There are two kinds of, in terms of the study of karma, there's two kinds of meditation practice. Now, I say in terms of karma. What I mean is, today we're talking about karma. In that context, there's two kinds of meditation practice. One you could call karmic, or worldly, and the other you could call, I don't like the term, but super mundane. of karma.

[01:02]

Two kinds of meditation. In one kind of meditation, one still is meditating based on the belief of independent existence. In the other kind, either one doesn't believe in that independence anymore, or at least at the moment, the meditation practice puts aside. The nature of the meditation practice puts aside or drops self-interest for the moment. The first kind of meditation practice could be called selfish meditation practice. The second kind of meditation is called selfless. I would call selfless meditation practice. Those are two types. In each type, there's a wide variety of meditation practices possible.

[02:10]

But from the point of view of our discussion of karma today, it's those two types. The second type is actually Buddhist meditation. Although in Buddhist texts, the first type will be taught so that people who still are involved in karma and who still believe that they independently exist have access to Buddhist practice. So in a sense, the practice you do before you're enlightened, to some extent, is this worldly, mundane, selfish meditation practice. It's something that you do. I meditate. I practice Zen. I practice mindfulness. There's that kind of practice. There's another kind of practice which is, you know,

[03:12]

It's the practice of what's happening. It's not something you do. Now, if you have completely dropped the belief that you exist independent of the rest of the world, then, quite naturally, any meditation practice involved in will be selfless because you just that's the way you understand the world is as a selfless event so your meditation practice is selfless meditation but it's possible even before you uproot your you know kind of like your your victim entrenched belief in your independent existence, even before you uproot that and completely are free of it, you can still experience and realize a meditation practice which is basically selfless.

[04:19]

Because the self maybe can't even get a hold on it. and probably a number of you greater than zero have had moments of experience in such meditation practice in your life. Quite a few women in the room, and I would guess that some of the women in the room, while they were delivering their children, some they experienced selfless meditation there was a moment there probably at some point and then several moments where there was just the birth process and that was it it was a such an expression of life that the self sort of couldn't take credit for it for a little while.

[05:28]

Couldn't think in terms of, I'm doing this delivery process. And meditation on karma the awareness, the simple awareness of this process of somebody who thinks she is doing this or somebody who thinks she is meditating. Meditation is something she does, but the simple awareness of that approach and seeing, oh, this is a karmic approach. She thinks she's meditating. That awareness itself is selfless or can be. Of course, you can co-opt that awareness too and say, I'm doing the awareness of me but it can just be simply aware that you're up to such and such a karma. That also, that practice is, in a sense, is selfless.

[06:33]

So study of karma is not necessarily karma. So you can immediately start doing a meditation practice which is not more karma, but is actually learning about karma. Learning about karma doesn't have to be more karma. You do not have to think of that as something you do. And in fact, it can be that way. In a way, you're completely free of your of the long-standing human entrenched belief in independent existence even before that whenever you fully express yourself yourself whenever you fully express yourself expression is a moment of selflessness because the self is always wants to be like, you know, negotiating and monitoring and making sure that your expression is going to be, you know, okay or not.

[07:36]

You have an ego there which is always like trying to check to make sure that what you're doing is going to work out okay for this imagined independent self. But when you fully express yourself, the ego is not there and saying, well, I wonder if this is okay or not. I wonder if this is going to work out all right or not. I wonder what effect this is going to have. So I was talking to some people during the lunch break about this, that this is part of the, it's kind of ironic, this quality, that full expression is not karma. Full expression is non-manipulative. And I used the example of like listening to someone

[08:45]

Sometimes I've talked to someone whose son went to talk last night and I didn't know whether he was paying attention or not. Turns out he was, but I couldn't tell. If you're really listening to somebody, you're listening. You might be listening to somebody like you never listened to anybody before. Your whole being is just an ear, and there's not even anybody there listening. It's just total listening. And you might look like you're totally disappeared, He might be like, you know, looking out the window and shaking or something. Who knows what you look like? You're not into what you look like. You're into listening. And your body does whatever, you know. It's like the body kind of goes, I don't know what. I don't know what it would do. That's not the point. You're not maneuvering anymore. You're just like total listening. And there's this guy who made this movie. It's called The Thin Blue Lines. You ever hear of that movie? Anyway, it's a movie where this guy interviewed various individuals who were involved in a murder that occurred in Texas.

