I thought of the case of the detective's words. I was thinking of talking to you about what we sometimes call the enlightenment of the Buddha, which is kind of redundant to say the enlightenment of the enlightened one.

[01:18]

And in Zen tradition, we usually celebrate this event that occurred in history about 2,525 years ago. And a thought crossed my mind. Oh, and we celebrated on December 8. And a thought crossed my mind that if I discuss that with you today, I'm a little late with you, because now it's the 17th of December. And then I thought, well, actually, it's quite late. It's 2,525 years late. But in another sense, it's never too late, and we can talk about it any time we want to.

[02:25]

Many of the disciples of the Buddha, or I should say many people who wish to be disciples of Buddha, or even say that they're disciples, have different versions of the story about what happened 2,525 years ago. Different people have different stories. There may be general agreement, though, that this person, this human being, was perfectly enlightened and that it happened throughout the night and in the morning was completed.

[03:47]

And there's early stories about it, appeared in the world, and then there's later stories about it. Oftentimes, we think, well, maybe the earliest story is the most authentic. And I think there's some... But the earliest story is not necessarily the most authentic. As you know, when certain things happen, the first person to report on the event might just be the most hysterical or most impatient or most aggressive. Somebody else might even hear about another person's report on the event and calmly think, hmm, maybe that's what they think happened.

[04:58]

I don't agree, but nobody asked me what I thought happened, and I don't think I'll mention anything until somebody does ask me. So another report might come later that has quite a different perspective and might be coming from a more mature reporter. Can you imagine that to be the times? So the earliest report is not necessarily the most authentic, but still. And also, the earliest report supposedly is coming from the Buddha himself, telling the story about what happened that night. The earliest story that's written down, anyway. And the Buddha tells, actually, the Buddha told apparently different stories at different points after his awakening.

[06:08]

And he didn't apparently tell the story of his awakening in in an extended form right away. He did it somewhat later. When he was first awakened, of course, he was, as far as I know, as far as I know, he was quiet. But maybe he was talking to himself. But, you know, I kind of doubt the poetry chatting away Now, one story of his awakening is that he did say something somewhere near, you know, or on the morning of his awakening, he did say something. One of the stories says that he did say something. And that story says that he said, wonderful, marvelous. Now,

[07:13]

I, together with all living beings in the great earth, attain the way. That's one story. That's a later story that's often told in the Zen tradition. But in that story, I hadn't heard that he kept talking after that. But he just said it for some time. And another story, he said, now I see that all living beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. And then I heard another one, slightly different. Now I see that all beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. But because of attachments, they do not realize it.

[08:22]

And then another version says the same thing to that point and goes on a little farther and says, therefore I should teach them so that they can realize. even if he said something right around the time of the awakening, even if he spoke into the world in some language or other, that he actually sat for seven times seven days to enjoy the bliss of liberation and to review and clarify his awakening. and that he moved after the first week to another sitting place and so on. So there's different stories about how it went.

[09:29]

And again, another story is that the name, not exactly a name, but in a sense, the name of what he was doing under the Bodhi tree after his awakening is that he was involved in the Moksha Sukha Samadhi. He was involved in practicing a one-pointed awareness of the bliss of liberation. And a later name for what he was engaged in after his awakening is the self-fulfillment or self-enjoyment awareness. The samadhi of self-fulfillment. In other words, he was in the state of enjoying himself.

[10:44]

He was in the state of enjoying what it is to be a Buddha. And this is the name of the awareness that we often speak of in Soto Zen. To sit upright in a concentrated awareness of the enjoyment of yourself, the enjoyment of what yourself really is. the story could unfold further that this Chinese expression, the way the Chinese write this concentrated awareness of the fulfilled self or the concentrated of the enjoyable self, the true self, it actually can be analyzed a little bit

[12:11]

as the concentrated awareness of the receiving and enacting of the self. The characters are self-receiving and enacting, or self-receiving and employing samadhi. So he was sitting, according to this story that I'm telling you right now, in enjoying the reality of how everything was coming forth to create him and how he was then enacted in response to all that he did for his wife. And again, being aware of receiving life through the support of all beings. And this received life then supports all beings, which in turn support this life again.

[13:14]

And sitting and enjoying this reality, the reality of being supported by all things and supporting all things. This is a self to enjoy. on December 8th. And since that time, it has been available to all living beings to wake up to. Most living beings that I know are aware that some things are supporting them, and that or that some beings are supporting them, and they support some beings. But to feel supported by everything in the present moment, and to see that everything is giving you life, and then to see that you give everything its life, that's not so calm.

[14:26]

That's something which we need to awaken to. In a sense, we're dreaming that some people and some animals and some plants and some rocks and some mountains are supporting us, and we're supporting some of them. Some people have the dream, even as you may have heard, that they don't support anybody, and nobody supports them. This is, of course, the most But some other people seem to be able to tolerate a less terrible version of that. Like, I support six people and three and a half people support me. It's bad, but it's not as bad as this guy, my neighbor, who doesn't think anybody supports him. He enjoys freedom, which comes with understanding the reality of unlimited mutual assistance.

