And now I'd like to say a story I heard about, another story about what happened in the night in India, the night and the morning in India. Apparently this is a story told by the Buddha. So one place to come in is that the Buddha entered into meditative concentrations and he reached a stage of very deep stability and concentration which was characterized by equanimity and In such states of trance, which have been attained by other people in history, if you direct your attention in certain ways, certain supernormal knowledges can come to one.

[01:16]

And these six supernormal knowledges are Knowledge of magical function or power. Knowledge of sounds that are beyond the normal range, which is called divine ear. knowledge called divine ear, clear audience, knowledge of other people's minds, knowledge of past lives, your own past lives, and

[02:18]

what's called divine eye, which is the ability to see beyond the normal range, but also be able to see all living beings, past and present, all over the universe. And to see their karmic evolution how they have gone through various changes in relationship to their karma. And the sixth superknowledge is the knowledge of the extinction of outflows. The sixth knowledge is which can be developed from deep states of concentration. I do not remember right now a specific text that I've read where Buddha talked about attaining these supernormal knowledges previous to this night, but on this night he did speak of realizing these knowledges.

[03:53]

These knowledges have also been attained as I said before, by other yogis and shamans in pre-Buddhist India and Siberia, northern China. There's records of these same kinds of knowledges coming to shamans who have entered trances by various means and have access to this kind of information. Supposedly there are those stories. In these states of concentration, Conceptual thought is pretty much turned off. Discursive thought is pretty much turned off.

[04:57]

And conceptual cognition is pretty much attending. So the person is in a state of concentration. And most of their experiences are direct perceptions, which means that they're perceiving things in a sensory and mental way with no conceptual mediation. And the night in India and other parts of the world was broken up into three watches, two hours each. And in the first watch of the night, the Buddha had his first cognition, which was a direct, valid perception of previous existences. one by one, in order. Seeing them just as they had been, his vision of his past lives amounted to an insight into his own personal identity, as it is found in samsara.

[06:23]

So he saw kind of an order or orderliness to his personal identity. In the second watch of the night, and by the way, this cognition is the fourth supernormal knowledge. It doesn't mention that he developed the previous three. They're not being talked about here. He developed and used this fourth supernormal knowledge to directly, in instantaneous moments of experience, to see these past lives. And I might just say a little bit more about direct perception at this point, which I've been talking to people at Green Gulch and in Berkeley about recently. We do experience, we do have, for example, sensory experience throughout the day, every day of our life.

[07:54]

These sensory experiences are unmediated by conception, and they happen very fast. And we are experiencing them, but most people do not ascertain these experiences. So an example of that would be if you're watching a movie, you're seeing these, how many frames, 24 frames a second, is it? So in one second you see 24 frames. In one second, a normal person sees these 24 frames. You're actually seeing 24 different pictures in a second, and you see them. register on you. If you got one frame, if they gave you one frame a second, the movie would look a lot different to you. Does that make sense? If they showed you one frame a second, you would actually go, well, come on, let's have the next one.

[08:56]

Does that make sense? You'd actually see a second's a long time to look at a picture. Does that make sense? If they showed you two, you'd still probably be upset. There's plenty more time to see pictures in this second. If this were to do three, you might or might not feel like, what's going on? How come they're showing this so slowly? But at some point, you'd stop and you'd start to think, this is like a normal movie. This looks like life. But actually in life, you see more than 24 frames in a second. A lot more than 24 frames a second. It's just that 24 frames a second look not like life. that the movie business has stopped making more than 24. Because people don't notice more than 24. They could give you more than 24 pictures a second. Very easily. There's plenty more time in a second to give you 24 pictures. They could give you 50. They could give you 1,000. But you wouldn't notice the difference between, most people would not notice the difference between 1,000 in a second and 24.

