It's easy to learn and simple, call it an attrition practice, the attrition of faith, the attrition of faith. And what it says in Chinese characters, say, . The first character is self. The character means to receive or experience.

[01:04]

The character means to employ or enact or function. And then the elastic character is a tranquil iteration of samādhi. So it's a concentrated awareness of samādhi, one-pointed awareness of how the self is received, and again, how it turns, it pivots, it is in quality. In every moment, the self is received and in quality. Received and in quality. So that pivot, the awareness of that turning point, of that crisis of ourself, That's the object of irritation in, you know, in Buddha's meditation.

[02:14]

So watching the crisis of the self, turning into self, and So the proposal of those who use this, I point to this state of awareness as the criterion of certain meditation of the Buddha, the point here is that, the proposal is that by studying the self and seeing how it is, how it is blinding you, studying the functioning, studying the origination of the self and how it functions. Studying the self is the way to understand life's problems. Our Buddha's meditations are really about how to understand life's problems and help people, help our beings with life's problems.

[03:28]

Perhaps you can see now how this constant turning, moment by moment, we see they turn blue. And someone asked, is that a capital S or a small s? And I think it's, I don't think it's a small s. We don't, like I said, capitalize on these characters. And I don't get to capitalize characters in Sanskrit. But in the West, there's a big self and a small self that we could talk about. But as you know, from the early days of the Buddha's teaching, he had taught the teaching of no-self or non-self. In other words, he was not talking about the self of the dramatic scores that existed immediately at his time.

[04:36]

We've got non-self, or we've got that beings are selfless. But on the other side, things do have a sense that there's a self of being and there's a self of God. And they have different selves. You have the self of the mountain. It's just that the self of A, by which A gets to begin, is not an independent self. It's a self that's received. And it's received when everything comes forward. where she has certain places every time, when everything comes forward, then there's an aim. And the way everything comes forward is the self of aim. But the self of aim is nothing in addition to all the things that come forward.

[05:42]

However, human beings, kind of the way they're proposed, is that they imagine that they are something in addition to all the things that support them. We have this idea that the sum is greater than, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And then one step more than that is the sum of the parts, the whole, which is the sum of the parts, is something in addition to the sum of the parts. You know, that's a metaphysical self, a self which is almost independent of its own parts. So that self is the self which the Buddha taught you can never find. And also Buddha pointed out that believing in itself is a key ingredient in our distress.

[06:46]

So we're not saying that these are the appearance of the self, it's just that there's an appearance of the self, the advent of all things. So you're watching all things come forward, and you're using only a self, a particular life. a particular life form, different from other life forms, but probably interdependent from other life forms. And then to witness that and act from there is enlightenment. So that means you're meditating on this. You have this meditation stone with the path of enlightenment. And the other way to imagine that there's a self The self comes forward and gives life to things.

[07:51]

The self does this, the self does that. That's the normal view of delusion. Once again, even if you see things that way, like here's the self. And now the self's going to act on the world. The self's going to practice Buddhism or some other wholesome activity in this world. So the self's going to come forward and act and practice with the world. That's the human perspective of delusion. Not just human. Other beings besides humans have that perspective. As you'll see in a little while when I tell you the story. So many of you can see that perspective of the Jew coming forward, of the Jew imagining herself coming forward and asking a question.

[08:53]

Practicing meditation. But there's a turning point there. There's a place where it turns and the person going forward to practice all things, to turn around and see all things coming forward to practice in the person. And that pivoted to the turn. You're not in a crisis of that pivot, it's there all the time. Anytime you see yourself separate from your environment, and you're going forward to do something in relationship to it. At that point, it could turn any time to, it's not I'm going forward to practice, it could turn on the environment. It's the environment that's going to go forward and practice so you can get any good to eat. So that's typical to learn to do what you can do. But then it could turn again, back to I'm at the environment. When you turn again to the environment, it's getting back to you.

[09:59]

And turn again. I'm at the environment. I'm getting into the environment. I'm with the environment. And turn again back to the environment, looking at me and looking at me. The self is right there in the middle of delusion and enlightenment. It realizes delusion, it realizes enlightenment, and actually it's turning all the time. This is stopping the enlightenment for delusion. So, there is basic meditation. Just proposed and recommended. To the self that we think is independent, so let's try it first off. We'll stop believing that it's separate.

