Maybe you might also try, at least for a little while, changing it to, may I be intimate with fear, affliction, anger, and anxiety. Because as Bhastia is saying, if you say, free from, you say, may I be free from, maybe a little bit slip into pushing it away a little bit, which isn't really the point. That's not freedom. Intimate with affliction, intimate with anger, Again, I think anger in the context of love is intimacy with the anger.

[01:09]

Intimacy with the anger, the anger won't be destructive. But if the anger is a little ways away, it can be more destructive. As I often say, although I haven't tested it, If you're in the backseat of a Volkswagen with a tiger, you're probably okay. If you're in the backseat of a Volkswagen, it's a Volkswagen bug, not a station wagon, with a tiger, you're probably okay. Tiger probably won't do anything to you. You say, are you sure it won't just sort of lean over and take a little nip? I think if you're really close to the tiger, you're pretty safe. But if you get two feet away from the tiger, I think you're more dangerous. And if you're like six feet away from the tiger, you're really in trouble. You try to run away from it, turn your back on it at about six feet.

[02:17]

Actually, Try it out. See if you can get close to these things, these phenomena, really close, without sticking your head in them. Not indulging in them, but not really intimate. See if that's almost like freedom. I think it is. Yes? Doesn't mean not to have it. Yeah. Not that you don't have it. It's that you're free of it. You know, I actually, when I see somebody who's anxious and that knows that they're anxious, I feel pretty good about them. Somebody who's afraid and knows they're afraid, I feel they're in pretty good shape.

[03:25]

People come and say, I'm afraid. They're not only afraid, they're not only aware that they're afraid, but they're even courageous enough to admit that they're afraid. So they're pretty, they're pretty, they're working well with their fear. So many people are afraid. One of the first books on spiritual life I read was by Krishnamurti. And the first book I read by him on the first page, it said something like, everywhere you go, all over the world, they are all the same. They are all, I turned the page, you know, what did I expect him to say? And he surprised me. He said, they're all afraid. I don't know if that's true, that they're all afraid, but I think it's a very pervasive thing that we're afraid. I think it's even more that we're anxious. People who can't face their anxiety are afraid, and that's most people are working with fear and anxiety.

[04:30]

But very few people actually know that they're afraid. The average person on the street is afraid. from my experience. So when a person knows they're afraid, I think you've got a person who's closer to being free of it and also less dangerous than a person who's afraid and does nothing. Was there a hand there? Yes. I'm talking about being a little bit afraid all the time rather than occasionally being like sweating, trembling fear, which happens once in a while. You know, like paralyzed fear. I'm talking about being a little bit afraid and a little bit anxious all the time.

[05:34]

and talking about two levels of anxiety one level of anxiety another level of anxiety is where you're worried about there being something in the world you know, that there'd be something at least even if I'm not around, that there would be something that there would be a universe you know, that where things actually like existed I would, you know that there's nothing And it's not really true that there is nothing. We're afraid that there's nothing. And it's not really true that we're not here. We're just afraid we won't be here. We are here, we're just not here the way we think we are. And there is a world, it's just not the way we think it is. And we're afraid that the world as we think it is, think we are. What we're worried about, we feel endangered. Yes? Where is the what?

[06:43]

Do habits never change? They do change. Well, I didn't maybe say it this much today. You weren't here last night, right? Well, I mentioned quite a bit last night and not so much today. You're saying, when does the peace and joy kick in? and the joy, the love is already happening. The love is already happening. That's actually going through you right now. You're giving love and receiving love with everybody right now. When does it kick in that you get the picture? When do you understand that? Yeah, when do you understand that? Well, it seems like you understand that when you when you think about that and talk about that enough so that you start feeling comfortable enough that you would dare to like accept that and open up to that yeah and you just need to you need to like if it's you need to like what do you call it really be patient with whatever

[08:39]

You know? You may be like, you know, like you may feel like, I want to really like, you know, test this reality to the limit before I'm going to fall for it. You know? Some other people maybe have pushed it so far, just like some kids push their parents really far to see if they'll love them no matter what. And you may want to really, really before you let go and see what happens after you let go. You may have to really make yourself feel very, very, very, very safe before you can like let go and feel even safer so we kind of like warm ourselves up to the safe to the sense of safety and peace and being loved and then we can let go even more but you can hold on while you're still holding on about loving yourself and you actually can love yourself

[10:06]

and love yourself, [...] and talk about loving yourself, but that still may be prior to when you feel like other people are loving you. ...loving you, you just can't see it because you're not loving yourself enough and you're not loving them enough. I say it again. If I don't love myself in a steady way, and I don't love you in a steady way, then it's hard for me to accept that you love me in a steady way. If I do it once in a while, that's good. But if I take breaks, then maybe you take breaks. Now, we know some people love us sometimes, but are they steady in that love? We're not sure. And we don't want to, like, get into a thing where they're going to love us for a little while and then stop. College, you know, college people come from all over the country, right? So I remember one time I met a girl and I asked her out, but I asked her, you know, if she was going to leave town in the summer.

