Now, if I wanted to, it hurts me, and if it did hurt you, then it's even worse. Although, to some extent, I was skillful at hurting you. So, if some skillful use in the next time... That awareness where you accurately did hurt the person, that could be used to not hurt them next time, because now you know how to hurt them, so now you know what not to do. But anyway, wanting to hurt someone is harmful. Every time we want to hurt somebody, it hurts us. And every time we really want to help somebody, and we really want somebody to feel happier and healthier, every time we want that, that helps us.

[01:05]

So from these two different perspectives, right view, to some extent, is to look. at your motivation, at your intentions, and to be aware of whether they are intending to hurt others or benefit others, intending to hurt yourself or benefit others. Or I'm not clear one way or another. So part of right view is to be able to tell what's wholesome and unwholesome, what's skillful and unskillful actions, and then also watching to see which they are. There are 10 basic types of unskillful action and 10 basic types of skillful action.

[02:14]

10 basic types of unskillful action There are three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. The three unskillful actions, the three unskillful types of karma of body are killing, stealing, and using sexuality. Killing. Then comes stealing, taking what's not given, and misusing sexuality. This is thought at the level of the usual presentation of right view. Then in terms of speech, four kinds of unskillful speech.

[03:17]

False speech, harsh speech, slander, and idle chatter. Those are four unwholesome ways of using speech. Idle chatter, slander, lying, and harsh speech. I mean, like today's Friday. It's not a lie to say it's Friday, but to yell at somebody, you know, it's Friday! You know, that's... That's unskillful. I'm sorry. Huh? and then mind, possessiveness or covetousness, ill will, and wrong view.

[04:37]

The wrong view is, in some sense, It's almost the worst thing that you can think because the wrong view is to think that what you do doesn't have consequences. The right view is to be aware of karma has consequences important that it does, and of all the things you can think, almost nothing is so beneficial, the Buddha said, as a right view. Almost nothing is as being aware of what you do as consequences.

[05:45]

And in a given moment of your life, to have right view is that you, in that moment, you're aware, what I do has consequences. What I think, what I intend, what I say, and what I do with my body has consequences. To think that is very, very helpful. Almost nothing is as helpful as to do any of that. Conversely, almost nothing is as harmful in a given moment as to think that what you do is not consequential. We may make mistakes. We may think bad thoughts, unskillful thoughts. We may think of hurting someone or ourself. That's not good. That's bad. It's harmful. It's unskillful. But if you have right view, even if you make that mistake, you watch yourself and you learn, ah, I did that and I got in trouble.

[06:58]

But if you have wrong view, then you can't even learn from your mistakes. You can't even learn from your own skillful activity. Matter of fact, you don't even see. that your activity hurt people or yourself. So you keep hurting people and don't learn. As long as you have a wrong view, you can't start waking up. So that's why the right view is so important at the beginning. You know, in some sense, if you just have this one teaching, the rest of the Eightfold Path will automatically follow, automatically follow. The rest of the teachings are there. The rest of the practices are there. So, I leave you with that as the right view for tonight.

[08:04]

Again, this is mundane right view. Because there's still the view or somebody who thinks she's separate from other beings, we still want to smell the rose, or I want to speak kindly to so-and-so, or I want to be helpful to so-and-so, or I want to steal such-and-such. It's still in that realm of... ...delusion of feeling that we're separate from others and that we can do something by ourself. Still in the realm of thinking that the Buddhas aren't exactly the same as us. But that's where we start. from the point of view of being human, thinking we can do something, and then hearing the teaching, that right view is that everything we do is consequential.

[09:12]

Okay? That's enough for tonight. And so if you'd like to come at 6.30, please come. If you don't come at 6.30, I would suggest you come at about 7.10. That would be a good time to come, rather than drifting in during the period. So come at 6.30 a little bit before. We'll come to the second period, which will be at 7.10. All right? Thank you. Good night. Lisa Beth Chris Skip Andrew Greg Kevin

[10:51]

Thank you for having me. Last night I talked to two people and had some questions which were not right for you. And right view is a cognitive, a kind of cognitive dimension of practice. Or, yeah, it's sort of like the cognitive frame of the practice.