[11:03]

It's still there. And that's how we're going to do it. We have a person who's uh, who created it. And it requires recognition. A person could have got to believe that she's created it, or caused it in a condition that would be better. But the person who's still, perhaps, at that moment, you know, the person is created, becomes to be that moment. You know, the person is, uh, a cognitive delay, and she can believe in herself. Well, the person's different, and each person's different, and in a way, each person's different in their senses, their self. But not in their selves, in depending on how you look at themselves. So the expression, this is the expression, we don't say there's no house, we just say there's no cold house.

[12:11]

There is a person that does not be a dependent person. There is a self that's born through inner dependence. There's not a self that's already here. Like we said, there's not a priority self. There's not a metaphysical self. There's not a self in addition to the universe. But people actually think that. Of course, I keep asking myself, of course I'm not an addition to the universe. When I say to people, there's a universe plus something, everybody knows what I'm talking about. But they don't think there's a universe plus other people. They just think there's a universe plus all of me. What somehow appreciated the universe plus me? What? How come me? How come me? You. It's always the universe's question, the person.

[13:14]

Not always, but if they think there's something in addition to the universe, the thing is, it's in the universe. It's not their dog. The dog may be their favorite. The favorite being in the universe, but they know their dog went somewhere in the universe. But they think they're in addition to it. And all this need is us. Even though we know that you've been through this somehow. And sometimes we can come into a room and count all the people in the room and forget that somebody's missing. And all of us, we remember, oh, I'm here too. Other times, we're walking around. I'm here. I'm going to walk in the room. So it's stuck. So the story I wanted to bring up, which is kind of a big topic to bring up, but it's a story of Kearney.

[14:32]

And the story's called Byjones Wild Bucks. It's one that presents animal stories. The animal stories is that foxes, draggies, turkeys, snakes, buffalo. Rabbit. Rabbit. Rabbit. Reds, warthogs, brown hogs, hedgehogs, cats, dogs, of course. Actually, in one of the most used Zen texts in Japan, called Mugong Pan, the first story is a dog story, and the second story is an ox story. And the first story about the dog, in some sense, is a story about a kind of training which initiates you into the second story.

[15:50]

It's the kind of training they taught me about in terms of in the scene or just the scene. The story about a monk asking a jiao jiao, does the dog have Buddha nature? And jiao jiao says, No. I said, does the dog have what it needs to or not have? He said, not have or no. So that no, one of the first ways you can use that no is that when you hear something, you say no. It means you don't do anything. You just should take care of it. You say no to any comment on it. When you feel something, you say, no. Any kind of interpretation. In that way, you're initiated into this awareness.

[16:54]

In the next case, there's a story about Bajang. So this is a Zen master who lives on a mountain called Bajang. So it's called Bajang after the mountain he lives on. A bai needs a hundred and jang is a measure of distance. So it's not the, which is called a hundred yards or a hundred leaves or something. So it's a mountain named after its height. So he, the Zen master, Chinese Zen master is living on this mountain and he gives talks to the monks who live there. And every time he gives a power, the old man comes and sits behind the monks in the hall. And one day, usually when the monks retire, the old man retires too.

[18:00]

One day the monks leave, but the old man doesn't leave. And Bajang says, who is this before me? And the old man says, it's not a human being. I'm not a human being. I, in a long time, looked in another ear. I lived on the same mountain when I was the head monk here. I was the master of this mountain. And a monk asked me, a student asked me, does a greatly cultivated person fall into cause and effect? Or no? And I said, does not fall in the closet.

[19:10]

Those characters are reborn. The one on the left is not. The next character means fall, the next character means cause, and the next character means fruit or effect. So that when that old man who's not a human in his previous life was teaching. And he was asked, does a greatly cultivated person fall in the cause of the veteran? And he says, does not fall in the cause of the veteran. And because I said that, I fell into the life, I was reborn as a fox. I'd like to And the old man said to Bai Jun, please master, give me a turning word to release me from these transmigrations as ox.

[20:21]

And the Arjuna said, ask me the question. He said, does a very cultivated person fall into cause and effect? And Bhajan said, does not obscure cause and effect. So he said the same thing but changed the word fall into the word obscure, blind. He turned one word into another. When he turned the words, the old man was released. And he was, the old man was greatly enlightened, actually, and then released.