[09:59]

And it's a fascinating film. But I read an article in New Yorker about this guy, he makes documentaries, the guy who made this movie, and he interviews people. So he's interviewing them, he has a camera on them, and he finds that if you feed narcissistic tendencies while you're interviewing them, some people get so, you know, brought up by this narcissistic feeding frenzy that they start telling you the truth. They get so excited about getting so much attention from the interviewer that they actually start saying the truth. And he actually got this guy. He interviewed this guy in this movie and got this guy who did the murder to confess during the film. And this other guy who didn't kill him, who didn't commit the murder, was actually in prison for the murder that this other guy had committed.

[11:06]

And he got the real murder to confess in this movie because he fed him so well, so overabundantly. He fed his so abundantly, the guy basically confessed. When the government officials heard about this film, they said they could see it, but they said, and there was more data in the film besides that. You got other people to tell the truth too. You've got other witnesses to tell the truth in the film. ...showed, got a bunch of people who had been lying to tell the truth on the film, regular commercial film, commercial documentary. And when the government officials saw this, the law enforcement people, they said, we can't like reverse this decision based on a movie. But you know, they finally did. They finally realized that they had to recognize this, even though they didn't usually do it. And the guy got released from prison on the basis of this film.

[12:07]

this film showed that various other kinds of evidence had been withheld and stuff like that and various other people had lied about various things and so on and so forth the film and the legal process did whatever it had to do and released the guy from prison the other guy who was the actual murderer and so on and so forth who confessed during this film was in prison for some other murders anyway so it didn't make much difference to him but Anyway, the interviewer said that when you're interviewing people, if you want to give them the impression that you're listening, you shouldn't necessarily be listening. The way you would look if you were listening does not necessarily seem to them to look like you're listening, so you should stop listening to them and make the face that looks like you're listening. The reporter and the camera will get what they said, and you don't have to hear it. All you have to do is look like you're listening, and then they'll tell you the truth. In other words, if he was fully expressing himself, he would say, you know, I'm looking like I'm listening to you, but I'm not really.

[13:19]

I'm just trying to get you. Tell me the truth. So I'm going to look at you in a way that will make you feel comfortable and you'll start spilling the beans to me. That would be full self-expression probably. But then the guy wouldn't tell you. Right? And if you actually like just plain listening to him, also not trying to manipulate him or get him to tell you the truth, but you actually just listen to him, he might not think you're listening to him. Now some people... When they listen to you, they look like they're listening to you. But a lot of people, I think, wouldn't necessarily look like they're listening to you when they really were. And sometimes I, when I really want to listen to people, sometimes I tell them, I'm going to go into a, I'm going to make a face now. Because I really want to listen to you. And if I make this face, I can hear you better. But that does not mean I'm a sleeper. I really want to hear this. And when I tell them that beforehand, they aren't shocked by the face they see, and then they keep talking.

[14:19]

Again, if you fully express yourself, you put aside your manipulation agenda and just express. And that's not karma. You do not do full expression. You can't do full expression, because if you... you're not fully there. When you fully express, you put aside the monitoring ego, the acting power, and just express. So when you do meditation, sort of the prototypic Zen meditation, which we call just sitting, that means you completely I say you are just sitting, but it's not something you do. It's like full self-expression and you're so fully doing it, you can't be outside it and it's not karma. And when you're fully aware of what you're doing, that awareness of what you're doing is so involved in karma. Somebody's like very busy, but the awareness of that is not doing anything.