[11:58]

And right intention is a more purposeful or purposive or emotive or direction aspect of the practice. Right view is not so much intention or going in some way, it's more like to be aware or to cognize what's going on, to be aware of what kind of impulses or directions are present in our mind, in our life. And it is to be correctly aware For example, one thing is, who is the owner of actions?

[13:10]

Who is the owner of these actions, or what is the ownership of these actions? Actions of spirit and actions of body. Is there an owner? What is the owner? Who is the owner? What is the ownership? What is the governance of action? And also, what is the quality of the action? So right view is to consider what is the nature of ownership of action and what kind of action is it. Implied in this is the value or the teaching.

[14:19]

Action is consequential. It's important to be aware of it. And the people who talked to me last night, one gave an example of, one gave an example of some work situation, another gave an example of more general situation of questions about karma, about action. And in both these, I felt that these people were approaching, that they were becoming aware of their actions, and they were approaching the actions, and I experienced to do so.

[15:21]

I could see how problematical it is to become intimate with actions. Now, I was about to say your actions, but anyway, to become intimate with action, to become intimate with action, to get in there and look at the action, look at the actions and intentions of thought, of speech, and of posture, and see what's going on. Is somebody there or not? Who is it? What kind of feeling is going on in these actions? Who's feeling it? What's feeling it? What is the feeling? So, again I would say that getting closer and closer

[16:33]

to the phenomena of action, getting more intimate is actually pretty difficult and there's potentially quite a bit of discomfort in getting intimate with our actions. But Right View, at its initial phase, and at its advanced phase, is progression and intimacy with action. It's getting to know the nature of the action and actor, the nature of the actions, and the nature of the consequence of the actions. And to see this is not necessarily pleasant. Sometimes it is.

[17:34]

Sometimes the action is such that quite pleasant. So in that case, it's not that unpleasant to notice, oh, this action was done and this result came. this flower was set into and it was done skillfully and it's lovely. That's not so bad. But a lot of times, sometimes, a lot of times the flower is set into and it's, we have a painful aesthetic experience. Oh, that doesn't look good that way. And these are rather mild examples, right? So I guess the first thing I'd like to emphasize is that it's difficult to become intimate with action.

[18:43]

But nothing is more helpful. Actually, nothing's less helpful either, in a way. But anyway, nothing's more helpful. It's very, very helpful to become intimate with action. And I would say this, that when you become ultimate intimacy with action, you will see that there is actually no actor separate from the action. And that realization is the realization of the cessation of suffering. In the meantime, even in those cases where the action is skillful and therefore the consequences are happy, pleasant, beneficial,

[20:04]

Even in cases where the action is very skillful and very pleasant results, there still is something uncomfortable going on. There is an actor separate from the action. Because still there's the delusion of a separate actor. And as long as there's that delusion, there's some discomfort. the discomfort of basic delusion. A person said to me recently, good karma, bad karma, skillful karma, unskillful karma, but what's good about good karma? Isn't good karma also a problem? Yes, it is a problem. Even skillful action is a problem. because skillful action is still based on delusion of I'm separate from you and I can do something.

[21:14]

I'm responsible for this thing that happened. Now, if I think I did it separately from you, then I am responsible because I think that way and I should not evade responsibility for the fact that I think I did that by myself. But it's based on the delusion that I can do it by myself. I say, ultimately, we cannot do anything by ourself. Everything we do, we do together with everything. Therefore, there is no actor. There's action, but no actor, ultimately. So even in a skillful action, if I think there's an independent actor, I'm uneasy and anxious. So the person says, not so good, right?

[22:22]

But what is good about good karma? Why are they called good if it's not good? Good karma is good because good karma is the type of action that promotes the vision that karma is an illusion. Good karma sets up the possibility to see that karma is an illusion. What we call bad karma, the thing that's bad about it, is that it tends to make it less likely that we'd be able to see that both good and karma are illusions based on basic delusion. So that's why the Buddha does encourage good karma. Do good karma, because good karma will eventually set you free from karma.