[21:30]

And he asked Bajong, he said to Bajong, later you will find the prodding box over behind him, over behind the tent. Please do the funeral ceremony for the box. He put the box amongst the funeral ceremony. And Bajong did. And that night, He explained. There was nobody else there during this conversation. So the monks thought probably it was very strange that they were going on a journey of being sent with the Polish. But that night he explained the story. And one of the young monks came forward and said, what if that monk had given the right answer? What if the old man, when he was the teacher, had given the correct answer? When what? The baijian said the wangbo come closer. The wangbo keep closer. And the poor baijian could say to the wangbo slap deep.

[22:37]

The wangbo baijian said, I heard that the barbarian had a red beard. Now I see another red bearded barbarian here. In other words, you could say, I heard that the great master Bodhidharma had a red beard. Now I see another Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma is the great ancestor. In other words, I heard that the Zen master had a red beard. Now I see another red beard. The first point I'm bringing to your attention is that the old man asked for a turning tip. just by turning one word in the middle of the universe, he was released. That's the story.

[23:46]

So this is a deep, actually very deep, So here we have, in one sense, the monk giving, the ancient master giving an answer which is, in some sense, makes sense because the Buddha taught that because Even in being a chant here, we say, although our karmic hindrances are greatly accumulated, may the Buddhas, through their compassion, relieve us of karmic hindrances. Can you say something like that? although our past people probably have greatly accumulated.

[24:53]

May the Buddhas... May the ancestors who obtained the Buddha Way be compassionate to us and free us from common defects. I wanted us to practice the Way without humans. But here's this man who had this... He was asked about karma to shed. Does a great and cultivated person fall into cause and effect? He said, no. So that seemed to create a big karmic influence for him, and he said, no. So then he goes to the Buddha's ancestor and asks his Zen master to free him from karmic effects. And his Zen master said this, and he does free him from karmic effects. So he, an all-man, is then able to practice the way that he is. So according to that, it sounds like it's reasonable what the monk said, but in the story, it's the wrong answer.

[26:01]

And what's the right answer? Well, the right answer would be the turning in the wrong answer. But the wrong answer, but then when the right answer was turning in the wrong answer, Then the old man was freed of karmic influence. So he got freed of karmic influence and became greatly enlightened. But then after he was greatly enlightened, was he freed of karmic influence? Or was he just not belonging to karmic influence? the point that there's no blame because of that. But, indeed, the free up is actually kind of key to this.

[27:07]

And the free up is a habitual tradition. So if you're greatly cultivated, does that mean you don't fall into cause and effect anymore? Or does it mean, yes, you do fall into cause and effect? Because the wrong answer is saying you don't fall into cause and effect. So you do kind of fall into cause and effect. Or is it called you do not fall into cause and effect, but you just live in cause and effect? And you see cause and effect. in an unobscured way. It sounds like my general tendency is that it's not so, he doesn't say, he doesn't say that the person doesn't want to cause it back, but he also doesn't say the person does want to cause it back.

[28:08]

But he must be somewhere in the neighborhood of causing effect because he does not obscure causing. He's not blind to causing. He knows there's cause and effect. He knows about it. He sees. He's not blind to it. He's not denying. So he's free. He's attained peace. He's attained freedom. And he sees cause and effect. So it sounds like in this case, One interpretation would be the greatly cultivated person is free and is meditating on causing trouble. And to add some more to the picture. The Zen teacher, Dogon, talks about this story in two different classicals of his territory of true dharma.

[29:16]

The first time he talks about it in a classical called Great Practice, he interprets the story from a non-dual perspective, a non-dual in the case of, in terms of the non-duality of falling into what he which is the non-duality of not falling into cause and effect, and not obscuring cause and effect. The first time he talks about this story, he interprets it from the point of view of these two answers are non-dual. The second time, deals with this story later in his life, it only deals with it in terms of the second line. He doesn't say the second line, the turning words, is non-dual with the original statement that got the monkey trouble.

[30:26]

He says the second line is really the only line. Byjohn's right answer is the only right answer. The first answer is not right. The second answer is right. And the non-duality between the two lines is not the point. The point is the second one. And that fascicle is called deep faith in cause and effect. Now, when I'm talking about the first line, I think, how come we got into so much trouble for saying that, because here's Dogen in this passage, in his verse, saying, may all Buddhists free us from karmic effect. That sounds like a... But he's also saying that because of karma, we have karmic hindrances.