[11:14]

I didn't want to, like, leave town. Like, then here I am, like, you know. But that was because I was a steady in loving myself and loving other beings. My sense of their love or my sense of their comings and goings in love, that makes a big difference to me. When I'm steady in my love to myself and to you, I feel your steadiness and your love to me. When I'm steady in my love to myself and to you, then I let go from all directions. But until I'm steady, It's pretty dangerous for me to take a chance because we're taking a chance on something really important. Am I, like, going to give myself to everybody before they give themselves to me? Yes.

[12:17]

I'm going to give my love to everybody before I see. I take it back. Am I going to give myself to everybody before they give themselves to me? No. Am I going to give myself to everybody before I see that they're giving themselves to me? Yes. If I'm stingy with you, I think in some cases you're stingy with me. So I practice being generous more and more, and when I'm steady and even and constant in my generosity, then I'm set. I've done my part. And I just keep it up, which is actually quite joyful. But the other side is the part that matches it. It's been supporting me the whole time, and never wasn't, and always will. I need to see that part too. But I have to do my part first. You can't get other people to do it. Now, there can be breakthroughs where somebody just comes and crushes you with some gift, you know, and just makes you see, oh, I guess I was wrong. Loving me.

[13:21]

Like the story of Michael Wise and Larry Trapp. But before he could realize everybody loved him, he had to, like, give back, I say. But I think he did start giving back. Michael Wise got through to him and he started being generous. So I think all of you... Now it's a question of continuity. Continuity in your practice. And this practice can be done 24 hours a day. Now, in very, very deep sleep, you know, you can't really do it then. So even when you're like really unconscious, you're not contradicting the love that's going on in fact everybody supporting you through your deep sleep you don't die you're being supported right through that and you're supporting everybody else while you're unconscious if you go into the unconsciousness with the continuity of your love when you come out it continues if you're shaky when you go in when you come out it'll be shaky you don't improve

[14:33]

on vacation but in dreams you can start noticing yourself loving in your dreams so when you are conscious you can start noticing that you're loving more and more continuously and it is possible to be continuous in it because this kind of work is joyful when you're doing it right it's not a burden it's joyful you know your energy is not getting drained You're loving in a way that doesn't drain you, because you're loving not expecting something to go a certain way. If you expect a certain result rather than loving what's happening, then you get tired, and then you're going to have breaks in your mind. If you're doing it right, you're not expecting anything. You're loving yourself without necessarily yourself saying thank you. You're loving yourself and loving yourself not knowing how long it's going to take before you believe you really do love yourself.

[15:37]

You're loving others before you take them to believe that you love them. And you don't know how long it's going to take before you understand that they're loving you back all the time. You do this without some gaining idea, without some expectation, and because you do it that way, you don't get tired. So you can do it all day. It really is uplifting. If you have an expectation that you're going to get tired, you're going to have to take a break, even while you're awake. Beverly? Okay, let me respond to your question in two levels. Respect means literally, etymologically, respect means look again.

[16:59]

Respect. Respectate. Respectorum. Okay? It means look again. If you can't respect somebody, that means that you're refusing to take another look. That's pretty rigid, you know? Can't you take another look? Can't you say, okay, they're such and such, but I'm going to take another look. Okay, I think they're such and such. Now let's take another look. Are they really that way? Are you sure they're that way? Respect means give them the benefit of another look. Can't you give that to the person? That's actually. Just give them another chance. Give them another perspective. One more look. All right? No matter who they are, no matter what they are, give them another look. Like, you know, in our legal system, you know, they have, like, murderers up there or, you know, whatever. People that are accused of being murderers, I mean, they'll call him, you know, Mr. Johnson or something.

[18:03]

Sometimes they slip and say, Johnson. But sometimes they say, Mr. Johnson. I think, gee, that's really nice that they're calling this person, that the prosecutor is calling this person who he has told people he thinks has done this murder, he's calling him Mr. So-and-so. Now, is the prosecutor taking another look like maybe this person really isn't guilty of this? Maybe not, but anyway. Just respect is really kind of an amazing thing, and I think you can practice respect in that way. Now, is there another aspect of your question that we want to bring up now? Excuse me. You look at the person and you see them as, you know, so-called murderer, okay? Or cruel person, right? Or lazy person. Zen student, okay? Or not excellent Zen student. You look at them.

[19:05]

Now, if I look at somebody and I think they're not an excellent Zen student, does that mean they don't even deserve me to take another look? It doesn't matter what they are. They get another look. It's not that I respect what they are. It's that I give them an Now you say, what if I look another time and I see there what I thought the first time? Then you said they don't deserve respect. In other words, they don't deserve another look. They just get a second one. You don't get a third. Right? This is over. No, I thought you were such and such. I gave you another look. I found out I was right. And that's over now. Now that's it. Right? What about if they're great? What about if they're a wonderful, the greatest Zen student of all time, right? Should you give them another look? Or if it's positive, then you don't give them another look? Why not? Why not even give people you think, take another look at them? Do you do that? So if they're good, you don't need, they don't need another look.