[23:26]

So enlightened people, in a sense, do not do any karma anymore. They don't do actions. Because they don't think that they can do something by themselves anymore. Everything they do is consorted activity with all beings. It's not their action. There is no owner of the action anymore. So again, there's kind of a little trick there in the definition of right view, which is the right view of action. The right view of the ownership of action is that there isn't an owner. That's the ultimately right view. There is action, but it's not owned. And when you understand that it's not owned, the action becomes boundless, becomes inconceivable. because you now enter into the stream of the activity of all beings. But between entering the stream of the activity of all beings and being an isolated person who does skillful and unskillful, between those two levels of vision, there's a difficult process of becoming intimate with action.

[24:49]

and which may become intimate with their illusions of separateness and the pain of that separateness, of feeling that we did something, first of all, that we did something bad by ourselves, and then even the pain of feeling like you do something good by yourself. Yet I propose to you that if you think you did something good by yourself, part of you feels good, I did something good, but another part of you feels ashamed to think that way. So one of the precepts of the bodhisattva, the person who is dedicated to become a Buddha, to help all beings, one of the precepts is not praising self at the expense of others. So if some good action happens here in relationship to this body, And I think, oh, I did that.

[25:52]

Couldn't have done it without your help. I praise myself at your expense. Praising self at the expense of others. Like a musician performing for an audience. And this wonderful thing happens. the instrument and the audience. And if the musician would think or even say, first of all, think, oh, I did that. Then the musician is praising herself without realizing that it couldn't have happened if those people weren't there. You say, well, can a musician play in an empty hall? Yes. But he couldn't practice in an empty hall if all the people in the world weren't in the hall.

[27:01]

All the people in the room left the hall empty for that person so they could play by themselves. Nobody came in the room and said, hey, stop that noise. Hey, we're going to do some work in here now. You better move out of here. Everybody in the world supported that person to be all by herself in this huge hall to play the music. Not to mention that just before she did that, somebody gave her the instrument. Here, here's an instrument. I give this to you. We don't ever do anything without everybody's assistance. And when something good happens, and we think we do, we break the precept, which is to think, I did a good thing, period. And when we break that precept, part of our Buddha heart hurts, because we're missing the joy.

[28:17]

It's actually, it feels pretty good to say, played that instrument well that feels pretty good but it feels even better to realize how everybody helped us when you see actually how everybody helps you do everything you do it's it's even better than that medium to low range happiness that you get from doing something but again it's not only a greater happiness but it doesn't have that that sickness in it you know it's a greater joy plus it's also healthy the other one's a smaller joy but it has that sickness in there of hey i did it all by myself you didn't help me oh so anyway getting intimate with karma means get intimate with our nasty little possessive attitude about our actions That's part of what you're getting intimate with. It's not pleasant.

[29:19]

Anyway, one of the basic issues is how can we encourage ourselves to get into this kind of intimacy with our present level of understanding. If we don't perfectly understand yet, that means getting intimate with our imperfect, immature understanding. Getting intimate with immature understanding will be getting intimate with the discomfort of the immature understanding. Immature understanding goes with discomfort, anxiety. We can't get intimate with the understanding and keep the anxiety off to the side. The immature understanding is right in the midst of the anxiety in the midst of the immature understanding.

[30:22]

Our incomplete understanding of how we're working together with all beings is uncomfortable. We're always a little anxious before we understand. right view to be aware of how we see karma happening and what kind of karma it is and how each different kind of karma feels slightly differently. So one of the examples that came last I would like to tell you about But before I give you the example, do you see the dilemma? This is like wading into the mud. The mud of delusion and action and consequences and bondage.

[31:35]

Does that make sense? That's part of the reason why, you know, why I feel so enthusiastic about the path of becoming a Buddha. Because before we enter into this difficult work of wading into the mud of our karma, you know, up to our mouth and nose. Before we do that, we realize we're not doing this just for ourselves. And we have to have a feeling, some positive feeling. So first of all, we have to generate a lot of compassion. We have to work up a lot of compassion in order to do this kind of work. It's not easy. If we're doing it just for our own fun, we're doing it not just for our own fun.

