to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. I was I'm influenced in the direction to consider with you the phenomena of greed in our life together. By the way, do the younger people here have ever heard of Howdy Doody? Yeah? Well, there was a clown on Howdy Doody called Clarabelle, and Clarabelle, I think, died yesterday.

[01:02]

I went to the doctor's appointment yesterday, had my eyes examined, and on the way I heard Terry Gross was talking about this person named Jack Abramoff. Does anybody not know who Jack Abramoff is? Who is Jack Abramoff? a lobbyist. He has a firm which people can hire to try to influence government officials in various ways. And he was real close friends with a person named Tom DeLay. Is that right? Who was the leader, the House Majority Leader. He's the leader of the

[02:13]

House of Representatives of the United States, the leader, and they were real good friends. He wasn't a speaker. He was a majority leader. Anyway, he had lots of influence, very powerful guy who just was real close with Jack Abramoff. And Jack Abramoff, I think, is in a being indicted for various crimes against humanity. Is that correct? No? What? Yeah. So anyway, I know that about Jack Abramoff, and I know he had something to do with Tom DeLay's losing at least some of his power in the Senate. He's no longer the majority leader. And I think he's withdrawing or resigning from his position in Texas.

[03:19]

Anyway, they're both, I don't know what to say, but I heard Terry Gross say that she was talking about how they were working for certain kinds of reforms in the way of, you know, to combat various kinds of abuse of workers in the Mariana Islands. And I thought, oh wow, Abramov has some redeeming characteristics. Maybe he'll be saved after all. But I misheard. And actually, Actually, he was working against legislation which was trying to protect these workers who were being brought over from China to work in the Marian Islands. And I don't know the story exactly, but workers from China and Thailand and other Asian countries were being brought over to those islands to work in basically clothing factories.

[04:31]

and under the usual sweatshop conditions, very unhealthy conditions. But they voluntarily came because they heard that they would get paid a lot more than they get paid back home. So they came to make money to help their families. So the government of the Marian Islands somehow made it known around Asia that they had these jobs for these people, and then these recruiters recruit these people for a price. For thousands of dollars, these people have no money, go in debt to the recruiters to get them to go over to get these relatively good jobs under terrible conditions. However, once they get over, not only are they working under terrible conditions, at all bite, at higher wages than they get back home, but they have this huge debt. So no matter how bad the conditions are, they have to keep working because they're in debt. And the people who they're in debt to are people who will hurt them and their families if they don't pay off.

[05:39]

So anyway, this terrible situation in these islands, which are, I think they're U.S. territories, not states, but territories, which means that various things like they don't have to pay tariff taxes, United States and things like that. but also U.S. immigration law doesn't apply to them. So these people can go in and out at the behest of their employer. The employer can bring them in, and if the employer doesn't like them anymore, the employer can deport them. Anyway, some senators, somehow, one senator from Alaska somehow got over there and saw was going on and introduced legislation into the Senate of the United States. And this legislation to reform the labor situation for these people, I don't know how much, or whether also reform the immigration thing and all that.

[06:48]

because there's multiple ramifications of harming these people all over the place. Anyway, he introduced it to the Senate and it passed unanimously. Not like, you know, 60 to 40, but all of them voted for it. Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, I think it is. Somebody sees an abuse to poor people being abused and introduces to the U.S. Senate, which has some influence over its territories, and the Senate approved it unanimously. Then it went to the House, because it has to get approved by both houses. But when it got to the House, the leader of the House is Tom DeLay. I'm not the leader. The majority leader is Tom DeLay, who is good friends with Jack Abramoff. And Jack Abramoff works for

[07:52]

the Marian Islands government and they give him eleven million dollars to have his friend Tom DeLay make sure that this legislation never gets out of committee. Now if it didn't get out of committee and went to the House of Representatives, even though Tom DeLay is pretty powerful, people say that they did some polling and if it got out of committee It would easily pass the house, but it never got out. None of this stuff got out. So these people get a lot of money from the businesses to make sure that anybody who tries to protect the workers won't be able to get stuff passed. And so that has been quite successful up until recently. Now, this has been going on for a long time. I don't know how long, but a decade or something. Now, because of various other things, businesses are moving out of the Marianas over to China where they can pay people much less.