[20:14]

You just sort of assume they're continuing to be good. No, I think respect is like, even somebody you like, you give them another look. In other words, I don't relegate you to my perception of you. I think you're cute, but I'll give you another look, and I see, actually, you're not just cute. You're also, you know, whatever the next thing is. Angry, hurt. But if I see he's angry or hurt, I don't just let it go at that. I take another look. In other words, you keep perceiving the person. You keep looking at them. You keep experiencing. You don't say, I'm done with you. I've got you categorized. That's it. You are my perception of you. It's all over. That's disrespect. Think that the person is what you perceive them to be. Now, it isn't that your perception is wrong. It's just give them another one. That's an act of generosity. Give them another look. Look at them again and [...] again. Keep loving them.

[21:16]

No matter who they are, keep giving them new perceptions. This is love and this will help the whole world. It will help them, it will help you. How good or bad they are is not the issue. Respect yourself. Respect yourself. Respect yourself. Look at yourself again and again. Do you have a perception of yourself? Look again. Do you have a perception of yourself? Look again. Do you have new perceptions of yourself? What are they? John, way in the back. By the way, why... Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. In regards to the respect and also the self-indulgence, I wonder at what point did the self-indulgence seem to slip into maybe like self-indulgence?

[22:30]

Well, one place it slipped into self-indulgence is when you do it as a separate person. Rather than just sending the love toward yourself, you send your love toward yourself cut off from other people and other things. That's self-indulgent. And also it would be self-indulgent when you've had enough and you don't turn it around and give it to others. It would be self-indulgent when you wouldn't notice that you're happy. You've had enough And you're not paying attention anymore. That would also be self-indulgence. You're not noticing that you're feeling good towards others. So self-indulgence would be inattentiveness to this process. Inattentiveness to the process of loving yourself. That would be self-indulgence. Becoming, you know, too narrow would be self-indulgence.

[23:36]

Becoming too narrow in the way would be self-indulgence. becoming too narrow in the way you love other people is self-indulgent. They say, no, love me this way. Love me that way. Love me that way, love me that way. Sure, fine. Does that make any sense? Any people that I haven't called on their duty? If I am steady in my love for self, then how I see that is, I can see everyone's actions as their true actions. But I don't equate that with constant love coming forth.

[24:42]

Can I say something right there? You said, if I love the self, then I see others' actions as their true actions? I don't follow that. Because, in other words, what I think, if I love the self, I see... has my perception of their actions. I don't see their actions. I see my perceptions. I can't see your actions. I can only see my perception of your actions. Your actions, everybody's actions are actually far beyond my perception. Your activity is something that might capture. I propose that to you. I'm stuck in this limited, you know, view box where I deal with you in terms of I have perceptions about you. I also have feelings and so on about you, but I have perceptions that my feelings are related to. So I can be loving myself, I can be loving this self, and still have perceptions of you. But if I love you, I say that changes the way I relate to my perceptions of you.

[25:47]

If I love you, I'm not so attached to my perceptions of you as reality. If I love you, I'm not so attached to my perceptions of you as reality. I still have the question, even if I come out of my face, then when you say that you, if you have that anchoring in the self-love, that you then can feel a constant love that is always around, in all directions. And that's where I have... I don't quite get it. I said... I said not only grounded in self-love, but so thoroughly love yourself. What does it say? He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.

[26:51]

Okay? When you really love yourself, you naturally love others. When you really love others, then... everybody there's no exceptions then you can't help but notice that the love's coming back to you from all directions i would say that at least try it out spend a life trying out you know spend the rest of your life testing that hypothesis basically if you watch if you give yourself to yourself and you'll see that they're giving themselves to you that's what i'm saying not just to yourself oh so then you're saying that um Yes. They're giving themselves to you. They're giving you life. Everybody's appearing in the world. That's what gives you life. If you give yourself to others... then you can see they're giving themselves to you.

[27:52]

And in fact, you are giving yourself to others. You're part of what gives life to everybody, and each person's part of what gives life to you. If you join that vision, you join that world of enlightenment where everybody's supporting you, everybody's loving you in their irritating ways, What's your name again, Ann? Elizabeth. Elizabeth, that's right. I have a question about fear. Fear. When I'm on an airplane and there's turbulence, I get scared. Yes. And so I sit with the fear, and I listen to the fear, and I watch the fear, and I'm like that. But then I know there's a great turbulence. Yes. And my body sort of starts getting really frightened. Yes. By itself. Yeah, I know. And I... I'm not sure how... So I watched the fear there, too, in the body, but it seemed almost like two different powers, two different... The body and the what?

[28:59]

The fright in my mind. Right. Well, what I'm proposing for you to consider is that if you get good enough with this loving-kindness meditation, that you can continue that meditation while your body is... getting tossed around in the air. Your body will definitely give off strong messages to that thing. It's built to give off strong signals when you get thrown around like that. And the signals it sends off are not signals like, you know, relax, eat more. No, the body sends out distress signals at that time. So, you practice loving-kindness in the midst of the distress signals. We don't know whether we're in the next distress or not. We may, we may not.

[30:03]

The question is, are we practicing loving-kindness through our various distresses? If we are, then it is possible that in the distress you will practice loving-kindness toward yourself and others in the distress Love of the universe coming to you while you're in distress, while your body's in distress. So even if the situation works out that we're distressed by, you know, the activity of airplanes that we're inside of, cars we're inside of, conversations that we're in the middle of, a body that's sick or whatever, that we continue to practice loving-kindness, and we still understand that no matter what's happening, we are loving everyone and everyone's loving us. And we are happy, we are joyful, under all circumstances.