[31:30]

So a part of deep faith and calling effect, in some sense, is deep faith in teaching that there are common kingdoms, that there can be common kingdoms. Deep faith in the teaching of the Buryat, which is every action has a consequence. So how can we have freedom? But they're initiating on suggesting that freedom is an attorney. So if I say, not falling into cultic effect, at better terms.

[32:31]

If it doesn't carry, then it does too. And the way it carries is, I get reborn as a wild fox. Until, somehow, what I said can turn. And I better be looking at cause and effect. And I'd better look at what I say about causing it. I'd better look at how I'm involved in causing it. I'd better be aware of my intentions moment by moment, how my experience is a conditioning, and how the conditioning is dependent on past condition, and how that leads to future conditions. I'd better be looking at this and also looking at this looking for the opportunity to turn it.

[33:41]

And in one sense of deep faith in cause and effect is deep faith that that's what I should be looking at. And I should be considering this story as part as a possible resource in my contemplation in my contemplation of causing fear as a resource in my deep faith that it's good to look at causing fear. If one is meditating about cause and effect, is that different from discursive thought? Is cause and effect different from discursive thought? What is the other thing about thinking about cause and effect? Thinking about cause and effect is discursive thought.

[34:47]

Yes. So again, if you look at, as I mentioned just a moment ago, this one particular colon collection, the first colon in some sense is suggesting the up-discursive book. So the first colon is kind of like an initiation into the second colon. The second colon in some sense protects you from a shallow understanding of what you learn, actually, from the first exercise. So even carrying the first exercise to the point of the whole story of the Buddha interacting around the teaching in the scene, it's just a scene up to the point where the Buddha says, and there will be no here or there, in between, and that will be the end of suffering.

[35:51]

The whole story could be understood as parallel to the new column, the column about the dog, the first column. where you're giving up this cursive thought at the beginning of the exercise. Then, by giving it up, you see that you don't identify or disidentify with it. And you have insight about not being separate from things. And you're relieved. But you can have a shallow understanding of that So the second koan brings in some complexity that's involved in the first koan. The first koan is starting off by giving up discursive thought. The second koan is not saying anything about giving up discursive thought.

[36:53]

Although you should be calm in practicing the first koan, the first step, so that you can calmly contemplate causing self. The third thing I said this morning was, if we don't give up wandering thoughts, we miss the body reading. So again, the first column about this, you know, no, no, no, or just, just, just, the training into simplicity and purity, pure presence, That's the practice of giving up wandering thoughts. And when you're giving up wandering thoughts, you can discover the body is leaping. And one of the places it's leaping is it's leaping beyond identification and disidentification. Or you could say it's leaping from here to there, and from there to here.

[38:02]

And it's leaving back and forth so often that you really don't find it here or there or in between. So giving up the scourge of thought is giving up wandering thoughts. You enter into the leaping on the Buddha way, the leaping, the body leaping on the path of freedom. And in that path, you can use discursive thought again to examine cause and effect. And why do you reactivate wandering thoughts? Except now they're not just wandering, they've been applied to study. But by giving up discursive thought, you make your body ready apparently leap, that when you reserve this curse to fall, you can say, perhaps you could say, it does not fall because of that.

[39:10]

So here I go to 500 lives as a fox. It could be so much more. And I'm going to be able to, in 500 lives, have a public life. But it's possible, maybe you could say, The monk says to you, does a greatly enlightened person, a greatly cultivated person, fall in cause and effect? And you say, does not fall in cause and effect. Just kidding. That was a close one. Just kidding. Just kidding. Do I have to go now? Or did I catch myself quickly and wasn't myself, didn't myself get in quite fast enough? If not, here we go.

[40:12]

But in the story, even a big mistake like that, that saying does not fall in cause and effect, does not fall in cause and effect, and I'm not kidding. Even a big mistake like that, still, you get a nice chance. I don't know what kind of thing. Foxes don't live that long, so, you know. I didn't say 500 lights is a fruit fly. Well, it isn't bad at all. Had you left tomorrow. Yes. An important point is, as soon as you say something, Ready to give it up. I don't understand. We say we have to help people to be born as foxes or whatever. Well, rebirth happens through call and prayer.