[09:02]

So now these businesses are closing, so now these ladies who work in these shops have to find some other work and guess what kind of work they can find in nice tropical lands where tourists are coming. because they still are in debt, you know, so they can't just go home. They've got to pay off their debts. So anyway, the situation goes on, and Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff still have a lot of money in there still. I don't know what they're doing, and I don't know if anything will happen about this. So when you hear about things like this, you kind of wonder, well, what can we do? How can we live in a world like this? We want to protect these people from, I don't know, maybe could Jack Abramoff think that this would be good for the social welfare of the Marian Islands and all the foreign workers? Do you think this was for the social welfare of all the people concerned?

[10:08]

Did he think it would help the economy? of the Marian Islands and the economy of China and Taiwan. I don't know what his motivation was. And then we know other stories like this too, right? And the question is, what does greed have to do with this? And we can maybe guess that somebody's greedy, but I think for me it comes back, well, it comes back to me. And if I'm greedy, And if I can find a way of living where I become aware of the greed and find some way to not get involved with it, to gradually become free of it. And is it possible that a way that's not driven by greed, could it do any good? for situations like this where people are being abused for the sake of, for the sake of, I don't know, I guess for the sake of these companies making a lot of money.

[11:21]

I guess that's why they were treated this way. And then I guess, and then also the people who charged them a lot of money for them to come over, I guess those people were trying to make as much money as they could. I don't know if those people were being greedy, but I don't think they were inspired to live a life of non-greed. I would guess that they're not. I guess maybe they think that's ridiculous. Is a life of non-greed ridiculous? Is a life of non-greed just plain irrelevant and impractical and more or less impossible? So that's what I thought I'd talk about tonight. How do we work with our greed? Has anybody noticed any up close recently? What did you notice?

[12:27]

Greed for things to be different. What do you mean by greed? I was greedy for it to be snack time. I was greedy for it to be lunch. I was greedy for... You mean it wasn't snack time and you were greedy for it to be snack time? Exactly. And I was greedy for the nice garden jam instead of the same raspberry jam. So how does greed come to be? What are the conditions by which greed appears in your life, in your mind, in your heart? I don't know. I know you don't know, but what does it look like? What are the conditions? I think a huge part of it is aversion. I feel a strong sense of aversion to the current situation.

[13:28]

I feel aversion to the work I'm doing. I feel aversion to the raspberry jam. I feel aversion in general. And there is a sense that... And I don't know that there's necessarily a sense that if I had the nice pear jam that everything would be okay. But... But there does seem to be something in that can like it sort of, you know. You think maybe if there was this nice jam that that might provide some distraction from your aversion? Yeah, I think that's more. I mean, in a strange sense, I don't think I actually desire these things. Because I have a very strong sense that whatever, I'm going to have aversion no matter what I'm doing.

[14:34]

And even as I'm having this aversion and this desire for something else, I know that even if I had that, even if it was snack time, and when it is snack time, I want it to be lunch time. I want to be planting again. In those specific instances it seems like greed is sort of a way to keep myself occupied while in the midst of aversion. And is there a difference between greed to keep you occupied and desire, just desire to keep you occupied? Yes.

[15:48]

A Roman recipe? A Roman recipe, right, with dates, with pine nuts and nuts stuffed inside. rolled in salt and pepper, nuts and pepper inside, rolled in salt and fried in honey. And just the thought of it, I really thought I had to go out and try it and make it and imagine Roman eating it. And I met these morsels, big morsels actually. And I really felt like I wanted to eat more than enough. One was plenty, and I wanted... It really was like... I felt like a woman. She stood up and wanted to have more than one. Many.