[31:04]

This is Buddha. We are always aware of the wholeness of our life, of the interconnectedness of our life. and we develop it in every situation, and then new situations come, like airplanes doing strange things, meeting up their kids nearby us, illness, various things come to test to see if now can we continue the practice of loving-kindness even through that. Can we continue to feel that the world is giving us love even in this distressed situation? where the body is, you know, exuding all kinds of hormones and stuff, which seem quite appropriate. Because, you know, you may have to get out of that airplane and perform some superhuman feat, which would be good because it's good if you survive this thing if you can, because you're a little Buddha. We want you to survive as long as possible. You may not be able to, but you'll die happy and peaceful and safe

[32:08]

your spirit will die happily, even though your body's freaking. But the body will also, usually, people have reported, towards the end, don't worry. But if your body comes down towards the end, which it does, and you don't trust the world to love it, then you don't trust that it loves you. And then you don't die happily, even though your body's cooled out and giving you... That's what I think. That's what seems to me as the truth. What do you think? What's your name? Penny. Penny. Yes. That's right.

[33:13]

The times you need it most is the times you forget. That's right. You just keep practicing and then in the times that you need it most, which is the times you won't be those times anymore because you won't forget. But of course the times you need it most is when you forget because you forgot. It's not really that situation that you need it most.

[34:14]

The reason why you need it most is because you forgot it. So I have quite a different reaction. I tend to... Some people forget it in the big situations. Some people forget it in the little situations. I'm the type that forgets it in the little situations. When I'm in a fight with my wife, I usually remember it. You know, I kind of, oh, I get it. I get it. This is like time to practice. Not kid stuff anymore. This is like, you know, life and death. But I often say the time when I don't do it is like, you know, calling information, you know? Or MCI operators, you know? Not the time when I have to practice it, right? Like, I do think I have to practice it when they call for donations, right? But you don't have to practice it when a chronicle calls. Right?

[35:15]

It's those little ones that I have trouble with. That's when I... And you can get hurt. You can really get hurt when the long-distance operator doesn't do what you want. Because it's not so much that they hurt you so much, it's that you feel so humiliated that that can hurt you. I'm so petty here, I've been practicing so long, and I'm bothered by this kind of thing. You know? How petty I am. You can feel like you can really be hurt by being bothered by a little thing. But some big problem with the kids in school and stuff like that, at least if you've got a problem, you can at least say, well, this is a big problem, so, you know, I'm not bothered that I'm bothered. So the point is that You've got to practice as much as you can and extend it as far as you can. And when you reach the place where you forget, then you say, and see what happens when I forget? And use that forgetting and recognizing and say, I forgot there. And that recognizing that you forgot as a forgetting, that one more dull turn there.

[36:22]

You missed the chance, but when you recognize you missed it, you're back on track. And you're convinced again, yeah, that would have been good if I was on the ball in that time. That would have been helpful, but I forgot. I flinched. I got scared, and I didn't stay with my fear. I didn't say, okay, here comes fear. We're going to stay right with it. Now I'm not going to let the fear get us off. We're going to stay with the fear. Okay, yeah, good. I'm with, okay. Now I can practice loving kindness. You can't practice loving kindness when you're afraid if you're not with your fear. It doesn't count. Because you're practicing loving kindness. You're afraid. You've got to practice loving kindness with this fear person. So you've got to be with the fear. Then you bring the loving kindness. It's really for yourself. If you've betrayed yourself already, then loving kindness is irrelevant. Because you're practicing loving kindness to somebody else. Because you're not that person who's not afraid.

[37:23]

You're the frightened person. Love has to do with actuality, not what you can use. Love is in the realm of what's happening, not what you can control. We want to practice it, you know, in a situation where we can do it, where we can have some effect or something, but actually it's supposed to be practiced with what's happening. Like that Mutt & Jeff cartoon. You know that one? The mutton Jeff, you know mutton Jeff? Tall guy and a little short guy. They're standing under a street light and a policeman comes over and says, what are you doing boys? And we're saying, we're looking for Jeff's, for Mutt's watch. The policeman says, did you lose it here? And he said, no, we lost it up the street, but the light's better here. So we want to practice loving kindness, you know, under the street light rather than up the street in the dark where we are.

[38:27]

or vice versa, you know. We want to do it someplace else. Well, no. You've got to do it on yourself. You've got to start where you are. And it turns out to do it, but that's where it really does the work. That's where it really transforms your life because you're doing it with your life, not with the, you know, ghost of your life. but it's hard to be there in the first place. That's the hard part. But being in the first place is the first and final step of love, is to be what you are. Then deepen it. Make yourself more and more willing to be there and appreciate it, and then give it to others so the anxious people can be anxious. Yeah, come on, anxious person, be anxious. I don't know. Yes? Yes. Well, to practice loving-kindness in a middle of argument, you might not be able to say, may I be happy, may I be peaceful, may I be light, may he be happy, may he be peaceful, may he be light.