[15:31]

unlimited and inconceivable, beyond conception. So, I just told that story, not exactly to tell you that that's really what happened or what's happening. That's really what happened, what's happening. The English word carol, one definition of it is a song of joy. I just told you it was an enlightenment carol. a song, a joyful song about the Buddha realizing this situation of unlimited support in a totally mutual way.

[16:43]

And I was Again, by the fundamental importance of the act of giving. I was struck by that today. And again, the process of giving The process of giving is the Buddha's enlightenment. The process of giving, or the reality of giving, is that it is mutual. The giving of the Buddha, the giving which is the enlightenment of the Buddha, is in both directions simultaneous.

[17:59]

It's not going from one person to the other and not back to the other person. It's not that way. It's when one person gives to another, as they're giving, they're receiving. And the other person is receiving, as they're receiving, they're giving. And I'm struck repeatedly by the vision that most people's problems, in some sense, can be seen as coming from, most people's problems, most people's suffering, be seen as coming from a kind of overlooking or ignorance of the process of giving.

[19:11]

That when we lose sight of giving, we start at that moment. more or less. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's real strong and clear to us, but I guess when I see people who are aware that they're suffering, then it usually looks like at that moment they're not aware of suffering, that they're not aware of the process of giving. Sometimes people are not aware of the process of giving and also are not aware that they're suffering. Sometimes people are very aware both of their involvement in giving and their involvement in suffering. But again, when people are becoming somewhat aware that they're suffering, when I see them at least, I usually... It looks to me like they're not really in the giving process at that time.

[20:22]

And as they awaken to the giving process, they become more and more relaxed and free of the suffering process. Ignoring the giving process is the suffering process. Opening the giving process is opening to freedom from suffering. So again, I feel that the Buddha opened to the full story of giving and receiving and achieved freedom in that way. And I said that this is my character, Buddha's enlightenment, and I did that because there's a little story called Christmas Carol, which is written by, I believe it was written by, I mean, I don't exactly believe it, I've heard that it's written by Charles Dickens. And I think he wrote it, I'm not sure, but I think he wrote it in 1843.

[21:28]

I think so. But I could be wrong. Right? I think he wrote it in 1843 because I was born in 1943. And I think I remember, oh, he wrote it 100 years before I was born. How auspicious for me And also, it's auspicious for me that he wrote that I was born because when I was 11, or 10, in 1953, let's see, I think I was 11. It was like, I think it was like in the autumn of 1954, when there was an opportunity to try out for a play based on Dickens' story.

[22:39]

And various people were auditioning. I hear Elizabeth almost giggling over there. Are you almost giggling? Oh, I was born in autumn of 1954, so that's suspicious for me. Yeah, so when she was born, I was trying to be part of Ebenezer Scrooge. Do you know that story? The story of Ebenezer Scrooge? Well, Ebenezer Scrooge is the hero... The Christmas Carol. What did you say? I said he's anti-hero. But I could be wrong. Ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho. Yes, you could. So, anyway, I tried out for the part and

[23:48]

I realize that what I'm about to say may sound not so good to you. But anyways, various... Back in those days, they didn't even ask the girls to try. Because Ebenezer Scrooge was a male. And so almost everybody that tried out for that part, although no girls were turned down, everybody who tried out for the part was a 10- or 11-year-old boy. Maybe some 12-year-olds tried out. But anyway... Boys tried out, and they read the part, but I don't know, for whatever reason, they didn't have much... They didn't want to sound like a grumpy, miserable, nasty old man. But I've seen this thing on TV a number of times. I saw a version of it where the person who played the part, I think his name was Alistair Simms.

[24:50]

And Alistair Simms, you know, I really like his playing Scrooge. So I saw how he acted. And he didn't act like a 11-year-old boy acts. So I kind of acted the way he acted. So when it came time to read the part, I didn't read, you know, have we no debtor's prisons? You know, bah humbug. I read it, you know, really in a nasty way. Like, oh, you need some more money, do you? Well, think again, you moron. I'm not going to put any more coal in the fire. It's already plenty warm in here. Live with it. And I got the part really fast. As soon as I was done reading, he said, you got the part.

[25:54]

So I played Scrooge. And so it's been an important story for me. I also heard recently that Leo Tolstoy read, every year he read that Christmas Carol. I don't know if he read it in Russian or English, but he really liked it. And he read it at Christmas every year. It's actually a carol. It's a song of joy about a man who was supported by all beings and had a sense of that when he was a little boy and he lost sight of how it is that he was being supported. Things happened to him that made him feel unsupported and abandoned and not appreciated and not nurtured. That's the way things started looking to him. And he became more and more hard and withdrawn, cold.