[16:50]

So does that seem like... Did that seem somewhat excessive at some point in the process? It just felt I felt like something had gotten activated. I wanted more. I knew it was more. I didn't need another one, but I wanted another one. So it felt like classic reading. Yes. And I get catalogs. I will go through the catalog page by page, looking for something that I might need, and just kind of the anticipation that there might be something there, like that is the perfect thing, like that dress that has, you know, and I won't skip a page in the catalog in case on that page I skipped was the perfect thing. And it feels obsessive. It feels like I'm looking for a kind of pleasure that will resolve all pain, at least.

[18:01]

And it's OK if it's even momentary. But when I'm looking, there's a sense of the ultimate satisfaction can be found on one of these pages. And it's quite silly. When you're looking at it, do you ever find anything like that? Sometimes I find things that look like... That might be it? That might be it. And then at that moment of finding the thing which might be it, do you get a little respite from suffering? I turn the corner on the page, and I put it on the table next to my bed, and then I can stop for a while. And then sometimes I'll go through the pile and see if it still is the faint, you know, see if it still has that resonance that, like, it's been a huge time I've had it. And eventually I can throw the catalog today without having, you know, a problem with it. But, you know, sometimes I'll call the 800. What? I see a product on that catalog.

[19:02]

Remember that? Do you remember that episode? The catalog arrives at the house and they're looking at it like, oh, I love that bike. And then they arrive with things that they wish were alive. They're happy with them for a while and then things begin to happen. Yes. Yeah, good idea. I think we all do. It's the idea of handing over self-control or not handing it or feeling this pressure between what you want and what you think you want. And I was thinking also about the jet.

[20:04]

I miss this thing about handing over self-control. How did that fit in? Well, you think that you have your self-control or you have self-control. Yes. to act on your reading impulses that you have not self-controlled. You've, like, handed that control over to something else. But I also thought about the Jack Abramoff flavor of reading as being, like, we can see how people, individuals, are affected by that. But a lot of the grief that I think I experience is a personal kind of thing, and wondering if there's, like, You know, it's easy to say, oh, well, all these people have been hurt like that. And obviously, that's bad. But is there some sort of connection with that happening, you know, on a more personal level? Who's hurt in that? Yeah. Right, so that's a good question.

[21:09]

And in a way I don't want to answer it, but look again, when I'm greedy, who is hurt at that time? Am I hurt in some way when I'm greedy? If my desires are excessive? For example, I could desire to do something, like walk down here to this room. That's a desire. I didn't feel myself, and I don't right now feel like my desire to come down here and talk to you, talk with you, I didn't feel like that was excessive. But perhaps if I was trying to get something in addition to arriving at my destination, that would be maybe excessive.

[22:11]

And I would say that that would hurt me if I was trying to do something more than come down here and get to this room by walking down here. And I came to get something more than that. I would say that would hurt me. How would it hurt me? Any ideas how that might hurt me? Yeah. I feel like it hurts me because at that time I'm not appreciating my life as it is. If I'm greedy, I'm actually not really alive. And you're saying you're not appreciating your life as it is. That's one way to put it. Another way to put it is you're not appreciating your life as it's coming to be. because your life isn't like a fixed thing. It's just sort of momentarily there in such and such a mode. Yeah, I think that I miss out.

[23:15]

I miss out on my life. And if I miss out on my life, that, I think, propels me into more wanting to... Since I'm missing out on my life, then I want to get it back, so I want to get something out of my life. Even though if I hadn't tried to get something out of my life in the first place, I might not have missed it. So then that wouldn't propel me into trying to get something out of it. Because you do get something out of it, actually. You get your life. But if you try to get something out of your life, you miss your life. And greed, I think, helps us miss our life. And then that conditions us to feel behind and lacking. And then, well, It's fine for somebody to talk about just appreciating their life, but I'm in the hole now. I have to recover from the loss of my life, at least from the previous moment where I was trying to get something out of it. And that cycle propels itself.