[40:06]

In the middle of a fight, you're saying other words. So you can't say those words anymore. That's why you have to be practicing before the fight. So the may I be happy, may I be at peace, Light is already in your body. So then when you meet him, that's the context. May he be happy. May he be peaceful. May he be safe. May he be safe. Especially may he be safe. Because I'm going to tell him something now. And I want him to survive. I want him to be able to hear this. So you deeply in your body, you want this person safe. Because this is your partner, you know. You want to work on this until you get it done. So may he be safe. And I have something to say to you. I'm really angry at you. But it's not to hurt him. It's to express yourself. To give him a sense of who his wife is. In the context of, boy, I hope you can take this. I hope, you know, I hope you're a big enough boy to take this.

[41:08]

Are you ready for this, sweetheart? You know, here it is. It's in that context. So you have to be like ongoingly loving him. based on ongoing and feeling like you have a gift to give and when sometimes it gets really strong you can't be saying loving kindness meditation when other words are happening so it has to be more internalized to carry it through the fight and some people they really do love us Don't forget they love us even though they're screaming at us. They never lose track of that. They never say, okay, now I'm mad at you and also we're done. No, they're hanging in there and this is just that they're mad now. They don't like what we just did. It's not the end of the game. Love the person enough, you're not really ready to fight in some ways. So, that's too bad. So, love them more and...

[42:09]

Start fighting if it's helpful. That's why you have to practice this so it's basically in your body. It's still good when nothing else is happening, but even in silence, when you sit still and really accept your body and mind as it is, you're saying basically, I love this body. I hope this body is happy because this is the work that I have to do. I have to be this body. have to be these feelings, have to be these opinions, completely. That's the fundamental act of love, which we call just sitting. So it's what do you call it? It's manja manja time. for somebody else's betrayal of you to hurt you if you don't betray yourself.

[43:33]

If you betray yourself that's the main one. That's the main betrayal. Once you betray yourself then you're very sensitive to anybody else betraying you. If you don't betray yourself you're pretty safe Can I trust myself not to betray myself again? And how would you be able to trust yourself not to betray yourself again? What does it take not to betray yourself? And looking more deeply before you commit?

[44:35]

What? Taking a little more time before you respond. And when you take more time before you respond, then what? But what is the betrayal? What is betraying yourself? How can you betray yourself? Okay, not loving yourself. Dishonesty. Dishonesty. What kind of dishonesty? The dishonesty of not paying attention to what shows up in front, that it's... The dishonesty about not paying attention, that's similar to what you were saying, to stop and look before you respond. So part of the dishonesty is you're not looking at yourself. And then? The dishonesty of trying to get away from it. Get away from it?

[45:37]

What's it? Whatever is a horizon that you don't want to face. Whatever is a horizon that you don't want to face? You want to get away from it? And why might you want to get away from it? Is it scary? It's too hard to stay in it. Like, for example? You want me to give you an example? No, of something that you're... Let's say you've noticed it a little bit, or barely, and you say it's scary. What would be scary? Well, it would be a perceived, my perception that I'm being harmed. So a specific example might be, say, we walk... You're being harmed, you're afraid to notice that you're being harmed? Yeah. Or I think... My perception is... You're afraid to notice that you think you're being harmed. And I believe that I'm being harmed. And you're afraid to notice that you believe you're being harmed. And what would be... If you're being harmed, why would it be scary to notice that you're being harmed? Why would that be scary?

[46:38]

Well, it would be like an old habit. It would be scary to break an old habit. What would the old habit be? I'm alone. I'm isolated. I'm separate. I'm... You're hurting me. I don't know. It could be a whole... I mean, I could give you a lifetime of habits that might buy into that. You say you have this perception you're being harmed, and I'm saying, if you feel like you're being harmed, what are the fears around that? And you say, well, one fear is just a fear of breaking your habit. And I say, what's the habit there, if you're perceiving that you're being harmed? What's the habit? Oh, not being myself. Or what's the habit of... You feel like you're being harmed. Right. You have a perception of being harmed. Okay. And I'm saying, what fears do you have when you have a perception of being harmed? What fears could be there? I could see several. That would be separate from you. Okay, one is that you'd be separate from me. You'd be afraid of that. And the other would be the fear of love.

[47:43]

The fear of love. And what else? Um... Well, those are the two that come to mind. Those are fears, okay? She's afraid of being separate and being loved while she feels like she's being perhaps harmed. Attacked, maybe. Or attacked. Is there any betrayal yet? Yeah, I would say in all of that. Where's the betrayal? The dishonesty of not saying I'm feeling... No, you didn't say, we're not just saying anything. First of all, we just have you're perceiving something and you're afraid. You're afraid of being separate and you're afraid of being loved. Now, so far there's not dishonesty, there's fear, right? When does dishonesty start? When does that start? In the resistance that I'm feeling right now as I'm interacting with you, it's like, where are you leading me?

[48:48]

Kind of like... I'm trying to get to where the betrayal starts. To feel fear is not betrayal necessarily. Then you said dishonesty, but dishonesty starts manifesting. Usually in the thought or my interpretation of what I'm perceiving. So what's dishonest about the perception? Well, I don't know if it's dishonest. Well, it could be, it could be. It depends on my frame of mind, my mood. You know? Okay. Well, if you don't want me to lead you... Go ahead, lead me. ...then I would just say, you got a perception... Yeah. ...and you know to have some fears around the perception. Now, dishonesty would start, I think, when you would say, when you would lie about your perception. when you would lie about it. That would be... the dishonesty would start there. Just a perception is not necessarily dishonest. You just think, well, I think it's Tuesday or I think you're hurting me.