[27:01]

He started to become cold to people who really loved him and wanted to support him. But more and more, it looked to him like less and less was he supported. And he got more and more bitter about the world And the world he saw was that he was not being supported. And therefore, he wasn't going to support anybody else either. And so, that's the story. We don't know about this, actually, at the beginning of the story. We just see this very bitter, miserly old man And miser has the same root as the word misery or miserable. Miser means actually basically the basic definition of someone who's very stingy with themselves. Very miserable because of it. It isn't just that they're stingy with other people.

[28:04]

They're stingy with themselves. And he hoarded all his money at the same time as the miser. He had tons of money which he never spent on anything. So then what happens is, it's like Christmas Eve, he goes to sleep. And during the night, just like with the Buddha, except he's not sitting in meditation, during the night, in the comfort of his bed, which is somewhat warm, visions come to him. Visions are given to him. And their visions of how he gradually started to see that the world was not supporting him, and how he gradually became more cold. So the first set of visions were visions of his past, where you can see a fairly normal person who felt supported by some people,

[29:11]

and felt supportive of some people, started to shift in the direction of feeling that almost he didn't want to support anyone. So we see in the first vision how he became more and more self-centered and unappreciative of the world that supported him and gave him life, and how he became bitter and cold as a result, and started to push away people wholeheartedly offering him love, trying to push them away. And then he got a vision of his present situation, of the Christmas that was about to happen or that was just on the verge of happening. And he saw how how some people he was related to and some people he was unsupportive of were suffering as a result of his stinginess.

[30:17]

And he also saw how people who he currently lived with really didn't appreciate him. And how some people did appreciate him, but he didn't see that they appreciated him. And how other people laughed at those people for appreciating him because they saw how stingy he was But some people still appreciated him and appreciated himself. And then he got a vision of the future where he saw his own death and he saw people happy that he was dead. And saw people unappreciative of his whole life and only happy that he was gone now and that the world would not be plagued by him. And then he woke up. And he realized, actually, that all those stories were dreams. The story of him, even the story of him not appreciating that he was supported was a dream.

[31:22]

Even the story of him being a stingy, mean old guy who doesn't feel like anybody supported him and he didn't support anybody else. That was a dream. All the stories were dreams. And he woke up. And he was happy to be out of those dreams. And he started to be a person who felt supported by everything and wanted to support everything. And again, I didn't say this yet, but giving means understanding. Understanding giving means that we understand that we are always, we always have been, are now, and forever will be a gift.

[32:38]

We are a gift to the entire world. Each of us. The world has made us, and now here we are as a gift. Everything that this gift does is also a gift. But if we're a gift, then we are given also, constantly being given. And being a gift who's being given, we are a giver also. We're constantly a giver. But also we are a gift. We are made as a gift. And we are also a receiving of what we are. So we are constantly a gift. That's what we actually are. And that's what Buddha woke up to, and that's what Scrooge woke up to.

[33:48]

Before Buddha woke up in that way, Buddha was not stingy like Scrooge. Therefore, Buddha became a Buddha because he wasn't that deluded before, and he had been doing lots of good things for a long time. So when he woke up, he became a Buddha. Scrooge did not become a Buddha, although he did wake up to reality. If Scrooge would continue the way he was at the end of the time, then he would wake up again and again, and again and again, and again and again, and he would practice generosity again and again, and he would become a Buddha. But they basically had the same awakening. And this awakening again includes that you understanding that you are a gift, that you are giving, you are receiving.

[34:50]

And when you remember the receiving part, you realize everybody else is also a gift and a giver to you. Because you're a giver in all relationships, everybody's a receiver in relationship to you. So everybody you meet is a gift and you who meets them is a gift. without exception. And again, giving, the world made you with no expectation of you. Of course everyone wants the best for you, wants you to be the best you can be. And of course you want to be the best. You want everybody else to be the best that they can be. And if you don't feel that way, it's only because you don't see that you're a gift and they're a gift.

[35:52]

But when you want the best for other people, that's getting close to that you see that they're a gift and that you're a gift. And when you want the best for yourself, that's close to you being a gift and seeing everybody else as a gift. But wanting the best for people and of people and by people... does not mean you expect them to be the best or that you expect yourself to be the best. When the gift comes, you receive the gift with no expectation. And when you give yourself, you give yourself with no expectation. If you give yourself, which you always do, with any expectation, you start to give awareness to the giving. And also, giving with expectation is not giving. That's a New Yorker cartoon, a recent New Yorker cartoon, you know, the Christmas one where the person's like ringing the bell, you know, and it says, you know, give.

[37:01]

The person's ringing the bell, got the sign saying give. The person walks up, got a sign saying give. We do get, we do get, we do receive, but we only receive what's given. We only receive what's given. Everything you get is given to you, and you can't get anything that's not given to you. And everything that you give, of course, it's true, you do. Everything you are, everything you do, is giving. But if you give, and you're constantly giving... And if you weave in expectation, or if I weave in expectation to the gift that I am, then I'm still a gift. I'm a gift with an expectation woven into it. That's a gift too. But I lose sight of it.