[24:18]

I don't propel it. That way of being propels it. I have to suffer. I have to experience the pain of it. So that's how it can hurt me. Plus, it hurts other people because I'm showing them a way of living, which then looks like, you know, that's the way he lives, so I guess maybe I'd hurt his feelings if I lived another way. So we kind of like collude with each other. Because we kind of think, well, they're greedy, so maybe I should be greedy too. Maybe I wouldn't be a good friend if I wasn't greedy. If I just did things because I thought they were good rather than trying to get something, maybe I'd be then separating myself from people. Or taking advantage of. Hmm? Or taking advantage of. Taking advantage of people? I might be taking advantage of. Well, I might be taking advantage of. I don't keep up with that greed.

[25:21]

Or I might be ostracized or criticized if I didn't act that way. But if I do act that way, well, at least I'm not putting myself above other people then, right? So that's nice. Yes? I notice right now I have the desire to contribute. to our discussion, and I'm noticing that this wish can get in the way of my being with you, but I'm not able to be as flexible that you could be interrupting me at the moment, or I could stop talking at the moment. If I want to get to the end of my sentence, even if I'm trying to get something. Yeah, right. even to want to get to the end of the sentence so that you would get the end of the sentence out of the sentence. Doesn't seem that bad, but it's kind of missing the sentence because you're concerned with finishing it.

[26:30]

Yes? Did you want to... Did you make a gesture or something? Right. And I told the Jack M. Moss story because stories like that might make me think, those are some bad guys over there. What are we going to do about those bad guys? And I think people should be protected from situations that they seem to be contributing to, or at least that they seem to be contributing to blocking the prevention, blocking the protective efforts that people are making.

[27:36]

But I've got to be careful that I don't think that I'm not like them, you know? Then I think I'm really kind of, well, I'm just joining them. I'm joining them. Of course, they're worse than me, but I'm basically, they don't think they're worse than me. And some of you probably don't think they're worse than me, yes? on how we don't make our own decisions and everyone is responsible and involved in every decision that is made. It's made me think of Jack Abramoff, and I'm wondering, well, we're all part of his decisions to stop his legislation. It's just something that challenges me to think about how am I involved in other people's grievances as well as in my own, and how are other people involved? It's really, I think, interesting to contemplate when you hear these kinds of words, just like you were saying, you want to think, oh, he's the bad guy. He made that decision. But was it just him that was involved in it? Or is it all about their fault?

[28:39]

Right. And when you're not greedy, if that ever happens, and it does happen sometimes, I think part of our life is not greed. We sometimes do things And we just do them, and we aren't trying to get anything out of them. Once in a while that happens, and sometimes we feel great about that, but we weren't doing it to feel great. And sometimes we do things and we don't do well, and we feel bad, but we didn't do them not well to feel bad. We just felt bad not doing them well. And then sometimes we just try again, not because we're trying to get something out of doing it again in a way we think is proper, but because we actually want to do it the proper way, and we know the proper way sometimes, and other people do too, and we do it, and we do feel good sometimes, but sometimes we don't feel good. Sometimes we just do it the proper way, and that's it. Then later sometimes we feel terrific, or somebody does. So in that process, I don't think that the individual is in control over the fact that they are not greedy.

[29:48]

But I brought it up to this group because here's a group of people that if we bring this topic up and we all start looking at it, somehow as a group we start making the decision to be non-greedy. we start supporting each other just because we are meditating on it. It's possible that that can happen and that we can bring this up without trying to get non-greedy people out of the deal. But just know that the process of meditation on greed is one traditional meditation to overcome greed. And meditating on non-greed is a traditional way also to overcome our habits, our greedy habits. And also, like Linda, the abbess confessing that maybe she was excessive is also one of the ways to overcome greed and not to be terribly, you know, struck down, you know, and incapacitated by the meditation.

[31:00]

But just notice it and try to see how it works and how there would be another way to do the same thing. how it might be possible still to go and buy figs sometime without that being greed-driven. It's possible. Yeah. The word that keeps coming into my head is delight. Delight? Yeah. So I was just noticing that... I was like, well, I wonder why that's the word. I think there's something in my mind that's like that whenever you're trying to get, you actually can't have delight if you're trying to get something out of something, but you actually Things can be delightful, like the dates for the Friday night dessert. There can be delight. I just think that, especially I've noticed when we start talking about prohibitive things in the community, people can get into it, but there's a self-flagellating tendency that can come up really quickly.