[15:27]

that meditation on this person who's on this trip can be liberating. And then, liberating means you actually become free of the basis for karma. So then you get transformed, actually, and you're not even doing any karma anymore. But you can do non-karmic meditation while you're doing karma, or while you're doing karmic meditation. So you don't have to wait to be enlightened before you start doing you know, actually enlightening meditation. This is kind of hard to understand, but I thought I might mention that. Does this make sense to you? It's a surprising idea to people that expression is non-manipulative. Now, you could say, well, how about if I wanted to manipulate? could try to manipulate be a full expression.

[16:37]

It's hard for me to imagine that it could be. I have trouble seeing how it could be. Like if I say to you, I would like to manipulate you. I would like to get you to do such and such. I want you to do such and such. I want you to do this. I want you to walk across the room. And I tell you that. But that isn't necessarily going to get you to walk across the room. That's full self-expression. I really want you to do that. But it doesn't necessarily get you to go across the room. And I want you to know that I want you to do that. I want to let you know this is how I'm feeling. I want you to walk across the room. That's not particularly manipulative. I mean, it's not manipulative. I'm not telling you that to get you to walk across the room. I'm not going to tell you anything about myself or show it at all. And if I want to hurt you,

[17:47]

To tell you that I want to hurt you is not necessarily going to hurt you. It might be better to sort of keep it to myself and look for the opportunity to hurt you. And even then, even if I hurt you, I still might not fully express my feeling of wanting to hurt you. Even though I'm successful at hurting you, I still may be unsatisfied That if I wanted to hurt you, I feel I want to hurt you. And if I just fully express that, it might be all over. It's possible. It's possible since most desire to hurt people comes from lack of full self-expression. Lack of full self-expression keeps us trapped in a prison of self. Full self-expression liberates us, because when you fully express yourself, you can become free of yourself. If you don't fully express yourself, you can't see yourself, and if you can't see yourself, you can't become free of yourself.

[18:57]

This is a principle about studying the fundamental Basically, one of the fundamental criteria for karma is this belief in self, that you can't become free of that if you don't get yourself out in front of you, and you can't get yourself out in front of you if half yourself's hiding back in you. But if you're concerned for yourself, it's hard to express yourself fully, because what will happen to you if you express yourself fully? You might get in big trouble for it. So we have to, and you might, you might get in big trouble for it. So we have to try to gradually figure out a situation where we can somehow safely fully express ourselves. Some people will, it's possible some people will hurt us. if we fully express ourselves. People often get angry when they see someone fully express themselves because they want to do it too, but they don't dare.

[20:06]

So they sometimes punish you for doing it because they feel jealous that you can do it and they can't. So you need to deal with people, I think not need to, but it's safer to start with people who are people who love you. and who won't use your full self-expression against you, won't use your revealing yourself to them against you. Or people who, if they do use it against you, I don't want you to use that against me. Don't do that again. When I show you myself, don't use my openness with you against me. I don't want you to do that. develop a relationship where you can express yourself fully. You don't need somebody else around to do it necessarily. You can do it alone. In your own heart you can say, I really want to do this or I really want to do that.

[21:09]

So again, this is part about how you study the self, is through full self-expression. You can't learn who you are and you can't study yourself and see what you are and become free of who you think you are if you don't show yourself to yourself. And you can't see yourself if you're holding back alone and interpersonally. So I would guess this is surprising or difficult to understand, so if you have some questions about that, you can bring them up now if you like. Yes? If you fully express your rage and you kiss someone, it doesn't have public consequences? Is it the real consequences? Fully, you know, fully expressing yourself in, you know, you say rage, but you have this impulse to kill, you want to kill someone, okay, you're thinking of killing someone, and then you think, and then you think full expression, full expression is to kill them.