[32:43]

We're not doing it for our own fun, really, necessarily at all. Sometimes it's fun to look. But we're doing it for the great joy of becoming enlightened to this so we can help others. That joy should be accompanying us as we go into this difficult time. Difficult, but I I'm joyful that I have this good job. I'm so happy Contemplate practicing the right view and you feel squeamish about it I would say Get some help to overcome your squeamishness. And I would like to say that I'm one person to help you overcome your squeamishness. I'm not saying I'm never squeamish, but I really like getting over my squeamishness.

[33:53]

I don't like to be squeamish about beings. I don't feel good when I sort of like, ooh, beings. Matter of fact, one of the turning events that encouraged me to turn towards practice was one time I was driving home when I was in college on my motor scooter. And I lived in a very nice apartment in a kind of slum, a Native American slum. But I had a nice apartment. And I drove by this bar, which is a couple blocks from my house. And outside this bar, there were lots of drunk people. And they were not just drunk, but they were drunk on the street. They were, you know, they were out in the street in this condition of drunkenness.

[34:59]

And I was repulsed by them standing on the street vomiting and pushing each other around. And I was repulsed by them. And I had this feeling like I don't want these people in my little house. But I really felt bad about myself. And I really felt like I don't want to be that way. I don't want to be protecting my little scene from these suffering people. To not be so self-protective and looking down my nose at suffering beings. I want to learn a way of compassion towards them rather than repulsion. And And getting over that repulsion, the times that I have gotten over it, it feels so good.

[36:09]

But then there's also the repulsion of going into my own mind, where my own drunks are, where my own slobs are. Unskillfulness is. and all those little situations in daily life all these complicated little situations where we're kind of like not very clear about what kind of don't want to look at what's really going on so the example here's an example let's say i don't know let's see uh example would be um Maybe somebody asks you for something or somebody tells you to give somebody something that you don't think is good for them.

[37:14]

Like, I don't know what, some drug that they don't need, maybe, that you don't think would be helpful to them. There's different possible qualities of karma here. One would be that you don't think it's helpful to them or that you think it might be harmful to them. And one quality of karma would be you don't do it. You don't give it to them because you think it might be harmful. Another possibility is, although you don't know it's harmful, going to be harmful to them, but you think it might be, you give it to them. You don't want it to hurt them, but you give it to them anyway.

[38:20]

Another possibility is that you give it to them and you do want it to hurt them. And that possibility is, you give it to them, you do want to hurt them, and you're happy that it hurts them. And we are capable of making these discriminations around something like giving something to someone that might be unhelpful to them or might be harmful to them. So sometimes where there's pressures on us to give someone something that might be harmful. You know, those guys, anybody have trouble imagining those situations? No? And sometimes it's quite difficult to say no. The person wants it or somebody else wants you to give it to them. Like in a lot of medical situations, some drugs are given that are debatable.

[39:34]

The sedatives, tranquilizers, painkillers, steroids to make various things work. You know what I mean? Various things, there's some debate about whether they should be used. And you maybe feel like it's not helpful. But it's a lot of work. And even if you don't do it, you're not sure it's wrong. You're not sure it's harmful. So it's a difficult situation for you to get in there. Let's say you're pretty sure it's wrong, but there's pressure on you to give it anyway. I would say, if you think, if you're pretty sure it's wrong and there's pressure on you to give it, assuming that the pressure isn't going to, like, be super harmful to you, like, I don't know, it might

[40:39]

If you were going to get severely harmed for not giving someone else something that would be a little bit harmful to them, maybe in the big picture it would be better to give it to them. But if you're going to get harmed a little, for example, like lose your job, and they're going to get harmed a little bit, then I would say, this would say, don't do the harmful thing. to this person. Don't do it. Even though it might make your life more complicated, even though something unpleasant might happen as a consequence. But something more unpleasant will happen if you do the harmful thing. But let's say you do do the harmful thing, or the thing you think might be harmful. Again, it might not be harmful. You might be wrong. But if you think it's harmful and you do it, it harms you. Does that make sense?