[32:01]

But I think that, for me, a balanced thing the potential, but you can tell whether it's greed or whether there's actually just pure joy. It's either the flexibility to put it down or have it change. Yeah. I read this poem to you a while ago. I can't remember it now. I think the name of it is something like A Case for the Defense or something like that, but it starts out with... Maybe it's one of these scenes where... Maybe it's one of these scenes like genocide city kind of scenes where these terrible things are happening. People are being extremely cruel to each other. And then a few minutes later down at the water hole women are like getting water and kind of like laughing. They're like enjoying their life even though they live in this horrendous situation. and that actually it's not by getting crushed that these problems are going to be addressed.

[33:14]

We need to continue to delight in life in the midst of these problems. That's part of overcoming greed. And again, things are actually delightful if we meet them in a certain way. They're actually delightful. And we need to be delighted. Without delight, I think we're not any more protected from greed than we... We're more protected from greed when we do delight in the moment. Yes? It keeps coming into my mind to think about how the people who are working in the factories in the US territory, how their greed also plays a role in the situation.

[34:16]

I mean, I don't know exactly what their situation was in China or Thailand, but it does seem likely that their greed for more money has helped support that situation. that supports the greater greed? Well, I don't know if it's greed, but maybe it's greed, but it certainly was desire. I think probably they did desire. And who knows, maybe they were actually forced, and maybe they were talked into it by their family. Maybe people tricked them. But again, when we're tricked, how can we be tricked? So I think... I think that they are responsible, but so are we. Certainly the lobbyists who are stopping the legislation to protect them, they're responsible. The government of Mariana Islands is responsible. The senators who voted against, who voted for the legislation for reform in the situation, they're responsible, but they're

[35:20]

Even though they voted for it, they're also responsible that it didn't get into the House. We're all responsible. We can't get out of this. So everybody's responsible, I say. Yes? Things made in the Mariana Islands have labels that say Made in USA. Right. That was a big part of it, is that it gets that label. So voting, voting that says Made in USA, and there's no import duties and no tariffs, so it's competing with things made in Nebraska or whatever, but the pay is going to go wages. So it's all about, like, when we go shopping, how much do we want to pay for it or something? We all make those choices all the time about looking for a good deal.

[36:24]

It's difficult. And also I was I think I was invited by Professor Garbo to speak to his group. So I did a little study. I kind of reviewed Adam Smith and things like that beforehand. And one of the things I would say is that Adam Smith, at the end of his life, I just said this expression, had profound misgivings about the moral complexity of commercial society. You know, there was a society called Sparta, and it wasn't a commercial society. It was a communist society. They were Spartan, you know. They really lived frugally. And...

[37:30]

And moral life was not very complex there. But commercial society is very complex. And that's where we live, in a very complex situation. And yet, and I'm not saying greed is not complex, but still basic issues of greed give us access, perhaps, to the pivotal or the the pivot points in the process. And one of the things we can, it's hard to know what we can do about this Mariana Island things. We can follow the stories. It's a recent issue of Ms. Magazine has the story. You can read about it. Maybe you can do something about it. Maybe you can talk to your congressman. But as I said, I think things have moved on, you know, that the rip-off has already occurred now that the stories and now there's new places where these things are going on.

[38:33]

So it's hard to keep up with this and not to mention to do anything about it. But Up close we can do something about it in our lives together. I think we can take responsibility, we can accept our responsibility for the way we're thinking and what we're up to moment by moment in this valley. And I think we will have difficulties if we look at this stuff. We will struggle. I think we are actually struggling right now around these things. Yes? Yeah, he says giving is non-greed and he also says, I think he says... Non-greed is not to covet. Yeah, not to covet.