[49:50]

Seems like you're hurting me. Seems like you're saying something mean to me. Seems like it hurts. That's my perception. The dishonesty would start when I would say that's... I'm not... my perception. And it would be betrayal when I would tell that lie to get something for myself. So I try to get something from myself by lying about myself. So I cash in what's happening with me and lie about what's happening to protect myself. So if I'm afraid that you'll love me or I'm afraid that you'll love me and I'm afraid also that you'll separate from me or hate me, then I might lie about my perception. Like I feel like you're abusing me, but I might not say so because you might love me. You might love me right while I tell you that you're abusing me. Wouldn't that be a strange and difficult situation?

[50:53]

Or you might hate me if I told you that I thought you were abusing me. In other words, betray myself to get something for myself. Sell myself out to get love or to prevent hate. Aren't we always doing loving-kindness for ourself? So we're always looking... As we walk around the world, we want to be loved. So what we do is in many ways in order to get the love. Sometimes maybe not. That's very subtle there because when you're doing loving kindness for yourself, you don't love for yourself. When you practice loving-kindness for yourself, you benefit from that for yourself. You give yourself what you naturally want to give yourself.

[51:56]

But you don't give it to yourself to get it. You give it to yourself as a gift, and you receive it. And then you naturally want to give it to others. And because you want to give it to yourself and do give it to yourself, which is in accord with reality, you want to give it to others, which is in accord with reality. And then you realize that they've been giving to you all along. If you don't check into Love Hotel, if you don't check into that practice, then what you do is you try to do things to get love. As though it wasn't going to come for you, it'll come from what you do. Well, if who I am might not be loved, then I'll be what I think will be loved. But that contradicts the original practice of loving yourself as you are, not being a certain way so that you can love yourself. I mean, it sounds wonderful, but it seems so far out of the world that I exist in my everyday life that it almost feels like it seems impossible.

[53:13]

Yeah, well, it certainly is revolutionary. Yeah. It's a real change. Not because of the way you are, to love yourself the way you are. to love yourself the way you are, not to love yourself because of the way you are. There's no justification for this other than the way you are. You love reality, not anything but, because that's all there is to work with. You don't love things that aren't happening, you love things that are happening. Loving things that aren't happening doesn't count. being loved for who you aren't. We betray ourselves by being what we aren't in order to get the love which we know is natural for us to be receiving. But when we do something to get it, we deny that we're already getting it, and it's an endless addiction.

[54:18]

Plus, the betrayal then is revenge against ourselves for betraying ourselves. which we take out on ourselves, and then we say, because I betrayed myself, I'm not going to let you have love now. You can't love yourself now that you betrayed yourself, doubly, because somebody has to get punished, and secondly, because you don't even know where you are anymore, because you've been lying about yourself for so long so that you can get love. Is this impossible? No. No. It's not impossible at all. It's just revolutionary. So, as you were about to say, it's so far out of the usual way. It is far out from the usual way. That's why this poor little simple practice of loving-kindness is really a radical, far-out thing from the ordinary point of view. And it's very The ordinary point of view is far out from the point of delusion. So reality is far out from the point of view of delusion.

[55:24]

And most of society is about being what other people want us to be or rebelling against what other people want us to be rather than loving ourselves for what we are and loving others for what they are. wanting to wanting to please other people wanting to do something which will make them happy does not mean being like which is not the way you are. Doesn't necessarily mean that.

[56:29]

lying about yourself to make somebody happy is not the same as somebody. So I give the example of one time I was having dinner with my wife and two famous psychologists and the man is a professor at UC Irvine, UC California, University of California, Irvine. And my wife said to him, what's it like in Irvine? And he said, oh, it's beautiful there. And his wife said, no, it's ugly there. And he said, it's ugly there. And my wife said, you should learn that. So I did learn that. I do it every now and then. She says, my wife says to me, are you happy? And I say, no, I'm miserable. And she said, no, you're not, you're happy. And I say, I'm happy. Or she says, you're miserable, aren't you?

[57:37]

And I say, no, I'm happy. And she says, no, you're miserable, aren't you? Yes, I'm miserable. You like this, don't you? And I say, no. And she says, yes, you do, don't you? And I say, yes, I do. That's not lying. That's not lying. That's not betraying myself, honest. It's just doing something to please her. You're a fish. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I'm a fish. It's not lying. But for me to pretend to be a fish and to lie about that because I think people like me to be a fish, that's betraying myself. Now if they know I'm just kidding, okay, you want me to be a fish, I'll be a fish. Okay, we'll play that game, no problem, I'll be a fish. Want me to crawl across the ground, fine. But that's not the same as lying. That's when I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid of you hating me and I'm not afraid of you loving me, then I don't betray myself. Or even if I'm afraid, I go ahead and be me.