[10:04]

And as you also may know, They can give you more than 24, and what they sometimes do is they can send you messages between the 24 and tell you other things, like, go buy popcorn. Coke is delicious. And you can find it in the lobby. They tried that for a while, I think. They found out that they were sending more than 24 messages. And some of them had to do with the snack stand. And people did not know that they were getting those because There was only one of them among the 24 other ones. Only one. And the one didn't last for the whole second. It lasted for like less than a 24th of a second. So most people didn't spot it. But the yogis in the crowd said, these people are doing advertisements during the movie. I don't want that. And they complained. It was a big scandal. But some people...

[11:06]

see stuff between the 24 frames. They go up, and then they [...] go up. Next frame. Somebody in concentration would see a lot of stuff between those 24 frames. They would see a lot. They would see weight. A lot of weight. And they would see a lot. And they would see past lives. When you're at an instantaneous level, you may think, how could he experience all his innumerable past lives? Because in two hours, you can see an inconceivably great number of kisses and affirmations. Non-conceptual. Non-conceptual. Your past lives are actually, they weren't conceptual, basically. You had conceptions of them. while you were having them, but they basically weren't conceptual. Your life isn't a concept, actually.

[12:12]

So anyway, the Buddha was having these kind of moment-by-moment experiences, which most people do not ascertain they're experiencing, but they do not know it. What we usually know is a mass of them. which are then strong enough to give rise to a concept which can basically categorize them. And that's what we usually are conscious of. Barely know these. moment by moment, instantaneous direct perceptions. But Buddha did know moment by moment instantaneous perceptions without mediating, without mediating any concept, like my past life, my past life. He wasn't thinking, this is my past life, this is my... He was just seeing his past life and knowing his past lives, knowing directly, with no idea of it, but actually seeing and knowing that they're what they were. But it's actually looking at his past life, not his ideas of his past life or somebody else's idea, but the actual direct, unmediated perception of it.

[13:24]

In the second watch, he developed this fifth superknowledge, which was the awareness of other people's lives. order of other people's lives and how their lives went up and down. So then he saw the causal pattern of the whole universe and also saw how it all worked in with moral activity. Other people have had this unobstructed view of cosmic causation before him. His was particularly touched by seeing how morality and ethics is key in the destiny of beings. He saw this in the second watch of the night.

[14:25]

This is called Divine Eye. The third watch, he saw something which we have no record of anybody ever seeing before. which was the knowledge of the destruction of outlooks. This is not a vision of samsara. This is not a vision of worldly functioning. This is a vision of how gain and loss are actually illusions. This is a knowledge that is orderly, lineage, which constitute a personal identity in one life and many lives, and the personal identity of all beings and their interrelationships, that actually this whole process, because of the way it works, this whole orderly process has no essence. It's empty of any kind of essence.

[15:28]

And again, he saw this in direct perception, moment by moment. He was like accumulating all this information and becoming the person who has taken it all in and understands it without some idea beforehand of what he was going to understand. He didn't think, okay, I'm going to understand the order of this and the order of that, the order of all this, and now I'm going to see there's no essence. By accumulating all this information, he actually became someone who naturally understood because of all this information, there was no essence. Later he could speak about this. Being the way we are, being so conceptual, and hearing about unobstructed causal harmony and no essence, this, of course, sounds like conceptual talk because I'm speaking and I need concepts to say this to you.

[16:33]

So it's hard for us to imagine how you'd be able to see such a thing which we're speaking of, rather lofty concepts, how you could see that without any conceptual mediation. But the actual process is occurring in instant by instant pieces of data. So it's like Mozart once said, music is calculation without thinking or without knowing it. The fingers and the eyes and the ears and everything are making all these calculations. This thing called music happens. But the level of the calculations, the mind is not fast enough to, the conceptual mind cannot do that. But there is a mind of direct perception which can be trained to actually put the fingers in the right place at the right time with the right emphasis and the right strength, do that, all that stuff, calculating all those different mathematical relationships and all those different types of pressure of the finger and so on in relationship to the finger, all that information coming in, and this thing happens without any... which can happen anyway without any conceptual mediation.