[39:35]

Yeah, not to curry favor. And he's defining it negatively rather than just say giving is a wonderful, you know, is enlightenment and all that. He puts it in three negative ways. Non-greed, giving is non-greed, giving is not to curry favor and giving is non-covetousness. So that's So giving is not to want something that's unreasonable. Giving is not to try to get people to like you by your activity. In other words, you have an activity all the time, and when your activity is not to get people to like you, your activity becomes giving. When your activity is not trying to get something that doesn't naturally go with with what you're doing. When you exhale, it naturally goes with that that you're putting more carbon dioxide in the air.

[40:44]

That's not covetous that you would want to do that. So, non-greed, not wanting something that really doesn't come to you, that really isn't appropriate, that's too much. Non-covetousness, not wanting something that doesn't actually belong to you. and non-careering favor, not doing it to get people to like you. So if you buy this perfect dress, but you don't do it to get people to like you, or get something that doesn't belong to you, then buying the dress can be an act of giving. In other words, all of our activities could be turned around into giving. instead of taking. If we take in a way of actually receiving what's appropriate, including taking or receiving an activity. But our activity then is not to get something that's not actually coming and is not to curry favor.

[41:52]

So we sort of have to, in order to find the true way of giving, which is non-greed, we sort of have to watch out for looking for extra stuff, something that really doesn't have to go with it. And this will be joyful. This will be delightful. And that delight or that joy is the conversion factor. That's what makes other people want to try it. Because they see It isn't necessarily that you're not buying any clothes, but that you're doing it in this way. They see that you can go shopping as a gift to the world. And then they want to try it. How did you do that? How do you do that? How do you make what you do a gift? How do you do that such that you're not trying to get something in addition to the activity itself? You seem to be so delighted in what you're doing moment by moment. So people will want to learn that from you.

[42:56]

And then maybe they will. And this is another way to plant seeds of a different kind. Of course we want to protect people from the fruition of the planting of seeds of greed, which are harming people. That's good. But even in that, even if we try to protect people, can we do that in a way that's not currying favor even with yourself? but do it because, as a gift, not to get something, but as a gift, with no expectation of what's going to happen as a result of giving your life to protecting beings in some particular situation. And notice, too, that if it's giving, there will be fearlessness. There will be delight in fearlessness. I wonder if that's another... Are you trying to finish that sentence by any way?

[44:06]

No. You wonder something? Yeah, if that's another of those beautiful activities that especially like when first cried out, does that get them to lay? You wondered? Yeah. And right now, was it delightful for you to say that? Good. You could wonder if you're up to that, but do that wondering in a way that's not trying to get anything from the wondering. Yes? No. I'm just scratching your head. Okay. Okay. Yes. I'm curious about this class, and you're bringing these students here.

[45:06]

And to sort of explain why the students chose to take your class, and what they've gotten out of it, have they gotten what they wanted to, and what you've chosen to bring them, to give them by talking to them. I don't know if that's really appropriate for children. Are you going to answer tomorrow morning? Oh. Yes, students want to say something about this whole, well, this part of your class and any previous part of it. Would you like to say something about it? Yes. We're proper in this program that we all strive for.

[46:12]

And get it needed. We're taking this back. So it's hard. But we can't agree. And we still have to fight. Greed and Eastern and Western enlightenment. Sure. Thank you for having us. And I can't remember some of my old ideas from, you know, we can talk for a little bit. But we, you know, just coming here and experiencing what you show in your lives and your work and learning a lot of new things. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes.

[47:17]

Would you talk about greed for enlightenment? Greed for enlightenment? Let's see. Greed for enlightenment. Well, I guess that would be wanting enlightenment to get something out of it. That would be one of the things. You'd think you'd get something for it. Out of it. Is there something about spontaneity there? You've been talking a little bit about, like, this is just using my own words, but when we adjust or try to manipulate a situation, there's a certain amount of striving. Yeah. But then spontaneity can arise, then there's not so much manipulating that situation. Yeah. Spontaneous doesn't mean happening for no cause. It actually means that the causal situation is complete, that we don't have some outside force acting on the situation.

