma changes, it's still karma, and still bondage, because it's still basically based on the delusion that you do this, that you do that. So the definition of karma I just gave is the thinking, but that's the definition of karma. But I should also mention that that definition is then coupled with something which makes that pattern painful.

[50:04]

Can you start that one again? I don't know. I'll just do it another way. I would just define karma, right? But karma is coupled with something that makes the karmic activity painful. And what it's coupled with is ignorance. And in particular, it's ignorance of the nature of self. or to put it positively, put it positively, negatively, it is belief in an independent self which can do the actions which are defined by your thinking. So, and it's ignorance of the non-independent self which can't do the actions which are defined by your thinking.

[51:05]

So it would be good, I think it would be good, I'd like it if each of you could kind of like be able to say what I just said by the end of the week. I'd love to say it. Well, that would be nice too, but if you just say it. To learn the strange way of talk. So, the fundamental problem is... is our ignorance or our ignorance of the way we really are, which is the same as we believe in things which aren't really so. We look away from the way things really are, and in looking away we see the way things really aren't. We look away from how we dependently co-arise as an individual, We look away from the dependent core arising of our individuality and we see an isolated self.

[52:14]

We do... Our individuality doesn't... But our individuality is not isolated from the self. It's a miraculously created thing. which is the child of the universe. Synergistic. Huh? Synergistic. Synergistic. But each individual is more than the sum of its total on its parts because it depends on the entire universe. But we look away from that for various reasons, I would say. The reason why we look away from our independence is because it was reproductively advantageous to our genetic agendas to look away from our independence. That's why we were able to take over the planet.

[53:18]

Looking away from that, ignoring the way things really are, namely that we're all working together, not just with each other humans, but with all animals and plants, looking away from that interdependence, looking away from our vulnerability to all being, we form an isolated self. That isolated self then, put that in combination with our thinking, creates this dualistic And still karma can be wholesome or unwholesome, but basically the whole system keeps that dualism going, keeps that dual delusion going, and it's painful. So if we studied karma, which is the action of this individual person, we also could finally understand what the person is in the process. and overcome delusion, I mean overcome delusion and ignorance, and become free. So we have an organism which has a mind, and because it's ignorant it suffers, and in response to its suffering, it creates delusions, and in response to delusions, tries to do something to fix the suffering.

[54:43]

And it uses its thinking as a template for the actions that it concocts to cope with the suffering, which is based on its delusion. And then those actions then create more suffering, and in response to those... The interpretation of its actions is delusion, which is because we're ignoring what's going on, we create more delusions about how this pain happened, create more karma to cope with it, and the definition of karma is our thinking. So, round and round. That's the picture. Right view. Studies. the right view is, there is such a picture, there is a world where there's karma, which has results, and the results are, you can check them out, and It's good to look at it. It's another part of right view. And another part of right view is to start seeing it.

[55:48]

You can actually start to see these different kinds of karma, and then start to see the results of the karma, the consequences. Right view is developing this way. And then as right view starts to get fairly clear, and you start to see, oh, this thought works, then the thinking, which is still the thinking, which is the shape of your mind, the thinking starts to change in response to that study. The delusion is underneath. You haven't touched it. Still the fundamental ignorance is underneath all this. But as the thinking starts to change, your ability to see more and more clearly what's going on develops. You're able to look at what's happening, in other words, to stop ignoring what's happening. So the whole process here is to try to gradually

[56:52]

encourage ourselves to come back and look at what's happening, and keep looking more and more, and suddenly more and more we find that we stop ignoring what's happening, and then we overcome ignorance. So the study of karma is the beginning of us recovering from ignorance. And it's a rather... It's rough. It's rough to start looking at what we're up to and to see. And to see what we're up to. It's not that easy to watch. We're out of shape. We've been out of shape for a long time. And we see some painful stories, some embarrassing stories. It's much easier to look at other people's stories unless we're associated with those people.

[57:56]

If they're in our family, then we get embarrassed about it. But if they're not in our group, it's not so easy, not so hard to watch them do things which hurt themselves. But if we start looking at our own stuff, it's rather difficult and embarrassing. But that's what I'd like for you to start doing as soon as possible. Not to say you have no idea. If you've started, continue. If you haven't started, try and start. And, you know, I can't say too much of what I said tonight, but I don't mind saying it over and over. And now I have a little kind of like what I call a little jungle gem, which I'd like to build for you on this talk. I'm going to say some things now. You'll hear these things. Some images will probably come up in your mind.

[58:57]

This is a little picture of... but you can apply your thinking to it. And then watch your body and speech respond to your thinking about this schedule. Okay? Now watch this. I'm going to talk. You're going to start seeing pictures in time and space. And then you're going to start... body and voice and mind. You'll start to change now, response to this now. And you sort of watch yourself, plan your activity in response to all this. Okay? First of all, I want to tell you that this is a jungle gym. It's not a prison. I've described it. Now, there's a playground and stuff, but this is a playground. This is a playground to learn about karma. This is not a prison. If you don't want to swing on this jungle gym, you don't have to. I recommend it. But if you want to run off and play in the sandbox and forget about this jungle gym, it's okay. And the last jump took right in your mind right now.