[38:04]

I lose sight of the giving when I get into the expectation. When I give to gift something, then I lose sight of the gift, even though I seem to be giving. I blind myself, at least a little. And a little is sufficient. A little does the trick of blinding. So the first story about Shakyamuni is he woke up to giving. And he enjoyed the concentrated awareness of the process of giving throughout the universe in all directions simultaneously. And before that, he didn't fully understand. He did not. Even though he had been practicing giving for a long time, very well,

[39:10]

He didn't understand the full extent of it. Yes. But there are effects, right? Whatever we do, there are effects. So we are not blind to those effects. So I was wondering how do you give without expectation if you know that everything you do has an effect? So you are aware of it. if you actually do appreciate this, then you don't do anything anymore. You don't do anything by yourself anymore. No more. So, karma. You have great activity, but it's not your personal action anymore. And it doesn't have consequences. It's not an action anymore by a person.

[40:14]

So there aren't consequences. But there's awareness of the consequence. There's awareness of consequence. If you think you're doing something on your own, then hopefully you're aware of what you think you're doing on your own. And if you think you're doing things on your own, then there's consequences of you thinking that way. Yes. But when you understand that you're doing everything together, There's really no consequences. Everything's fully realized at that moment. And that moment doesn't have a preceding moment? Does it have a preceding moment? You could think that, but that's in the present. And I'm not saying there isn't a preceding moment. But in this level, you're not really a karmic being anymore. And you never really were. Karma is a dream. Karma is like, you're doing this to the world.

[41:17]

That's the point of view of... Okay, once again, now getting back to enlightenment. What's enlightenment? Enlightenment is everything comes forth and realizes you. What's delusion? I do this to the world. I act upon everything. I practice everything. I realize everything. I'm already here. I do these good things. Okay. But that's delusion, that point of view. What's enlightenment? Everything comes forth and realizes me. The consequence at that time is not the consequence of you being you. You are the consequence. You're the consequence. It's not you're going to have a consequence. The consequence of you is the whole universe right now. That's the consequence. And you are the consequence of the whole universe. It's not a later consequence. If you get into that, that's part of, you know, like, I'm thinking of the future.

[42:23]

That's the person that's the consequence of the whole universe who's thinking of the future. Fine. But that's not a consequence, that's a thought about a consequence. What's going to happen to me? What am I going to do? Fine. You can be that person. That it's a gift that you're that person. It's a gift you've received from the whole universe. And you, the person, is a gift to the whole universe. That's not consequence. That's not karma anymore. That's not cause and effect. But it is understanding cause and effect. It's understanding. It's the consequence of the whole universe making you a person who has understanding. But also being a person who doesn't understand, that's also a gift. But it's a gift of being a person who doesn't understand the full extent of what it means to be a... Yes?

[43:23]

I was thinking of the... The 64 mental formations. Yes. I forget what number it is, but I was thinking of shamelessness. Shamelessness. Yeah. The inability to feel shame. Yeah. I think the inability to reflect on your being. I was thinking of that guy, the get guy, with the sight on his chest, his get. Like our inability to actually see our actual being at that moment. That is shamelessness. At that moment he might not have felt shame carrying his gift sign. Yeah. And still he is a gift. Shamelessness is two, I can't remember the category, can you remember?

[44:27]

Is it general, violent, or something like that? Shamelessness, there's two different aspects of that. One could be, say, shamelessness, and there's two dimensions. One is an outer one, and one is an inner one. So some people have no self-respect. So when they're being stingy, they think, or when they're being cruel, they think, yeah, no problem. This is me, I'm a jerk. I'm mean, I'm selfish, I'm cruel. And they don't feel shame. But another translation of that is they don't have self-respect. In other words, they don't expect themselves to be generous and thoughtful and kind. They don't respect themselves, or they don't have that standard for themselves. They don't respect themselves. They don't value themselves as a person who is a good person.

[45:30]

Do they have the awareness, though, of what they have, of who they are? They have no self-respect, or... When you... They're acting like they have no self-respect. When you have that attitude, that particular attitude... Could you hold your question just a little longer? I want to say the other one. The other one is, you don't care what other people think of you. You don't care if they think you're a jerk, or if they... Those two are the two most powerful determiners of an unwholesome state of consciousness. If you have those two dharmas, you have an unwholesome state of consciousness. Even if you're not doing something mean, you have that unwholesome state of consciousness. Because then you're also not ashamed of yourself if you're not aware, if you're not attentive, if you're not mindful. No problem. Why should I practice mindfulness? I'm not a mindful person. So those two by themselves define unwholesomeness.