[48:19]

In that sense, it's spontaneous. And I think having this idea of an outside force acting on what's going on is connected to greed, that there's a separate self from what's going on. That's part of the setup for greed. And also to practice a way of enlightenment, thinking that you're going to get something or that something is going to cause it, rather than this could be it. So the Diamond Sutra says, you know, the Buddha asked the Diamond Sutra, he asked the Buddha, when I attained complete perfect enlightenment, did I get anything at all? And the Buddha says, no, Lord, you didn't get the slightest thing. Therefore, it is complete perfect enlightenment. So to be here right now and not get the slightest thing to be without getting the slightest thing.

[49:24]

That's like radical non-greed and that is giving and that is complete perfect enlightenment. And then he also says, was there anything by which I attained this? And he says, no, there wasn't anything by which you attained it. But in another sense, everything in the universe that comes to create us moment by moment is how we come to be. There's nothing by which we come to be. The process by which we come to be, there's nothing by which we have this process to come to be. It's just a process to come to be. There's not somebody running the program not me or you or God running the program. But we tend to split and put something outside and this sets up greed and this sets up missing giving.

[50:28]

We exile ourselves from the process of giving by that dualistic way of thinking. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. eliminate that process where you wanted to get, you know, the better outcome. Right. Well, this afternoon, this same question came up.

[51:32]

When we were talking about this, the same question came up among this group of visiting students. You're not in the group, right? Or were you out shopping? Part of the students were out shopping, but you're not one of them. Right, okay. So I propose to us that our activity, that my activity, you know, the activity of this person is not done by this person alone. And I use the example, I would not be talking like this if you weren't in the room. I never do this when nobody else is here. And when it comes to decision-making, I told people this afternoon that when people come and talk to me, sort of the most upset and anguished situation is when they think that they have to make a decision.

[52:35]

And almost everybody that thinks that they have to make a decision, I experience them as distressed. Because of course you should make, of course the best decision would be best. Of course the most beneficial and appropriate decision would be best. That's the one we would all want. The one that would help everybody. Or at least help everybody you care for. Right? Almost everybody's like that. Right? The Palestinians want to help everybody that they care for, The Israelis want to help everybody that they care for. The terrorists want to help everybody they care for. Everybody wants to help everybody they care for. But what's the decision that will realize that? And if I have to make the decision, If I actually think that I have to make a decision by myself, I know that I feel upset when I think that way.

[53:40]

And people who think that way, when they come and talk to me, they are upset. They are distressed. And I almost always counsel them to shift their perspective on what they're doing to don't think of it in terms of you're going to make the decision by yourself. Right now you're talking to me about this because you don't want to do it by yourself and you want somebody else to join in on it. So maybe the two of us could make the decision better. And in fact, it is a little better to have two than one. But it isn't just two. It's unlimited participation. And also the unlimited participation completely includes people disagreeing about the decision. A decision can arise with everybody working together and not everybody agrees on the decision. So that actually should be part of the process, is that you understand that when other people are making decisions, you're part of it.

[54:41]

In other words, it isn't other people making decisions. All decisions are made together. Not consensually, but together. Watch for how decisions come to be. Decisions don't come to be from me. I don't make the decision. I don't make anything. I'm making a statement, but I don't do it by myself. Decisions arise like I'm deciding to say these words, but I'm not making these decisions by myself. You are all contributing to every word I say. You may not agree with what I say, but your non-agreement contributes to my statement. I never do anything without your support and you never do anything without mine. It's impossible to do anything without the cooperation of the rest of the universe, even though the rest of the universe sometimes says, we don't agree with you.

[55:49]

But that's what you do. You do some things that other people don't agree with and that's what you did. You did something that they didn't agree with. You didn't do something they did agree with. You did another thing. And the decision was that you would do something that some people disagreed with. That was the decision. If I actually think this way, I find this way of thinking soothing, delightful, and fearless. If I do the other way, and I watch other people do the other way, and also if I see other people make these kinds of decisions, in other words, enter into the decision process that they don't make by themselves, I observe them become free of stress and fear. Of course, they don't get credit for the decision then either. It's not all theirs. Which they might like, if it's a good one, to get full credit, full and solitary credit. That's one of the disadvantages of thinking in terms of doing things with people, is you don't get to get all the credit yourself for the good or the bad.