[22:17]

No, not necessarily. Impulse to kill, okay, full expression might be, I have the impulse, I have the impulse to kill so-and-so. Well, you didn't fully express yourself then. Okay? Maybe I should start with the murder in the first place, okay? If you are killing someone, if you're in the process of treating someone in such a way that they might die, and let's say that they do die, your interaction with them is so violent Okay? And that in the process of doing that you fully express yourself. Okay? You could be liberated at that moment of murdering them. Okay? And it wouldn't be karma. But is it possible to be and be fully present and fully expressing yourself?

[23:24]

Is that possible? Do you have the meditative ability to be completely present, completely loving, completely mindful, completely balanced, and be violent towards another living being? I think it's very, very unlikely that you could really completely be there, completely loving to yourself, and therefore to the other person, and somehow be that violent. I'm talking about a situation where you're already in the act. The act's already happened. Let's not talk about leading up to it, but the act itself. But if you could be that present, that selfless, and that happened, there would not be any self doing it. It would not be murder, and it would be liberating. And the example that comes to my mind was if you, I don't know what, if you fell off of a ladder and fell down on somebody and hit them violently,

[24:34]

That would be an interaction between you and someone else that would be a full experience. And if you were present for that, you would be liberated right at that moment, and they would die. But you would not be... And you could be liberated. Now, if you fell off a ladder and fell on someone and hurt them or killed them, and you weren't present, you wouldn't be liberated by that. Because you could be self... All the way down, you'd be concerned, am I going to get hurt now? Or am I going to hurt them? You know, am I going to get in trouble for this? If they die, will I be, you know, all that kind of thing. Or, you know, going down and I would like to hurt them. This is not it either. So I'm saying, yeah, but it's very unlikely that you could have the thought, I'm going to kill them. And I want to kill them and I am going to kill them and somehow do that fully and still hold on to yourself and have it be a karmic act. And take a step back from that where you hate somebody.

[25:45]

If you fully express that hate, your self drops away. And it just becomes the pure, the complete expression of hatred. But then it's not a self behind it. And there's no tendency to want to hurt. It's just an expression of rage. And such a rage is very similar to a volcano, or what do you call it, a forest fire or whatever. In the full expression, you drop away from the situation. Your rage is emptied of self, and it probably wouldn't hurt anybody. As a matter of fact, the people who are receiving your rage, if it was directed towards some individual, you're saying, I don't like what you're doing, or I would like to kill you, you know, whatever like that.

[26:47]

In that full self-expression, there's no I there anymore. Because the I that would say that is not protecting herself anymore. She's not trying to get anything. She's totally vulnerable. She's not even concerned with herself anymore. So there's no self-clinging. And the person you're talking to might be very, very educated by what you say to them. It might be very helpful to them to see somebody who's expressing rage, but there's no... Like Manjushri. Like what we call wrathful deities. They're helpful. They're not like a person over there who's on some trip to do something to us. They're a deity. They're a divine expression of terrific. They sometimes say wrathful, but in other words, deities. Deities of terror. They're terrifying us. They're kind of like, wake up! But if there's a self there that's doing this harsh, terrifying thing, well, then it's not full self-expression.

[27:56]

Full self-expression, the self is thrown into the expression. It's over, outside, pushing it. Even if it's rage. And without the intention of harm? Definitely without the intention of harm, but if there is the intention of harm, then it's another one. I want to harm you. I feel the impulse to harm you. But for me to completely tell you that means in some sense I love you. If I want to harm you, I'm not going to tell you I want to harm you with my whole heart. If I want to harm you, I'm going to hold back and be quiet. If you're a warrior and you want to hurt somebody, you don't show them what's going on with you. You want to kill somebody, you don't show them beforehand. You just play it cool. You don't tell them anything. And then... At the right moment, when you won't get hurt, and nobody's watching, stick it in.

[29:00]

No self-expression. Nobody even knows you did it. don't get much kick out of it, except you hurt him. And you don't learn much about yourself either because you can't even enjoy it and say, boy, that was good, you see that? No. It's an evil deed. You hurt the person, but you don't even know who did it.

[29:25]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_86.15