[58:39]

Okay? So if you tell me, pretend like you're a fish, I might say, okay, I'll pretend like I'm a fish. And you may hate me for that or you may love me for that. I'm not afraid of either one. I'll just do it if you want me to. But I'm not being dishonest. I'm not betraying myself. And if I love myself enough, I can be a fish if you want me to be. If I don't love myself enough, I can't be a fish for you. But if I love myself enough and it would make you happy for me to be a fish, I'll be a fish. I'll be Santa Claus. I'll be a walrus. Whatever you want. You see the difference? No, you don't look like you do. It's too strange, huh? Yes, you had your hand up next. Changing ourselves by keeping in place lowers the ones who are in the relationship.

[60:06]

And what the whole thing teaches us is that anything you wouldn't do in a room with a person you're in a relationship with, you should probably divulge to that person. And when you talk to the speaker of your understanding, you've got your job. I think we work on that. Thank you very much. Right. The background of that kind of work, I think it's very good to have a grounding in loving-kindness. Because if you aren't taking care of yourself and you start telling the truth, you don't have enough energy and money in the bank to contain the intensity and the at least temporary apparent loss of certain kinds of I don't know what. affection or esteem or reputation.

[61:11]

There might be some perceived loss or gain around that. You have to have a kind of basis for that so that you're with people who, although they may think you're more of a jerk when you tell them certain things, it's not going to go to zero. Plus also they appreciate the honesty but they don't like what you told them and it shakes the relationship. but there's enough there to hold it. I was wondering whether there's a place for expressing your resentment, like this president who may or may not have betrayed you, but you perceive he betrayed you. I would try to check it out there, and then be able to... A resentment still would love, hopefully, If there's enough love, it's possible that expressing the resentment would be part of letting it go.

[62:15]

If you feel that expressing the resentment can let it go, and you feel that the relationship can contain that, and they can hear that without getting hurt, which is also part of letting it go, because if you then hurt them, then you start a whole new process of harm. But sometimes expressing it will help you let it go. You can go ahead and practice love. Love would be that faith in the person I think love has to be there first. So we got plenty of resentment. Now we have to build up our love container to clear and sometimes clearing resentments is really hard. And there's a big section in this Path to Purification about how to clear resentment. In the section of loving-kindness, there's all these different meditations on how to clear resentment, because it's really hard to clear it.

[63:19]

When somebody's already hurt us, So to be hurt and not hurt back benefits you and the other person. To tell somebody that they resented you without hurting them is fine if it doesn't hurt them. But if you strike back to somebody who hurt you, you both lose. If you don't strike back at somebody who hurt you, you both learn, you both are benefited. Yeah. Well, that's fine. But even if you misperceive it, okay, even if you thought they betrayed you and you were wrong, if you don't hurt them back, you still gain. So all the things that have been done to you which really haven't been, if you don't strike back, you benefit from it.

[64:25]

So if you think a mountain of harm has been done to you and you don't strike back for any of it, you gain for all the backstrikes you didn't do. If you're really powerful and you really could strike back. To not do it, you get a lot of benefit from that. And so does everybody else that you didn't strike. Now if you find out that there really wasn't any harm, well, that's nice too. How are you going to practice loving kindness? Then you realize that all the stuff that you thought was harm actually was love coming to you, but you didn't interpret it that way. But to betray yourself in the face of this harm and lie about how you feel, that's harmful. And I would say that in order to not betray yourself, and to be honest about how you feel, you need to be loving yourself in order to do that.

[65:32]

Because otherwise, you're standing out there naked, telling what's happening to you with no sense. That's too hard. That's expecting too much of yourself. Yes? No, for me it was, I was ashamed that I didn't do a better job being a father. Well, that I didn't, well, to me it was good. It was like, okay, I see now, you know, what I've done better. Again, to feel shame without some basic confidence in my love for my daughter, that's something different than to feel shame with that confidence.

[66:35]

I knew I loved her, but as she said sometimes, love is not enough. It isn't that you just love the person. You have to do more than just love them in your heart. You have to do something. You have to give it. You have to show it externally. It has to get out into the relationship. And I think she was showing me some ways that it didn't get out. And I appreciated that, but I still was ashamed that I hadn't done better. But I didn't like totally, you know, wipe myself out. I more felt like, well, now I want to do the way, I want to do better. I want to try again. Please let me be your father from now on. Let me continue my kind of, you know, low-quality fatherhood. Please let me. And she does let me. Very nice of her. We had a birthday party for her the other night, and in the middle of the birthday party, I left for a while to go do something for part of my job at Zen Center.

[67:38]

I went to it with the people in the practice period. And when I got back, when she left after the party, she said, I love you, Dad, and next birthday party, don't leave. For leaving, actually. And she could tell me. It's pretty good. It's very good that she could tell me, tell me what she wants. We do, you know, we do fall down, but if there's enough love, we can learn and evolve. Let's see. Is there anybody who hasn't called in for a while who's had their hand up? I can't keep track. Is there somebody over there? A hand over there? Oh, yeah. Say you feel betrayed.

[68:45]

Say you feel betrayed. Yeah, it's okay to work on it by yourself if the other person isn't up for it. then you have to work it on yourself. Work on it by yourself because you can't hold the resentment impeding your happiness. So if they don't want to play, you've got to clear it with your other friends. And you can... I think it's a good idea to find out... It's good to find out if they want to play. Playing will help you clear the resentment. If you don't think it's going to help clear the resentment, then just go work on the resentment directly.