[17:50]

But the person... actually is working with all this information, and this thing would not be able to happen if they weren't. They're acting and receiving feedback, acting and receiving feedback, receiving feedback and acting, receiving feedback and acting in direct perception. When we're learning to play the piano, we calculate conceptually. When we're learning to compose symphonies, we do it conceptually. But the great masters enter into such a state of concentration, there's no conceptual mediation, and they're actually seeing moment by moment. They're seeing the music moment by moment, not 24 frames a minute, but billions of frames a minute. or anyway, many thousands of frames per minute. I mean, 224 frames a second. Thousands of frames a second. They're hearing the music as it actually is.

[18:53]

They're hearing the sound of the piano or the sound of the voice as it actually is and as it actually is. It's not coming 24 frames a minute a second. It's not coming 24 beats a second. It's coming innumerable beats which can be categorized as 24, and written down in that way, or thought of that way, but actually they hear it as it actually is, and are responding at that level. And they know, they know the direct perception, what's going on. And they speak from that knowledge in concentration. And when you get to a certain point, in whatever art it is, You find a place where you know there's no essence, even to the process of correct perception, even to all that. And the order of the person seemed to be in order. There actually is no order there that you can actually grasp.

[19:58]

And when he saw that, he was transformed. And then his wisdom eye opened. And then he saw what was going on. So it isn't really just that what's going on is that there's no gain and loss. It's just that by seeing that there's no gain and loss, you wake up from the dream that there is gain and loss. And you wake up from the dream that it's important to you. When you wake up from that dream, you get to see the way the world really is, namely that there really isn't bondage. There really is peace. Right now. And before he woke up, he didn't see that there was. He was not content. He was a great yogi and he had this tremendous background of evolution and great heart, but he was not at peace.

[21:01]

But then he woke up from the dream of not being at peace. He woke up from the dream of being in bondage to misery and gain and loss. He woke up into another world. But in order to wake up, he had to stop believing that there was gain and loss. About what? About something he actually saw. What did he see? He saw the lives of himself and everybody else. He could see. He wasn't just hearing about people's lives. And then hearing about people's stories of gain and loss, which he had heard and which we hear, he actually saw without even any idea about these lives. He saw the lives in direct perception, and those lives of what he saw have no gain and loss. And this is difficult to understand, but again I say, he was looking at what was happening without any conceptual mediation.

[22:03]

No idea like, there's gain and loss here. Or there isn't gain and loss here. He saw the way things were, and he came to understand there is no gain and loss without even beforehand thinking, this is what I'm going to come to the conclusion I'm going to come to. He just, he came to these meditations thinking that there was gain and loss. He came out realizing that there wasn't. He came to these meditations planting seeds of suffering because he thought there was gain and loss. But by observing, actually, not ordinary empirical information, but the empirical information that comes to a yogi, by seeing these things, he realized he had been dreaming that there was gain and loss, and now he realized that there wasn't. And then his eyes opened to the wondrous world of peace without anything changing.

[23:12]

Really. The world's the same world, it's just that he saw it. He saw something else. He saw the lack of essence where he thought there was an essence. When you think there's essence, then it looks like gain and loss. When you can't find essence, you can't find gain and loss either. And then... That when he saw the morning star, he saw what the morning star was. And he cried out in joy. Now he understood what a star was, what the Earth is, and what a person is, and how everything's working together in a way that when you see that, you realize peace. And it's a big change, a big shock to your old system. But at the same time, it's just what's always been going on.