[46:31]

However, to have respect for yourself and to want yourself to do something good and have a sense of that's what I want to do, that dharma or the sense of, you know, I really don't want, I don't really want other people to censure me and dislike me and punish me for doing unskillful things. I don't really want that. Those two are not sufficient. The opposites are not sufficient to make it a wholesome state. You need more to do a wholesome state than just wanting to be good. But if you don't want to be good and feel fine about not wanting to be good, that's sufficient to make your state unwholesome. Now, are they self-aware? And I would say, well, not very. And that's the thing is that when you have that attitude, all the kind of wholesome practices are kind of like impossible to really do. And when you have that attitude, according to the logic of this, if those two dharmas are there, and they kind of go together, all the other wholesome activities can't get any traction.

[47:45]

So you can't have a wholesome state, according to this, if you have those two dharmas. which are the inability to be ashamed when you do something bad. At that moment, anyway. That you do something which is bad, and it doesn't bother you at all. You don't think, you don't really feel like, well, that's not really what I want to do. A lot of us do bad things, but if you really don't feel good about it, then the state of consciousness might not be an unwholesome state of consciousness. If you make a mistake and do something unskillful or even something cruel, the state of consciousness might not be unskillful if you really feel bad about it. And not wanting other people to be cruel to us is part of our nature because it's our nature that other people are being kind to us.

[48:49]

So I would say that those dharmas do turn the lights off pretty successfully on our awareness. And the other two turn the lights on, but not necessarily sufficiently, because there can be other dharmas which lead us to do unskillful things. But if you have those two, the unskillfulness is not as bad, not nearly as bad. But if you have the opposite of them, almost everything you do is unskillful. That would be my... the way I think about that dharma. That's good. Yes. So you talked about... here a bit... We're giver, we're the receiver. Yes. And so is everybody and everything, also everything. Everything. Everything.

[49:52]

Mountains are that way. Pebbles are that way. Raindrops are that way. The sun is that way. So if you say, do you feel a lot of seeing that life? you're aware that this moment is a gift. Is that consistent? Yes. A moment is a gift, a moment is a giver, and a moment is a receiver. Yeah? It seems like when I think of a gift, I think that it needs to be open. It's something that I'm also involved with, open. So that helps me in terms of some sort of thing I can just hold on to. A gift is something that has to be opened, or a gift is something that is open. So we wrap, at this time of year, people wrap gifts so that people can experience opening them.

[50:53]

It's an important part of the gift is to open it. And if you don't necessarily understand that the gift is open. And if somebody says, well, I'm not going to wrap my gifts. I'm going to say, here's a gift that's not wrapped because it's already open. I don't want you to think that because it's wrapped it's closed. Actually, I'm giving you these gifts that are not wrapped so you can realize that the gift is already open. These wrapped so that you can experience opening them. Because you open the gift and the gift's already opened. Both. So I give you two different types of gifts. The wrapped and the unwrapped. Yes? In the story, when he shows up at the... Yes. Yes. The story is still about him at that point. It's about his generous act. Yes. His awakening, which led to his generous act.

[51:56]

He doesn't become a Buddha on one night. It needs to be repeated. I just wonder if you come to the intention of giving or helping or supporting. That doesn't necessarily mean that you are being helpful with it, giving something that's wanted or that, I mean, so he's going to find out the crutches. He decided what they needed and he can't be able to distill that now. Well, maybe not. I don't know if Dickens didn't have time maybe to point out Scrooge's understanding, or to point out to us how it was that they supported him to bring those gifts to him.

[53:05]

His gift giving to them could not have happened without their support. So they were also gifts to him. And in fact, I think he did a pretty good job. But he didn't point out in the stories, he didn't say, and by the way, the visions he was having in the night of the Cratchit family, suffering because of his indigenous, that vision, he didn't say, and those Cratchits are being generous to him in this vision by, who knows what the Cratchits were doing at that moment, but he had a vision of them suffering. And then he even had a vision of Tahitim dying. in the future vision because Tiny Tim did not, his father didn't get enough money from his employer, Mr. Scrooge. Their current misery of having almost nothing to eat on Christmas in the vision. But Dickens didn't tell us that in this way, Tiny Tim Cratchit, the Cratchit family, in this way the Cratchit family is supporting Scrooge to wake up.

[54:19]

So he didn't tell us that, but in fact, the Cratchit family did make possible Scrooge's awakening in the present and the future. The image of the horror and tragedy of their life as a result of his stinginess, that vision through them, which they supported by being existent beings, they allowed dreams of themselves to be conjured up to wake him up further. And then when he goes to bring them the gifts in the morning, he may understand that he's bringing them gifts but that they're actually giving to him by allowing him to enact his awakening. So we can see that actually he does understand this or that we understand anyway. That it isn't just him being given. The cratchits are giving to him. That they're opening the doors to him to let him be a generous person He could not realize what he realized.