[41:43]

And, but then the next thing would be, is that you, but even so, you could say, I'm doing it, it is harmful, but I wish I didn't have to do it, and I don't want to do it, but I am selfish, and in order to protect myself, I'm going to do this, but I really wish I didn't have to, and I hope it doesn't hurt the person. I hope I'm wrong. I hope it doesn't hurt them. That's slightly closer to enlightenment. The closest to enlightenment is, I don't do anything at all. We're doing this together. This person's my life, really. That's the closest. Next is, I'm separate. and I can do something myself. Next is, I'm separate, and I can do something myself, but I'm definitely only going to do things that are harmless and beneficial.

[42:50]

Next is, I'm separate and can do things by myself, and here's a harmful thing, which I'm going to do. But I wish I didn't have to, and I hope I'm wrong. Next is, This is a harmful thing, and I don't care if it hurts the person, because they're not me. Next is, I'm doing a harmful thing, and I hope it does hurt them, because they're not me. Next is, this is a harmful thing, and I hope it does hurt them, and if it does, I'll really be happy, because they're not me. That's like the extreme delusion. Now, which one are we involved in? Where in that range of, from enlightenment, where you're always nothing, your life is nothing but all these, everybody else in the universe, you have no separate life from all beings, that they are, and that's the way you live, to those people aren't me,

[44:05]

And I really, you know, want to affirm that they're not me by treating them exactly the way I would most not want to be treated myself. We're in that range moment. And looking at that is part of right view. And this is difficult, but very, very helpful. So now here I am talking to you and where am I in my speech? Do I think I'm doing this myself or is this just all of you talking through me? Am I doing this myself? Is it helpful? Is it harmful? I know it's difficult and I know it's difficult to look But I kind of think, myself, that's a good thing to be talking about, is talking about writing you.

[45:10]

We're talking about the Four Noble Truths. I didn't say so, but we are. Because we're talking about that there is suffering, as long... And what are the conditions for suffering? Well, the Buddha usually says craving is the condition that's brought up for suffering. But craving is based on the fundamental delusion that we're separate from our breakfast. that we're separate from other beings. That's the condition for craving. And also, but it's not just all a horror show, you know. Suffering and this delusions of separation, it's not just a horror show. It is possible to become free of this suffering if we would see through

[46:33]

the root of the craving. If we could see how it's a delusion that we're separate from other things, the craving can't operate. So the third noble truth is that there's a way to be free of this. And the way to be free of this is the fourth noble truth. Eightfold path. Number one is look at your karma. I'm telling you what the root, what the root delusion is, from which arises. Right? I told you what that is. The sense of separation. The sense that subject and object, self and other are separate. That's the root of karma. That's the root of anxiety. That's the root of pain, and then karma follows from that root of delusion and pain.

[47:39]

Karma is what we do to try to fix the basic situation of delusion. Karma is what we do to try to assuage the pain that we feel when we think we're separate from other beings. What it does is just it reaffirms the system. So the first aspect of the path to the freedom from suffering is to look at karma. Because karma is grosser than is delusion. It's hard to look at the delusion. It's more subtle. And you can't skip over the karma and look directly at delusion. So you start by looking at the karma, and as you look at the karma, you start to see, oh, I think there's somebody there doing this who's separate from others who are doing other things, to whom I'm doing things. So karma is the way you tune into the more subtle aspects of delusion.

[48:49]

Now, how you doing? You okay? I want to take another step. The other step is that the Eightfold Path, the first one that I'm introducing, Right View, really, as you get into it a ways, you need to actually go on to the later ones. And the right view is presented at the beginning because it's going to lead to right intention, and then it's going to lead to meditation on speech, physical action, and livelihood. But it's a kind of a cycle because when you first start looking at your karma, and you're, you know, you're, Again, you're kind of warming up to this meditation on your karma and your intentions, your actions and their source.

[50:14]

But as you get into actually looking at it, you start to evolve. And then through that evolution of watching your speech and your action, you can come back and look at the karma even more subtly. And then your actions and so on evolve more and you can look more subtly. So there's a kind of many sort of epi-circles within this big circle. So maybe that's enough for starters, if you'd like to bring up any questions now, or comments. Yes, Patty?

[51:26]

Yes. Yes. Yes, that's right. So, if you can't leap into the world of basically the world of non-attachment, and non-seeking. If you don't feel that you can leap into that world in your daily life, then if in your daily life you're still grasping things, which means you still see things are out there, and you're over here and they're out there, if you're still involved in grasping things and moving them around, the best you can do for now is admit that's what you're doing.