[24:15]

So one view of enlightenment is that you realize what was always the case. You wake up from the dream. of what never was the case into the awareness of what is always the case. And so then he gave some teachings for a while, and then he split. And we're still trying to figure out what he saw that night. And so today I told you some stories about what he learned that night and that morning. There's more stories, slightly different ones, but it's enough for today. Yes? This is a direct perception question. The direct perception question? Yes? Is there a way to describe the difference between a yogi who is acting upon all these different moments of direct perception

[25:25]

And somebody who's just walking down the street also, I think, is acting on direct perception, or else they wouldn't know where to put their foot. Is that part true? That we're acting on direct perception? Yes, it is. So how would you... I know there's a difference, but how would you describe the difference between the yogi and the person just walking down the street? Well, like... Let's just take the person walking down the street who walks into this place and comes up to this room here and then decides to leave this room and goes down the stairs and trips on the step and starts falling down the stairs. And they maybe have a little bit of sense of losing their balance and suddenly they find themselves on the ground. And they think, maybe they think, boy, that was fast.

[26:30]

I got from standing to falling very rapidly. They might even think, it seems like the last time I fell, it took longer. They might think that. But in fact, this time, it seemed to go very fast. It seems like I was standing and then suddenly the ground was in my face. My face and the ground were really close all of a sudden. While the person was falling, in direct perception, they would have had many, many experiences. Which, you know, depending on their training of how to fall, they might have fallen more or less skillfully. The yogi, however, as they're falling, would have had many, they would have, here we go. Down, down, [...] down.

[27:31]

Ooh, Jesus. This thing's getting closer and [...] closer. And so I'm not saying closer, but just saying. This picture, this [...] picture. And maybe there would be kind of like some kinesthetic responses like turn, turn, turn, twist, twist, turn, turn. My body's, and again, not my body, but there would have been experience of muscle this, muscle that, sound this, sound that, color this, sound this, muscle this. They would have had innumerable experiences as they fell. They would have been seeing one after another. Each one. The other person's like, boom, boom. They had the same experiences, not different. It's just that all these experiences were appearing to one person. Appearing, appearing, appearing, appearing.

[28:32]

None of them ascertained, maybe. Almost none of them ascertained. until maybe one of them was so strong and so clear, like the smash on the floor, gave like 10 or 20 really clear messages, which were all kind of in the same ballpark called smash, or now called smash, or basically all strong pain sensations, which led to a nice, strong conceptual cognition of pain, That person says, oh, pain. But as they're falling through the air, all the complex stuff that's happening there, you know, they're not all pain. When you're falling through the air, you know, things are changing really fast. It's part of the reason why it'd be hard to come up with a concept of what's going on as you're falling, is because there isn't like a series of clear, repetitive information. So it might be like, for most people, like standing and on the ground in pain.

[29:38]

And the pain might be like really clear. And the texture of the cement might be really clear. But you went, but the yogi would not have any more sensory experiences than the non-yogi. It just, they would have been going, seeing each one. And as you may have heard, people sometimes, as they're dying, have this kind of thing, seeing their whole life flash before their eyes. Or people, when they're about to have a car accident, and somehow time changes, they get really concentrated. They stop listening to the radio. It's still on, but they're not hearing the words anymore. They're hearing all the sounds of the radio. The radio stops, shifts from like, hello, well, this is, to... they get concentrated. And they start becoming, in that concentration, start tuning in to the moment-by-moment colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and tactile information that's coming all the time, and they're feeling each one.

[30:47]

That'd be the difference between the yogi. But no different information. Just one case, you're ascertaining each one, the other one, stuff's appearing but you're not ascertaining, appearing but not ascertaining, appearing not ascertaining. But if things are set up for normal people so that you get a series of sensory continuity, a strong series, then those will lead to a mental cognition which will lead to a conceptual cognition. A mental sense, a mental direct perception leading to a mental conceptual cognition. Then you'll know. But if you don't have a series, if you just have, like if you could program somebody so you have a color, a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, a color, a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, and even not even similar colors or similar, the person would not be able to ascertain any of it. And they would... Actually, even if it's a similar series, they won't be able to ascertain it.