[55:24]

He could not realize his vision. Did he understand this fully? If he did, good, but even that is not enough. He has to still practice this over and over and keep ironing out whether there's any duality in the process. And who knows, maybe even on that day there wasn't any. I mean, of course, in fact, on every day there isn't any. Duality is never there. Did he understand that? I don't know. We'd have to now make a new story of Christmas Carol, which has a little, what do you call it, an antechamber, where a Zen master comes and tests Scrooge on his understanding. When he comes out of the Cratchit's house, I'm just bringing in the stuff. When you went in there, what was your understanding? Do you think that you gave to them or that they gave to you? And were you a gift or were you a receiver?

[56:25]

You know, so he should be questioned when he comes out of their house. That should be the next part of the chapter. And we'll see how he does. In that arc, that initiative, and he sort of has a new identity. for himself. I'm now a generous person. I'm going to try to be generous. He even says, I will hold Christmas in my heart. I'm going to now do this. Yes. And we don't know if he's going to do it. He might curl up in a ball again a few days later. He hasn't necessarily been pried open in an irrevocable way. I think the story says that he kept, he was known for Christmas, for all the years to come. Right. But he may not have understood that he himself, walking around during the other 365 days of the years, he may not have understood that he was a gift, and that everybody that met him on the street was a gift.

[57:34]

We don't know. When you talk about skill, I mean, you've been practicing a generous rule. So he may have intended to be good or to be generous. There must have been some kind of learning curve. He may have intended to be generous from that night? Yeah. Again, if you look at the other part of the story, when he was young, he wasn't so stingy. So there is also the story that we're generous, generous, generous. Something comes to say, you think you're generous? Well, how about this? And if you're curled up in a ball and all tight and scared and miserable, the tests are not so strong.

[58:38]

Most of what's happening is, at that point, things are trying to get you to open up. But if you're open, then your reward is, tests come to see if you'll close. So he would, huh? Well, you know, actually... Actually, it's like this, [...] and then like that. At a certain point, you don't... At that point, you're not like most other living things. Sorry. It's kind of the downside of being a Buddha. you don't close anymore. It's all over, the closing stuff. But a lot of stuff does close. Hearts open and close. Flowers open and close.

[59:42]

And actually, the closing of lotus flowers, sometimes when they close, they stay warm all night. And some insects go in there and get overnight warm housing from lotuses when they close. But I'm just saying that there's... Opening, and I think that it's possible that you open and then you get tested. Your openness gets tested. The universe tests your opening to bring it to perfection. People who are closed don't get tested much. People don't go up to a person who's over in the corner, all defended, Don't go over and say, you know, would you like to make a donation? They can tell the person, say, don't come over, don't come near me. I don't want to hear from you. You know, so they go up to somebody who's standing there, standing still on the street corner with hands like this. See, maybe they'd be afraid of that person. You know, a person who looks healthy and relaxed, they say, let's go.

[60:44]

That'd be a nice person to ask for a donation. And they're testing this person's openness and generosity. And what sometimes happens is that they ask for something and the person goes, no. And it's terrible sometimes. Which person goes? The person who is... Who asks or they ask he? The person who looks open to giving. People come and ask the person and they test the person's giving. So all of us, to some extent, I would guess, are somewhat open... And then if people see that, if beings see that, they do see it, and they come and they ask, and then you can answer. And then you can see, and you can answer in a way, you can see whether you're, you can see how kind of answer you get, and you can see if you get mean, or whether you answer in such a way as you say, okay, and then you say, okay,

[61:46]

to try to get something, or do you say, OK, just OK? And you can see that you tested both to see whether you'll say no, and you're tested to see if you'll, whether you say no or yes, whether you'll continue to open in response to the test. So it's possible that someone is very generous on a given day, and as a reward for their generosity, They get tested in a way they've never tested before. And then they go through the consequences of tightening up. And so Scrooge, in a sense, when he was young, he was more open and generous, and he got tested by certain things. And he couldn't see them as gifts, so he tightened up. And then there's terrible consequence of rejecting love, basically. Love comes to you, but when love comes to you, it comes to you and says... I'm here as a gift. I'm a gift, and the gift I am is I'm saying, love me back.

[62:50]

And you say, no, and then you go, and then the consequence of that is years and tightening and tightening. Big, bad results of rejecting the process of giving. And then gradually you open up again. And then once you get open, everybody comes and tests you. Scrooges are really generous, so let's go ask Scrooge for donations. He gets tested. And apparently he did well. It is the Christmas. We don't have a story about him during the other days of the year. Was he... He said that too. I think it really is the total transformation. So... Time of the writing of the text... Scrooge was doing really well. He was handling the... He opened and then he kept opening in response to all the requests. Was it a one-person play?