[53:07]

Confess your karma. And the more you confess it, the more you'll see how it works. And the more you confess, the more it evolves. If you grasp things and manipulate them unskillfully, you will learn by trial and error that it's unskillful, and you'll become more skillful. If you pay attention to how you work, how you do things, if you pay attention to how you think you do things, your vision As you watch more and more carefully, your vision improves and your action becomes more skillful. And as your action becomes more skillful, your vision improves. And as your vision improves, your action becomes more skillful. And as your action becomes more skillful, your vision improves to the point you see that it's not so that you're grasping things. you'll see that it's an illusion that you're grasping things.

[54:11]

You'll see it's an illusion that things are out there. Along the way, you can also do meditations in non-daily life. For example, sitting here, you can do meditations where nobody's saying to you, let's do this and let's do that and you do this and I'll do that. You can just sit in your mind and listen to those stories going on, but you can also practice, can try to practice not grasping those stories. You can... without seeking something outside yourself. And you can learn more and more how to not grasp anything. But in daily life, that's more advanced because everybody's asking you to be deluded. Okay? So then you have to admit, okay, I'm being asked to be deluded. I don't see any other way, so I'm going to be deluded. But watch how that goes. And the more you watch it, the closer you'll get to see that it's not possible to be deluded.

[55:14]

You just don't know how to do it anymore. You're going to call it these poor Buddhas who don't know anymore how to grasp things. Because there's nothing out there to grasp. You know, they reach for, they reach for Terry, but they wind up with. Oh my God. You know, they reach out, but they come back and grab their own nose. There's, they can't get, they don't know how to have something out there anymore. Understand that everything they see is just one mind. Poor Buddhas. And this great, you know, this great love and compassion comes flying out of this incompetency.

[56:17]

Have things outside produces this ridiculous love and this ridiculous dharma. about that there's nothing out there. In the meantime, if you think there's something out there, and you say, there's nothing out there, raise your hands. Buddha also said, when a mistake and admit it as a mistake, the wheel of the truth turns. Because it's true, a mistake is a mistake, and when you recognize it, you're on the right track. So every time you say, okay, that somebody stopped from now, I admit it, it's a mistake, but that's a step forward in Dharma.

[57:26]

Chris? I couldn't hear the beginning of my... Yes. Things are happening so fast. Yes. To do it at the time seems really hard. To examine the motivations, to be aware of the motivations at the time is really hard. hasn't developed that skill. When you're starting, it's going to be hard. For example, just a moment ago, I reached for the cup and I thought, is it any beneficial for me to drink this tea?

[58:37]

And I thought... While I was talking to you, I was checking to see my motivation in reaching for this cup. Was it hard? No. Was it easy not to? Yes. To learn to consider whether what you're going to say is going to be helpful. If you haven't done that before, it's difficult to make the transition. But a transition can be made. Is it difficult? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Can it be done? People, some of your friends might even make it hard on you. They may say to you, are you okay, Chris? You seem to be kind of slow today. And you might say, yeah, I know what you mean.

[59:46]

I think the reason And now I'm telling you this because I've just considered my motivation in telling you this, and I think it would be helpful for me to tell you something about myself. Do you hear? And I say, yeah. I'm actually trying to do a practice of considering my motivation and speaking before I speak. And so I'm kind of having to slow down. I can't talk as fast as I used to talk without having to do the observation first. I'm trying to interject awareness of my karma while I'm doing the karma. And so I'm having to slow down. It's like dancing. You don't know the dance? you have to slow down to learn it, to learn the steps.

[60:48]

And so you're kind of awkward. And this dance is a dance where, you know, there's so-called skillful and unskillful motions. But the skillfulness and unskillfulness of some dances, anyway, are not so skillful. I mean, not so unskillful. If you make a mistake in a dance class, it isn't that harmful, usually. Now, if you're skillful in a dance, it can be extremely wonderful. But being unskillful in dances sometimes isn't that bad. Some dances, however, if you're unskillful, you can get really hurt, and you can even hurt someone else, I guess. But other things we do in our life, the unskillfulness is really an issue that can be major damage. And so we do a lot. very fast. They come from our motivation, but we don't know what the motivation is. And then sometimes, after we do things, sometimes, because we're going so fast, we don't notice the consequences for ourselves and for others.