[41:32]

That's what happens. I mean, it's not permanent. It sounds like you're saying there's a soul. It sounds like it to me. Being reborn. A particular person. Like in Tibetan Buddhism, it seems like this particular person is being reborn. I don't understand how to understand that in relation to the public. Well, right now, here you are, a person, and then a little while ago there was a person, and there's one called Donnie. So there's a causal relationship between this dhamma and past dhammas.

[42:37]

Repeat that, dhamma. But there's a causal relationship between you and past dhammas. But we say you related to a woman named Dhamma, who is dhamma. Does that make sense? I haven't been understanding them, but I'm not sure if I'm understanding it the same way that... So what do you ask? Do you see how you... This is traditional understanding. Do you see me in prevalence of a donor in that way? To some extent, that's a good place to start. You see that you're in prevalence, and yet there's some relationship between you and past donors that are gone. But past donnas don't come to today. All past donnas are gone.

[43:37]

They're not here. They didn't come over to this moment. Those donnas get reborn. Some people say they get reborn. So now this donna here got reborn being a donna a moment ago. But it's not the same donna. So it's one pretty simple way of talking about it. You probably should learn. I'm sorry if I understand, but I just wanted... I was checking to see if I was missing anything. Because they have a story. And also the Donna is here right now. The reason she's reborn is that she's not reborn just from past Donna. The present Donna is reborn in Advent of all things. That's how she's born. One of the things that's coming forth now is the condition of what there was a previous dawn.

[44:43]

That's one of the conditions that we actually have. There's a previous dawn. There's lots of previous dawns. And some are important conditions. And part of the reason why they're important is they're easy to see. They're built to be aware of the ease of it. Whereas in the other conditions, we're not necessarily going to be aware of synergy. But still, we can accept that they're important anyway. So the element that's born is an interdependent zone, which is nothing in addition to the conditions This time there's nothing in addition to the condition or past done that wasn't anything in addition to the conditions. So what's really boring is a causal nexus, a causal network, you should call it.

[45:47]

And you're born in a different form, but in relationship to a past causal pattern. So it isn't better, you know. So one meaning of soil that people might use is, they might say it's a substantial part of the person. But another meaning of soil could be the interdependent quality of the person. We call that the soul. So that's soul we do. We do have a dependent colorism. And actually, if you look at what they mean by soul in the Bible, in some translations, it says that the soul is the animating principle of the person. So you've got a person with dharma, but the animating principle of dharma is dependent colorism.

[46:55]

All the conditions that come together can make you alive. That's the soul. So the soul, as it sometimes is used in the New Testament, sounds to me like what we call the Pentecostalism. Here's the papers. And that's the permanent, of course. The flash, the flash of being. And it's gone. But that flash of being has consequences. which stayed or conditioned to come together again. And it isn't that every time a person flashes into existence and flashes up that they will be reborn. It doesn't mean that always a person will be reborn. When the Buddha said that there's rebirth, he didn't say every living being will be reborn.

[47:57]

He never really said that. He just said, there is rebirth means that sometimes living beings are reborn. Quite frequently. He's one of them that was reborn. Many times, if he saw how he was, he saw how he evolved to this state of good understanding. So sometimes the case is that the conditions come together to make a being, a person. disappear, and the person disappears, and you don't get another person, you know, who's causally related to that past person. But sometimes you do get another person, and it can be many times during the conversation. And we're quite familiar with that pattern. But many other times, when you don't get another person, But you get sometimes another person who's causally related to this particular dummy.

[49:06]

Like in stories about, like they say, die one on the wall. It always turns out to be so. Yes, James. I'll tell you for a moment, we set aside taking the story literally. Okay. And, okay, there's this guy walking around the house, an old man. He recognizes the dude, that he's been a teacher. Look, over and over and over and over again, I've been in situations and I act like a fox.

[50:12]

I don't like it. It keeps happening. And finally I figured it out that this started when I said something that was wrong. And from then on, situations arise, I act like a fox. I know that this is when it started. I don't know what was wrong with what I said. I mean, what was wrong? I don't get it. I still think that was right. What does that mean then? In that case, what would it mean for it to be said by Father Fox? And what is the connection with what he said that was wrong? Yeah, that's fine. That's sort of what he meant, I think, is that I said this thing, and now I've been trying to fix it ever since. After I said this, I've been hooked on this ever since, and I've tried to turn it backwards, forwards.