[63:53]

Huh? Was it a one-person play? You know, to a great extent it was a one-person play, but the vision... He had these visions. He had ghosts visiting him. His old partner comes to him. Out of kindness, this ghost comes, this scary ghost, but the ghost is coming to help him. But it's a scary helper. So mostly it's screwed in his own karma, his own mind. That's most of the story. And then there's a beginning part and an end part where there's actually people there. But mostly it's him with his own karma, his own mind. And it's also Buddha's mostly that night actually meditating on his own karma, his own mind. which I'll tell you about this afternoon, about Buddha's... Buddha had visions too. These are Scruti's visions. Buddha had a very similar night of visions.

[64:55]

He was basically under the boat tree by himself nearby, and he was full of visions of all the beings in the universe. Not just Mara attacking him, but he had visions of all beings in all time. without anybody in this world, apparently in the neighborhood. He developed these visions according to one of the stories. But they came, in a sense, because of his current yogic power. They came because of the kindness of the universe. He didn't have to enter into some deep state of concentration. He just went to sleep. And the universe gave him these visions which woke him up.

[65:58]

I say we're all going to get these visions that are going to wake us up. I say that. These are not nice visions that he had. Zig said, well, no thanks. Even if you know that you'll be okay in the morning? Well, okay, but I won't be able to go to sleep. They're coming. Really? Oh, okay. They're not going to come. Oh, okay. And then you go to sleep, and then they're going to come, and they're going to wake us up. we are going to get awakened by the visions of karma, of cause and effect. But then, when we awaken from those visions, we're going to see a new cause and effect that's inconceivable, that we awaken to, where we're not any longer dreaming in terms of our own personal action. God bless everyone.

[67:08]

I was thinking about concluding this talk. Thought arose in my mind. And I was also thinking about after we do that .. And then I thought of the people who said they were going to come today that didn't come. And I thought, I watched my mind. Could I see that? Could I see they're not coming? as a gift, because it's easy to see that it's not a gift that they've become. How can I see that they're going to miss the service we're about to do, that they won't be able to participate? How can I see that that's part of the giving process? It's difficult to think of a certain way to mind when someone's not here. I mean, someone that you'd like to be here, that you'd appreciate joining, that you look forward with a positive joy of them being with you, and they're not here.

[69:13]

Can I see that as a gift? And not hold it against them that they didn't give me the gift of being here. They gave me the gift of not being here. Well, I wonder if thinking of what's, who knows what it is, but they might be taking care of something else. Yes, exactly. Which I would be happy that they're taking care of. They might be sick. And it might be a gift, even if they have a good reason, that they're taking care of something really good. It also might be a gift for me to miss them. But if I feel that my missing them is a gift and I feel that they're not being here and letting me miss them, not being here and letting me miss them and letting me give the gift of missing them, whether they ever know or not that I miss them, that they gave me that gift too. And then when I do ever see them again, then I have even read to give them another gift, which is saying, you know, I really gave you this.

[70:20]

when you weren't there rather than take revenge on them for them not giving me the gift of coming and for them to not and not seeing that pain of them not coming or the gift and then take revenge on them for all those gifts I didn't get for all those gifts I didn't and it hurt them closed my heart to them because I didn't realize the kindness of their not being present Pardon? Yes. Yeah, right. Right. Yeah. about the specific person who didn't come, but just a sense of compassion.

[71:28]

And they give you... of you being able to feel that compassion for them not being here. So it just keeps turning. You get more and more opportunities. The more you meditate on it, you start to realize that you can be grateful to them not coming, so that you can be compassionate to them for whatever difficulty may not be possible. It goes round and round. It's, you know, it's just the fundamental practice of compassion is giving. Yes. it doesn't hurt you it's such a dramatic thing but if someone does something that has a huge impact on takes away my house or blows up my country or kills that child if someone does something that has a big impact that causes a lot of feelings hatred and whatever it's a harder journey

[72:45]

It's a harder what? It's a harder journey to get to see that. Yeah, well, but you skipped over earlier. Earlier you skipped over the story. When they knock your house down and you don't see that as a gift, then you get angry. And then you then recover at some point in the process, and you will eventually recover. Because these things, again, are testing us, I say. They're testing our Buddha mind. How bad do we have to make it get before you realize it's a gift? A lot of ways, I think, when they hit... that tower. In a sense, the country acted kind of like it was a gift.

[73:48]

I think we kind of felt like this shows us that we care about life. This shows us that we don't want to be cruel. that we think cruelty is really terrible. This gave us that gift. This showed us that we care about our family. This showed us that we don't want to be distracted from protecting in the world. It showed us that, you know, people... It was not good for the restaurant business and the movie business that that happened, because for a while there, people just wanted to take care of each other. The first reaction was not hatred and anger, generally speaking. Some people had that first reaction was, I care for the people who were killed. And some people, I even care for the people who are so composed that they would do this to other people.