[62:02]

And again, to bring our awareness to the quality of the motivation, the quality of the action, and the quality of the consequences, this will probably mean for a lot of people slowing down. It's not that slowing down is the point, it's that slowing down is required in order to get with it. Also, you know jump roping, where two people are swinging a rope and another person jumps in? you have to sort of like watch it for a while until you can get with the thing and then jump in. If you just watch it without paying attention, you get hit in the face with a rope. So, tuning into your karma, you know, maybe you have to slow the rope down a little bit and watch it for a while and then, okay, now I'm aware of my speech, but I just slow the rope down to be aware of the motivation of my speech.

[63:10]

If I slow way down, I can maybe get in touch with the motivation that I would like to say something helpful. And maybe I won't say anything helpful. So that means that maybe I'll be quiet for a while because I don't have anything helpful to say. And I also that I have to modulate this silence by occasionally telling people the reason for my silence, because they may be getting anxious while I'm not saying anything.

[64:16]

So I may have to say, sorry I'm not saying anything, but I really don't see anything helpful to say at this time. On the other hand, if you want to hear some unhelpful stuff, I've got a lot of that. So let me know. But I'd rather not, but if you really want it, I'll do it, but I'd rather not. When it comes to helpful things, I don't have any right now. I hope that was helpful. So you'll be hearing from me at some point if something comes up that I think And it's okay with me if you check now and then on how I'm doing. Chris, do you have anything helpful to say yet? For me to let you know that I don't.

[65:22]

So it's nice to have friends who will let you slow down in the conversation to go to this deep place to see what you really have to say and to see if you really want and to see if you really think it would be helpful and some people won't let you do that i'm sorry they just say you know they won't let you do it so and you have to think about whether since they won't let you do it whether it would be harmful for you to try to So it's hard, it's hard. It's hard to get intimate with what's going on in your own mind, in your own body. We have a tie here between Edie and Terry.

[66:26]

Shall I choose one of you? Or Edie just give you her turn. Please. One thing that seems to me in being aware of my motivations is that blame will jump in right away. And that just seems to just jolt me. If I think all of a sudden, oh, I should... It's nice to be able to slow down a little bit and maybe look at myself with compassion so that I can see an unhelpful motivation. After the action or before? It sounded like you were talking about after. You said, I shouldn't have done that. Probably after, yeah. Yeah, probably not in the middle, that's right.

[67:32]

So, if you've done an action, and you say, I shouldn't have done that, does that follow having seen the action and its consequence? Mm-hmm. That was unscripted. Or... Maybe just imagining the consequence. Or imagining the consequence. Like, you speak in a way that you think might hurt somebody. And you say, I shouldn't have done that. Okay? So to say I shouldn't have done that, that's okay. To say I shouldn't have done it. But I think shouldn't have... I would suggest rather than shouldn't have, I think more like, I regret it. Or I don't like talking that way. Or I don't want to talk that way. Rather, shouldn't... I would say heavy-handed, because in fact it happened. So shouldn't is like denying the reality of your life. But you say, well, I did it, but actually I regret it. I don't want to be that way.

[68:34]

I don't want to do this. I want to do it differently. So I did that. That's confession. I did it. That's good to confess it. Next is, actually, I don't want to do that. I actually want to behave differently. That's part of right view, is to notice and confess. And if you regret it, and it's not what you think is good, just say it to yourself. Say, I don't want to do that. And if possible, even say it to your teacher. Say, I don't want to do it. Or even say it to the person you said it to. Like you say something to someone, and it's not the way you want to talk. You say, you know... I think that wasn't really so good what I said to you, and I don't want to do that anymore. So to say it to yourself, to say it to your teacher, and say it maybe to the person that you said it to, or that you did it to, that's all part of this.