[69:48]

But sometimes it does help to talk to them. Sometimes it does help. Try to see if it would help, and if it would help, try to get into play. If they won't, then do it without their help. Participation. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes. Am I going to? Yeah, I will. Is resentment anger toward the other person? And you said you were going to talk about anger. I know you've been talking about this energy. Okay, first of all, yeah. Resentment is like anger, but it's anger, I think, over some pain, right? You resent something. What other kind of angers are there? You might be angry at someone for some other reason. What other reasons might there be? Disappointment.

[70:51]

Disappointment. I think anger is very closely related to... Now, I was saying that there's a certain kind of aggressive energy that can be harmless when it's coupled with love, okay? But what about, is there some other kind of anger that we want to just, that is not really like, what do you call it, part of the process of evolving? Is there some other kind of anger? Any useful kind of anger? Is there any unuseful kind of anger? Oh, unuseful. In other words, is there any kind of anger, when it's coupled with love, that can't deepen your understanding? I gave the example before, that you're angry at a person, you're angry with somebody, you have aggressive energy, you're not trying to hurt them, but you're angry and you use it to couple with a loving relationship.

[72:02]

You don't like that they're doing something and you don't like it. You dislike what they're doing. You're having a problem with what they're doing. You don't want to hurt them. but you're having a problem with the relationship and you're having a problem with the way they're playing like you're dancing with somebody and they're stepping on your feet or you're stepping on her feet or his feet you get angry and frustrated you get frustrated and angry but you get frustrated but maybe you could get frustrated and not get angry but sometimes the anger might help help the process of the dance you don't want to like Punch them and like lose your dance partner. You don't hate the person, but you're angry and the anger might help both parties learn how to dance better. Is there some other kind of anger? Huh? What? Well, he got the anger, but is it the anger that's the problem, or is it that you're holding on to it that's the problem?

[73:10]

So if it's a loving relationship, you might be able to let go of the anger. Is there an anger that wants to hurt? Well, that anger isn't conjoined with love, right? So it seems to me that the anger, when it's separated from the love, then you can attach to it, harbor it, use it for your own purposes, want to harm it. So that's inappropriate anger. There's nothing good about that that I can see. But anger that's about trying to move the process forward and anger is trying to protect beings from harm, that anger is conjoined with . That's not necessarily harmful. Matter of fact, you probably shouldn't be angry in those cases. probably shouldn't put up with it too long, put up with the problem too long, because if you do, the situation might cause some harm.

[74:18]

In other words, you shouldn't step on your foot too many times. Eventually, they might hurt your foot. It might be better to yell at them and say, stop stepping on my foot. You don't want that to hurt them, though. You just want them to learn how to dance better, and you want to protect your foot. So anger is the messenger. Anger has a message that we... You're answering a question that I had earlier. It could be a message, yeah. It could be a message, yeah. It could be a message from you to the other person. Information of an intense, hot form. The energy of anger has a message. It can. Well, actually, it always does. Yeah. Something's not right. Well, no, no. You think something's not right. So why would you not have that emotional response, that heat rising, the energy, the sweat, the ready to take a stance?

[75:23]

Something's going on, right? Right, but not necessarily something wrong. Yeah. For example, when you're dancing with something, it's not necessarily wrong that they're stepping on your foot. It's part of learning how to dance for some people. And it's also part of your learning to tell somebody when they're stepping on your foot and be able to learn how to say that in a skillful way because you may have to say it quite a few more times. So it's not necessarily wrong, but you do feel like you have to say something about it. And if you don't put some energy into it, they might think, oh, she really thinks it's cute that I'm stepping on her foot. She says, oh, you stepped on my foot. So I guess it doesn't bother her that much. But no, she says, you know, I really don't like it when you step on my foot. I hate it when you step on my foot. Stop stepping on my feet, you know. Maybe she really means that. Maybe I should try to learn that. And still be myself, you know, do my dancing thing. But then, you know, you've got to be careful that you don't back off of your dance step and try to be somebody else in order to

[76:28]

you know, protect yourself from her getting angry at you again. Because then you won't, then you start taking these tiny little steps. And that's not the danger. Then she starts yelling at you and says, take bigger steps. So there's no way to avoid, you know, getting this feedback. Right? Was this a righteous anger that you're talking about? That's a good type of anger. I don't know about righteous anger, but I think can, there's times when you should be angry. So when there's harm, anger should be, not always, but anger is often helpful. There are times when anger should be operating. And it's a mistake for it not to operate there. But it's not operating to help, to protect. It's conjoined with love. There's other times when anger shouldn't operate, and that's when it harms. and it harms when it's not connected to love.

[77:31]

Right? Pardon? You can get angry. There's an appropriate type and an inappropriate type. The appropriate type doesn't harm, deepens understanding, brings more life to the situation, protects and promotes life. Another kind of anger hurts life, makes everybody tighten up, discourages people from being honest, makes people feel like, well, that's what I get for living. I'm not going to live. Rather than, oh, you mean like we're really serious and fierce about being alive here?

[78:14]

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