[57:00]

But even before it's judged, you're already free of acting from this misconception of your life, namely that you're independent. Yes? I've been sort of in the decision-making process with some of the people in the community, and I noticed that when I... sort of consciously trying to make this decision with people, that there is a soothing kind of quality to that. But it also feels really dangerous. I've gone into these meetings feeling like I am going to be annihilated. There's some sense that even with this positive, even though it feels better to be doing this collectively, Something about my individual, what I want, or who I am alone gets wiped out, which feels... Yeah, well, you're bringing up several points.

[58:15]

The last one being that what you are alone will get wiped out. What you are alone will never get wiped out, although you feel that that might happen. That will never happen because there never was such a thing. You never were anything all alone, and you never will be, so that will never be wiped out. That won't even cease. It won't arise or cease. It doesn't exist at all. But your dream about that, that does arise. And if you go with that, then you'll be afraid that it will, you'll be afraid of the, what do you call it, the fate or the destiny of this thing which doesn't exist. And then it will be hard to practice non-greed and so on. But whether you think of your decisions as being made all by yourself or made in concert with people who you disagree with and agree with, either way you think about it, there's danger. For you, there's danger. There's not danger of you being annihilated, but there's danger that you'll die either way.

[59:19]

Whichever way you look at your decision-making process, you might die either way. In fact, you will die in the middle of a decision-making process. That's when you will die. It will be a decision. But it will not be made by you alone. When you die, that decision will be made together with all beings. Everybody will be on board, and some people will disagree with you. Some people won't want you to. But that will be their contribution. Don't go, Mommy. But also they might say, Okay, Mom, you can leave, or Dad, or whatever they want to call you When you die, everyone will cooperate and you won't die before they do. That's what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting thinking about it that way. Not because I really think it's true. I just think this is the way to die fearlessly and to live fearlessly. You do not make decisions by yourself.

[60:20]

Think about it that way. That does not remove danger, though. Even though you make decisions with everybody, that doesn't mean you're not going to lose everything you love. Doesn't mean you're not going to get sick. Doesn't mean you're not going to go crazy. Doesn't mean, no matter how you see, everyone comes together and helps you act very skillfully and very beautifully. I mean, you know, like I was watching someone do tea ceremony recently and it was so beautiful to see the performance. But no matter how beautifully she does tea ceremony, she still can't prevent losing something very dear to her. Nothing can protect you from loss. You can also be unskillful. That won't protect you either. But whether you're skillful or unskillful, you're still... When you're unskillful, everybody cooperates you being unskillful. Everybody supports you doing things in a sloppy, mindless, etc.

[61:26]

way. Everybody supports you do that. However, if you appreciate how everybody's helping you while you're doing something unskillful, it doesn't necessarily change it to skillful. It just makes you free of your unskillfulness. However, appreciating this is quite skillful. So it disarms unskillfulness and it empowers skillfulness. Skillfulness done by me alone undermines it, confuses it, and turns it into an opportunity for greed rather than an opportunity for giving. But this doesn't eliminate danger. If you miss the danger, you're going to miss the turning point where you can turn from operating on your own to operating together with everybody. And then turn from operating together with everybody to operating alone. And then again, turn to operating with everybody.

[62:27]

In other words, you do have your own, you know, each of your actions are your own actions. They're not somebody else's actions, but everybody supports everything you do. And then You can have that action. You can be that person you are. You can make the decisions that are happening in your life to you in a different way than they happen to other people. If you decide to go out of the room, that's different for you than it is for me. I stay in the room, you leave the room. It's the same decision, but it's different for you. It's your body that goes out. I see you go out. I support you. You can't get out of this room without me supporting you. So you now have my support to leave the room. And I can't get out without your support. So we'll see if you support me. May our intention quickly extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[63:40]

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