[60:03]

Here it comes. So this is what you call it. We have five days coming up. They have names like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And then in that order, you can play that game, okay? We do it that way. And there's numbers, you know, to go with them, like, you know, was it 23 and so on, up to 27. And then we have this little, we have these events happening, like, in the early morning, starting in the morning, there's meditation in the zendo. And there's two periods. There's one period, and there's walking meditation, and there's another period, and there's service. And then after service, there's temple cleaning. And after that, there's delicious vegetarian breakfast.

[61:06]

7.20, basically from 7.20 until midnight. It's kind of like Denny's here. You can eat breakfast from 7 to 5 o'clock. Actually, you can start right now. There's breakfast material down there right now if you want to start breakfast. You can go down and start eating. And you can have breakfast all day long if you want. So anyway, the actual presentation by the kitchen is served at 7.20. That's available when they start clearing it away. Actually, you can even go up to 8.20 before they start clearing it. So there's breakfast served, but it's kind of like you said, it's kind of prime temperature for most people around 7.20 to 7.40. And it's a silent meal at the beginning, and then after that, it's more informal after 7.20, about 7.30 or so. Then after that, you could say that after breakfast is a break if you want to.

[62:14]

Now, some of you may have been on break all the way up to that point. It's up to you. But at 9 o'clock, things started really getting heavy here. And we have, again, another period of meditation in the meditation hall. And, again, you're welcome to come and swim on that little bar. The period of meditation there, then we'll come, then we'll walk, then we come over here at about 9.30 and have our first session discussing Kahneman rebirth. And then maybe we could have, I don't know, maybe a tea. Maybe we'll have a period of meditation, I'm not sure. We'll either have tea break or meditation, and we'll have another session. And that'll take us up to lunch. Lunch, one thing to know is that lunch is served from about 12.15 until about 12.30, 12.45.

[63:25]

Lunch is not available all day, like breakfast. It's not necessarily salad and soup in the snack area all day long. So lunch, if you want to have lunch, you should try to get it. Then another break after lunch until 2.30. At 2.30 we'll have meditation. I mean, we'll have meditation in zendo again. And then for about half an hour or so, and then we'll walk over here again for afternoon. A couple hours. And then evening meditation at 5.15. And then dinner. and a break, and then our evening session about 7.30. OK, so that's the schedule. And you can participate in whatever amount you want to there. But I would encourage you to, you know,

[64:33]

Primarily, study your actions as much as possible, no matter what you do. No matter how you negotiate these offerings, no matter what you're doing, whether you come to all of this or part of it, try to see that you're, to whatever extent, you're involved in karma. Now, maybe there will be no karma. Your life will just simply be like a knee-jerk. Okay. But if there is karma, see if you can spot it. See if you can see what kind of quality it has. And see if you can see what kind of consequences it has. The beginning of your developing right view and setting the ground for right attention. And the rest of the path. So this is our focus here. Okay? That make sense? Yes.

[65:44]

Second one? Yes. Second one would start at 5.50. Yeah. So, actually, the first period is at 5 o'clock. It's five minutes to five. So 440, 455. Try to get in there by 455 if you can. Because the period actually starts at 5. So it's good if you have your seat by that time. But you can also come in at 445. That's also fun. 545. 545, sorry. I was going to say. You can come in. I have one question. I cannot sit on a cushion anymore. There's chairs. Is it possible I have brought in a stool? Yeah, I am. Do we need to sign up for chairs? Will there be enough chairs? I think we'll be able to have enough chairs for people.

[66:49]

I think there's a way to do that. When you come in there, there's usually a The door of the meditation hall in the morning. And you could ask there if there's enough chairs. And he might say, yeah, there's enough in there. But maybe if somebody might come and say, no, they're already taken, then he'll bring you another one. Or they'll bring you another one. Our periods that we're going to be sitting alone, we're going to be sitting at 9 o'clock, pretty much just us, and at 2.30, pretty much just us. At those periods, I think you won't have any problem having chairs. But during the other periods when the regular residents are there, there might be a shortage of chairs, but we can bring more in at that time. Yes, a seating chair. There is a seating chair already at the, right?

[67:49]

Isn't there a seating chart? There is a seating chart. Yeah. So there is a seating chart which you can try to figure out what it is. Respond. But when you look, notice the karma when you look at the seating chart. Notice if there's any karma when you're looking at the seating chart. And look in your mind and see if there's what you're looking, you know, the kind of thinking that's going on when you look at the seating chart. Don't miss the opportunity to practice while you're looking at the seating chart. And if you have some reactions to the seating chart, you know, like, my God, there's no seats. That looks like a good one. Yeah, I'll go for that one, whatever. Don't forget to meditate while you're looking at the seating chart. And then go into the meditation hall, you know, and looking for your seat. Do you have a wholesome motivation there? Kind of like, I see the seat I want, and I'm going to get that seat. Or is there kind of like, you know, kind of like, that looks like a nice seat, but I really, you know, I really hope that everybody else is happy here, and if someone else wants that seat, you know, so, or, you know, what kind of... that seat?

[69:01]

Yes? Just don't take mine, baby. Get that one in your mind. Don't take mine, baby. Most of the seats are just open seating. Open seating. Now, during the 9 o'clock sitting and the 2.30 sitting, if you'd like to, we could have a silent seat. You want to know what the rule is, Gregory? Me too? Well, before I tell you, I'm going to see if you can guess what the rule is. What do you think the rule is?

[69:49]

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