[31:52]

But if it's a certain pattern, they won't be able to ascertain it, plus it won't be able to lead to a conceptual cognition. So they're basically experiencing, but not... But usually... That doesn't go on for very long because there's something very powerful in the system which will give rise to some really strong emotion. Like if you go two or three seconds without something like that, unless you're intoxicated, you can't get by with that for very long. The system will like, come up with something, come up with something. It'll go, boop, [...] make that into a concept. It'll give you a strong repetitive information which will force you to It'll be the power to make you have a concept of what's going on. It won't let you go too long without coming up with a perceptual cognition which allows you to ascertain something even though basically what you're ascertaining is that the systems want you to ascertain something.

[32:52]

I'm giving you a nice simple example. Even though nothing's happening outside to cause that. It's an internal homeostatic protection device. I think that's what's going on. Could you explain a little more what cessation of outflow means? I don't quite understand. Cessation of outflow would be partly, it would be, it's called the knowledge of the cessation of outflows. So the way I would understand it is that he would know, he would know, he would experience, he would understand the outflows are ending, but that would also be based on understanding that the basis of the outflows was totally, he would be totally convinced through direct valid perception that there really is no gain and loss to be found.

[33:55]

Could you define outflow? Well, outflow, literally it means, I would say, It means some sense of like losing or gaining. Actually, like the energy is flowing out of you or into you. Something's flowing out of you or flowing into you. So there's some sense of gain and loss in the basic definition of the word. That's why I like to use gain and loss around this. But another kind of outflow is another way they define it is three basic types are desire for some kind of sensation, sensory desire, desire for becoming, and ignorance. Those are the three basic types of outflow. Ignoring what? Ignoring the give and take of the universe. Ignoring how you're

[34:58]

being supported by everybody and you're supporting everybody. Ignoring that, then there can be gain or loss. If you don't ignore that, there's no way to establish gain or loss in this world. Because you're helping everybody and everybody's helping you. But if you ignore that, then you can have a dollar and then I don't have a dollar. Or you give me your dollar and then I gain a dollar and you lose a dollar. That way of looking at things is ignoring that we're working together. Or like... not appreciating the sensory experience you're having now and desiring another one or a certain type. That would come again from the idea that we're not working together here. What's happening is not like something I've been given and something I'm giving to. So, another translation of the word that I'm translating as outflow is paint. Paint. Paint. Because it's the way we relate to things that makes something tainted or plants a seed which will give rise to suffering.

[36:08]

When we relate to our life in terms of whether we're gaining or losing something, then everything we relate to in that way plants a seed which will mature as suffering. Like if you do something for somebody, trying to gain something and then you don't get it, then what seemed like a gift now makes you feel miserable when you don't get what you expected to get. You don't get a gain and you gave it from that perspective, so now you feel bad. Or you were trying to prevent a loss and you don't get it and you don't prevent it, so then you feel bad. It's a manipulative approach to life that we naturally fall into And that way of relating to life, trying to get something from it. And then being happy when you get something and unhappy when you lose something. That way of being, rather than you just get something. Like, when you get pleasure, you got pleasure.

[37:12]

But you don't have to get happy that you got pleasure. But we do. And when you get pain, or lose pleasure, You lost pleasure, you got pain. But you don't have to think of it as loss. But if you do think of it as loss, then you plant a seed of suffering. It's possible to not be unhappy when you lose things and not be happy when you gain things and be in a state of peace. Where gain and loss do not push you around. And it's also possible to be in a state so that whether you gain or lose anything, no matter what happens, you're miserable. Because you planted these seeds of gain and loss all over the place. So that no matter what happened, you're miserable. I heard this great show on NPR just recently about Yiddish and what the word kvetch means. Kvetch means like to squeeze yourself, like to squeeze your ribs or squeeze your shoulders together or squeeze yourself.