[51:22]

I've tried to change it. I've tried many different versions of it, but I'm just so confused now. that none of the versions, every time I think of another version or another way to put it, I just, I still don't know. And I still don't have the correct understanding, and it's really bugging me. And I can't even be like a normal human anymore. It's affecting his whole life, apparently. So would you please tweak it? And it's possible that the master said the same, you know, he may have tried exactly the same thing that the master said 20 times, a million times. He might have said the same thing. But he said the same thing, you know, after he said a bunch of other stuff. He was so confused that the statement the master made didn't work on himself. It might have come up with the same thing. Or he might not have, he might not have, he might have, because he, you know, he might have said totally different things from this, but he might have kept tweaking his original statement.

[52:32]

So he had enough thought. He could have let go of the idea that what he said was right in the first place. Well, he might have. But he knows that he got in trouble as soon as he said it. Well, in a sense, he couldn't let go. He could say what I said was wrong. But he can't get rid of the effect of him saying it at the time and thinking that it was true when he said it at the time. When he said it originally, he thought it was true. You can't get rid of the effect of saying something you think is true. You could later say, I now think that's not true. But I don't know what is true. Well, so it's the truest thing. Yeah, and that's still being caught, what you said, as an example. I don't know what's true. I'm still in what's true prison. I'm still in that prison. Would you please say something which will prelude in the prison of what's true and what's false? It's like this guy, you know, this guy who said, who wrote a book, I think he's an Englishman, he wrote a book saying that the Holocaust didn't happen

[53:43]

And in Austria, it's against the law to say that the Holocaust didn't happen. But he wrote this book. And a professional historian wrote the book. And later, he got some new information, and he somehow changed his attitude and retracted his statement that the Holocaust didn't happen. But he, for some reason, went back to Austria to visit, and they put him in prison. So even though it changed his mind, he still went to prison in Austria. So even if this guy saw, I can see by what happened to me that I gave the wrong answer, looks to me when I say, I've been trying to get the right answer for a long time, and I'm still basically in prison of trying to, like... I said that the cultivated person was free of cause and effect, and now I'm totally stuck in cause and effect because I said that somebody could be free of it.

[54:55]

So now would you help me get out of it? And... And Baijian gives his answer, which says you can't get out of it, but then he got out of it. He says you don't get out of it, and then he got out of it. He got liberated by Baijian saying you can't not fall into cause and effect. Did he say that? Huh? What? Did he just say that? Did he say that? He said what? I must... It's not all causing effect. Say again? I must have misheard. Don't worry. What do you think I said? I thought you said that Bajan said that's not all causing effect. No, I say... I'm sure. I say that what Bajan said literated him from the positive effect. Y. John said you can't get out of cause and effect.

[56:00]

No, he said, he didn't say you can get out of cause and effect. He said that you have to live in cause and effect and not be wanting to it, but you can't get out of cause and effect. He said that. You can't get out of cause and effect, but as you turn that phrase, by saying you can't get out of cause and effect, by saying You know, to your cause, he did it. He got the guy out of the college. That's what I'm not scared about. I think he could not really get him out of the cause and effect by virtue of his original damnation. What I sense, I don't know, is that he became no longer blind. to quantum effect, if that was the liberation, rather than actual liberation from quantum effect.

[57:02]

So everything is liberated from the... Like you are. He's liberated from the blinded. That's what I sense. Is it significant that the character that changed in Bai Zhang's response is the same as that one capital North Samadhi? It's significant in the sense that it's a coincidence. It's a coincidence right here on this blackboard. Over here, the character is used It's phonetically, literally, a Sanskrit word in the Chinese. It's pronounced me. That sound me is a way of saying somebody. So here's a piece for sound, and here it's used for meaning. Not blind, or does not obscure.

[58:03]

No, meaning is obscured. The first character is not. Not blind, and not obscured. So, yeah. Is this like, I say to you, now, if you see that truck coming, it won't run over you. And you say, ah, great. So you stay right where you go, let the truck run up me. I didn't follow what you're saying. It's like what? We're standing in the highway. And I say, you see that truck coming, then it won't run over you. We see the truck coming, so it will run over you? It will not run over you, even as you see it. So you stand there, where obviously, if you didn't have your head on backwards, you would say, right, I see the truck coming, I'll get out of the way with it, and it won't run over me.