[69:35]

Now that will tend to feed back to ...next time. So there's the person again that you did this unskillful thing with, that you told you would like not to do it again. So there they are again. And you kind of remember, oh, here we go again. Okay. Now, what do you want to do? Oh, yeah. Okay. It's so easy to do it, though. But I don't want to because I don't think it's helpful. But sometimes I don't want to because it's not helpful and I regretted it last time and I said I didn't want to do it anymore and I'm going to do it again. Here we go.

[70:39]

I don't like this. And I'm still doing it. I don't like this, and I'm still doing it. Over and over, sometimes. And finally, I don't like this. It doesn't happen. It ends. Such and such a behavior. They come to an end. You finish. But it's difficult. The time between when you see that you don't want to do it anymore. Sometimes you have to do it quite a few more times before you're really, really convinced. So convinced that you don't do it. I have a sort of a horrible example. Do you want to hear it? You do? Okay, so somebody gave me some candy. And it wasn't Breck. He gives me really good candy.

[71:42]

Somebody gave me candy. They sent it to me in the mail, you know. And part of the candy was this white candy that I think was supposed to be white chocolate. And I like white chocolate, usually. So I ate one of these. these white chocolate things, and I ate it, and then I ate it. And then I think later, I ate another one, but then I kind of checked out what it tasted like, and I thought, oh, Elaine, I mean, Irene, you've got this look on your face. Are you okay? Well, I don't know what it was, but anyway, I chewed on it, And I chewed it and chewed it and chewed it and it just didn't taste good. So I took it out of my mouth and put it in the compost. And there were still several more.

[72:50]

So what should I do with them? Should I put them all in the compost? Or what? I have, you know, as a kid, so I had some difficulty throwing food away. Especially food that, like, comes in a nice package in the mail. It's supposed to be a nice present, right? So what I did is I took another one and chewed it. And chewed it and chewed it. And it was just, it was like, you know, I really felt like I don't want this anymore in my body than this. It's arable internet. I'm testing the taste. It just doesn't seem like something that I should swallow. So I took it out, put it in the compost. Are you okay? Is this too... It didn't taste good. It didn't taste good. But, since there was this thing that looked like something I would like, I kept eating it.

[73:52]

So then I took another one. I really did. And I chewed it some more. I said, no. And the more I chewed it, the more convinced I was that I did not want to eat this candy. And finally, I was so convinced after chewing on several of them and tilting them out and putting them in the compost, that I took the whole box, the rest of the box. Some I didn't actually eat. unscathed by my teeth, I dumped the rest of the box in the compost. But it was awareness that turned it, it was actually tasting it and saying, you know, remorse means to munch again. re-munch, you know, manja manja. It's re-munch. To chew again. Remorse comes when you do something and then you taste it again.

[74:58]

You don't feel good. I don't like to act that way. I don't like this thing. But sometimes you have to feel a lot of remorse before you actually say, not only don't I like it, but I'm not going to do it anymore. I mean, I'm convinced. I don't have to check one more. I've done six. That's enough. The rest of them are not going to be good either. Even though it's my favorite kind of, theoretically my favorite kind of candy. There we go. You just pass up on all those wonderful activities that you used to do. Convinced. you don't want to do. They're no good. And nobody needs you to do it. And it doesn't help the candy to go through your system. It's just as happy in a compost. Now there's other kind of candy, however, that should definitely go through your system. And that's another matter.

[76:02]

The question is how many of those do you eat? One a week? What, a month? You know, you have to figure that out, because maybe a little bit's okay. A little bit is okay. Zero might be too little. It can be poisonous, even though you really do feel a little bit is good. But sometimes even a little bit's no good, and you don't have to do it. Some things you can just completely drop. Other things maybe are medicinal. A little bit of sugar might be medicinal. A little bit of bitter might be medicinal. We have a tongue, you know. We have bitter, salty, sweet, acrid, and so on, you know. And in some ways it's good for you to have all those different kinds of tastes every day. It's good. It's medicine for your nervous system to stimulate your different capacities.

[77:07]

And if you don't take anything bitter all day, you're not taking some good care of yourself. So something bitter is good, and something sweet is good, too. But too much bitter can make you sick. So green tea? Bitter. Good. Sump.

[77:31]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_86.94