[38:18]

So Kvetch is like, she gives the example of this guy, this old man is like, he's like on a train, you know, and he's been on a train for hours and he's getting really thirsty and finally somebody brings him some water and he drinks the water and he says something like, how does he put it? Oh, I've been suffering so long and now finally I get this water. But it's like he's really complaining while he drinks the water. He can't just drink the water. He's got to squeeze it. I think the joke is that first he's saying, Oy, am I thirsty. Oy, am I thirsty. So someone brings two glasses of water and says, he drinks them and says, oy, was I thirsty. And so it's this thing of like gain and loss orientation. So even when you, no matter what happens, you squeeze it.

[39:20]

You squeeze it, squeeze it to get what you can get. You squeeze life, you squeeze life, you squeeze life. And Yiddish is telling us a lot about that. It's wonderful. So there's lots of opportunities to notice this gain and loss thing. Again, when pleasure comes, you get happy from it, or you just say thank you. Something nice comes to you to say thank you. Or do you go, and then of course, give me more. And if something painful comes to you, say, thank you. Or do you go, try to give me less. It's possible to experience pain and pleasure without getting happy and sad about it. And it does sometimes happen that people experience pleasure and just go, pleasure.

[40:26]

It feels good. That's it. And it's possible to hear people say good things to you and just hear, oh, they're saying good things to me. But not get happy because they're saying good things to you. And if they're saying bad things about you, to hear that they're saying bad things to you, but not get sad because they're saying bad things to you. To realize it's a gift either way. But it's not the thing that makes you happy is that it's a gift, not that they're saying good things or bad things. It's the orientation towards it being a gift, no matter what, so you don't get jacked up and down. This is, again, the knowledge, when you actually understand that that's the way things are, then that's the end of the outflows. So we can get a little feeling for this, and we can have moments where we're free of it, like the moments like looking at feeling pleasure and like period pleasure period or somebody says something positive about you and you go that's good that you said that you know but you're you're happy for them that they could say something good you're not happy because they said something good about you

[41:46]

If they stop saying something good about you and say something bad about you, you're not unhappy because they say something bad about you. You're just sorry for them. You feel compassion for them that they're not speaking well of somebody. But it doesn't matter who they're talking about. You'd feel the same. You don't get jacked up when they say something bad about your enemies and feel bad when they say something good about your enemies when the outflows have ended. For now, anyway, you can have a chance to notice the outflows and enter into concentration someday and understand that they're over. They're not going to happen anymore because you actually see that there's no essence and therefore there can't be gain and loss, so then there can't be outflows. That's the knowledge of the extinction. It comes from this vision into the nature of things. So it isn't just not, but for now anyway, it's good to notice that there are outflows. I think that's good to notice.

[42:48]

And I hope that can be encouraging to us when we notice our outflows. Namely, I still haven't attained that state. That's good to know. There's a great scene in It's a Wonderful Life when the angel comes, I'm sorry, is first there. Have you seen this movie? It's about the concentration camp? No, no, It's a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. That's a concentration camp too. Yeah. The Christmas movie. Yeah, and the angel is sort of introducing himself and revealing that he's an angel and make some remark about how foolish it was for... Is this with Jimmy Stewart? Yeah, for Jimmy Stewart to try to kill himself over $8,000 or something like that. And the angel says, we don't use money in heaven. And Jimmy Stewart says, well, it comes in pretty handy down here. And there's something in that that...

[43:57]

that is also part of our life in terms of, maybe it's samsara, maybe, but there is a way in which all of the gaining and losing is part of the currency that we use. Yes. Seems to be part of the currency. Seems to be part of it. So there's lots of opportunities to see it. Right? And it's good to see it. Since it's going on, it's good to notice it. Don't miss out on the gain and loss that's happening, if possible. And then you won't be so surprised and disturbed by what happens to the person who's concerned with such things. It's more like, well, of course I'm smashed to smithereens. That would make sense. Of course. And of course I care about it, because I was into gain and loss.