[74:55]

I think there was a kind of generous response to it. And the whole world, practically, felt generous towards the United States. The big bully got whacked. But their response was not, generally speaking, oh, good. Now they see something about what it's about. A lot of them said they were generous to us. A lot of very generous people came. And then there was a backlash. This wasn't a gift. [...] And that led to, you know what it led to. This wasn't a gift. This wasn't a gift. But at first, it was like, even people like Rome, Chaney said, patience. I think Chaney even said patience for a couple of days. And then the war, and then the war, and stuff came out. This wasn't a gift. We're going to strike back. So, but as soon as you don't see it as a gift, you're closing, and then hatred comes.

[76:03]

Or, or lust. And if you do open to it, then your reward will be... If you close, the reward will be... Oh, you're closed? Okay. If you get closed, you get tested. When are you going to open? When are you going to open? So if you're open, you get tested. When are you going to close? When are you going to close? You think you're open? Okay, how about this? Are you still open? How about that? Are you still open? How about that? It just gets harder and harder. And when you close, then folks should open up, open up. But open is more like, oh, come on, open. Or, we'll make it worse if you don't open. So when we're open, we're being tested to deepen our opening, and when we close, we're being tested to open. That's the force of liberation operating.

[77:08]

And as we know, it's often causing people who are open to close and pop and close to close more. That also, that happens as part of it. Did you have your hand raised, John? Oh, I was just... In a mundane way, aside from a tragedy like that causing compassion, it also, you know, I think it shows mutuality that people prefer to kind of ignore, and it becomes something to deal with. And sometimes even if there's an opening, it's like, it's good recognition to deal with it, and you've got to see how you deal with it. That's another gift it showed. It says, you ignore people, This is what happens. They show you, you think you're not connected to somebody? Oh, you think you're not? Well, now do you think you're connected to us?

[78:12]

No. I still don't feel connected to you. But in some sense, that's what it's showing to these people who ran into that tower. They're connected to us. What they do has a deep effect on us. But some people say, no. That shows us that we're not connected to. That response can happen too. What we've done to their countries. What we've done to their country, what they've done to our country, what they've done to their country, what we've done to our country, we're all doing everything together. and can we open to that and the answer is well yeah we can and then sometimes we just really close down that's part of the story

[79:14]

It seems like the thing that's often missed is the body. What struck me with the, um, falling of the tower was the people falling. And that was really, um, it's like, oh, how low do people go? You know, in terms of, um, destruction of weapons. And, um, uh, and I... Talk to me a little more about this opening and closing thing. Yeah. It seems to me that, oh, in terms of gift, that it doesn't seem like there's a gift that you open and one that you don't. That seems like it's a dualistic perspective of gift. It seems like all gifts, in terms of wrapping, it seems like, in my mind, that all gifts are wrapped. Okay. That's a free country, right? You can have that. It's hard to see wrapped gifts, actually.

[80:21]

Because, you know, like an unwrapped person is hard to see. I don't think so. You don't think an unwrapped person is hard to see? I thought you just said all gifts were wrapped. Yeah. Well, then all people are wrapped. If all people are gifts. Well, do you think people are gifts or not? Well, did you say all gifts are wrapped or not? I'm not sure. Well, you did say it. I'll just say that to you. You said all gifts are wrapped. That's what you said. It's on tape. But anyway, if you want to say all gifts are wrapped, that's fine. If you want to say all gifts are unwrapped, that's fine. But in a way, people are wrapped. They're wrapped by minds. People don't really exist without being wrapped by minds. So you wrap me in your mind without wrapping me in my mind. That's how gift I am. I'm still a gift, but you don't know about it until you wrap me.

[81:24]

Because before you wrap me, I'm... Huh? What? A boogie, yeah. But you can't boogie with me until you wrap me. I'm still here. Your mind has to grasp me for me to exist for you. So the gift I am, in some sense, you're right. You have to wrap me to experience the gift. It's not really my mind. It's not really your mind, but it's a mind. It's not yours, but it is a mind. It's not my mind. Fine, drop the mind. But it's the mind that wraps me. And by a mind wrapping me, then that mind can grasp me. And then that mind can know me. It can open, but usually it needs a little help meditating on what it just packaged. Because it tends to package and then believe the packaging.

[82:28]

But with instruction it can say, okay, I packaged you just so I could know you, and now I have instruction which says that you're not actually my packaging of you. Like I could package you as an example. Laura, not a gift. Okay, well, that's fine. That's a perfectly good way to get to know her. Now let's unpack this thing about her being what you package her as, like not as a gift or as a gift. Also making her into a gift package is also going to be unpacked. But we do need to do this, and that's closing. We have to close on things, but we can also hear instruction to open. Instruction to open, instruction to give, instruction to enter into given. I'd like to conclude this and then move on to do a little ceremony for a memorial ceremony for Vernon's mother, who passed away when?

[83:33]

26th. 26th of October. So if that's okay with you, let's do that ceremony. May our intention be pleased and to be in place with the true narrative of God.

[83:56]

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