[45:02]

That makes perfect sense. I heard you say that it's actually beyond explanation. So if I... First is, into what you were explaining of direct experience, because even if I notice my gain and loss, then I still have an explanation, which is probably tainted by some former seeds I planted about gain and loss. So will I constantly obtain that view of gain and loss? You were explaining that what he was seeing was actually without order and without explanation. The explanation just came in because he wanted to convey it. So I'm not quite getting where actually there will be finally a free of those things of seeing and getting up.

[46:09]

free of the seeds of suffering that are planted by being concerned with gain and loss? Yeah, by being concerned, and then by seeing it, and then even then, I'm still sitting there with an explanation about it. And you could think of the explanation as a gain. Exactly. So, is there any question about that? No, not about that, but where is now the step to direct perception? Where is your perception for you? Well, part of why I'm telling you about direct perception is just so you can know that there's a story that the Buddha saw this stuff in direct perception. So that, just to know that his information gathering process was one done in a state which we're not too familiar with. So, just for that information, I hope, in some ways you might feel like, oh, geez, I can't, I don't have that kind of concentration, I can't see that, gee, I feel left out.

[47:20]

But anyway... That's one way you could feel. The other way you could feel is that if you don't understand what the Buddha understood was, partly because you're not as concentrated as the Buddha was, and if you were, you could see some of the stuff that he got to see. That's just for you to know. Just kind of like... To know that that's the story is that part of the reason why we don't get what he's talking about is because we're not concentrated enough. The other thing about... what about all this in the realm we do live in, and the realm he lived in too, before the knowledge of the extinction of offloads. He was the same as us, even when he was concentrated. But what he saw when he... After he saw the extinction of offloads, what he saw was da-da-da-da-da-da, different versions of what he saw are now out there. Different disciples of Buddhists say he saw different stuff.

[48:24]

Everybody agrees, I think, he had the knowledge of the extinction of outflows. Like, you know, everybody would agree, he got over that. He got over, like, money. He got over it. He knew that people were using money, but he got over it. Completely over it. Whether he had it or... I mean, if you came up to Buddha and gave Buddha a lot of money, it wouldn't bother him. He wouldn't be like, I'm over it, get that out of here. Here's a lot of money for you to build innumerable monasteries. No problem. He can handle that. Now give it back. He can handle that. He was free. He was so free, you could dump lots of money on him, he'd be fine. You could bury him in money, he'd be fine. He wouldn't get mad at you. If you put money into his mouth and crammed it in his ears, he wouldn't get mad at you. He would still be compassionate towards you no matter what you did with money in relationship to him.

[49:30]

That's what I say. What did he see when he achieved the knowledge of the extinction of outflows? When he stopped believing that there's gain and loss, what did he see? He saw that the people who are totally caught up in gain and loss are totally, completely non-dual with him and all the Buddhas. So you don't have to like get out of being all kind of crunched up and kvetching. You don't have to get out of gain and loss. You don't have to have direct perception. You don't need any of that stuff to be who you are. You can be who you are without doing anything. You're already who you are right now. That's what he saw. And we all know that, right? But he saw that. And he also saw that everybody is completely non-dual with everybody else.

[50:32]

So nobody has to get any better or worse. But if they do, and they wake up to the way things actually are, they still won't be any separate from the way they were before or the other people who don't get it yet. That's what he saw. That's the good news. That's the spiritual part, is that there's no separation between those who have become free of outflows and opened the door to the fact that we're all working together and those who don't see it yet but are totally included in it already. That's the good news. The good news isn't that he got over the knowledge, he achieved the knowledge of the extinction of outflows and then he was cool. That's not the good news. The good news is what he saw when he got over his problems of being caught up in outflows like we are. Because what he saw was that we're fine.

[51:35]

And so is he, and so has he always been, and so has we always been. He said, strive on untimely. Pardon? He said, also strive on untimely. Yeah, he could say that because... He's eating something. Are you kidding me?

[52:03]

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