[59:05]

You see karma coming. Yeah. So it won't affect you? Rather than... Rather than... I see karma coming. I see karma coming. Here it comes. Okay. Yeah, but are you saying that if you see karma coming and you go there that it won't affect you then? Right. No, it won't. Well, in fact, to the extent that he walked out of the way, yes. Yeah, but did it back to you? Yeah. You were caught by a black cat. Yeah, exactly. Just as if he said, ah, okay, I see the truck coming. So if you see a truck coming, they say, because I see a truck coming, it won't hurt me? Because somebody you trusted, you misunderstood. Oh, I see. This truck won't hurt me because my teacher said it won't hurt me if I see it coming. Well, the teacher didn't think you were stupid enough not to move out of the road if the truck was coming.

[60:18]

He knew that you wouldn't get hit by the truck. He said somebody who was greatly enlightened wouldn't get hit by the truck. He didn't tell the studio he didn't get hit by the truck. You were being asked as a sage, rightly or wrongly. No, the student was asking, is the sage hit by a truck? The teacher didn't say, you wouldn't get hit by a truck. You're going to get hit by a truck. The student said, would I get hit by a truck? The teacher said, yes, you'd really get hit by a truck. But the student is saying, will a great escape artist be hit by a truck? And the dude, thinking he's a great escape artist himself, says no. He couldn't be that way. He thought he was, but he said no. So then he got hit by a truck. Right, yeah. And another twist in the story is that He got hit by the truck. Well, he wanted to get hit by the truck.

[61:19]

So you can have your story. Well, I was a little bit of that way. Yes. So in the way Jim first posed this, it seems very like everything that we do with the turning all the time, either with one another or even within our own awareness of all. Here's a situation. I recognize the karmic frequency of it. I can see where it began, perhaps, and maybe I can't yet see how to find a way out of it. And maybe in the state of clear seeing, it turns for me or I come to a teacher or to a peer and something turns it. So this dynamic... It would happen not only over these five great lifetimes, but even in the very short lifetime, he said, well, a day, an hour, a minute.

[62:20]

I didn't tell him that. Would you say that it can't be more solid? Well, let me try again. I thought in Jim's first bringing this up as... No, I think that's probably the problem. Don't have to go back there. I'm talking about Jim. All right. Just talk about yourself. All right. During that part of the conversation, it occurred to me that the structure of this story applies to the attorney right here. not just across many years of life, but even in a period of zazen, or a minute, a dokusan, or any such occasion. How does it apply? The way I was imagining it applying is here's a situation that I can see happening again and again, and it's a karmic consequence that re-causes itself, perhaps.

[63:30]

So you say, here's a situation in which you're medicating on your situation, and you're seeing some kind of connection? And equivalent to being a fox for 500 lifetimes, right? And so in seeing the source of that, and yet not quite seeing freedom from the source of it, either sometimes perhaps just in sitting and seeing it, it turns, or in going and speaking to you or to another person about it, this turning can happen. That's all. Or, another way to put it is, you can realize the turning. Right. The realization that came to the first Bhajan by speaking to the present Bhajan, the turning was always there, but the turning that he asked for brought it to his consciousness.

[64:39]

And I also thought of it in relation to the two versions of Dogen's interpretation. Dogen keeps turning the story, so it's not really necessarily a contradiction in the author's two different interpretations. It's not necessarily contradicting that. I heard a difference in what Jim was saying, that I'm aware of a truck that's coming. And my awareness keeps me in that spot. I'm not going to be safe. What could run me over? But for me, there's a distinction between things that are physical roles, material reality. But when you talk about karma, it seems not just with roles, but it seems to be these patterns. And so when there is an alteration in our consciousness or awareness, And because karma is constituted by things that are numeral, people say, then the awareness of it can change, can save me from numeral.

[65:50]

If it was a numeral truck that was coming my way, then my awareness of it might save me from that. Not a gross truck, though. Misinterpretation. Misinterpreted teaching that you had received. A guy received a teaching from his teacher that if he saw a truck coming down the road, he would run over by it. What the teacher meant was, obviously, if you see the truck, you're going to get out of the way, so you won't get run over. So see the truck. But he took... It literally, without the missing wind or carol, and said, come on, Chuck. So the mine truck, there's no end to its effect, but it can interact with other mine trucks and change trucks in quite unexpected ways.

[66:54]

Which doesn't stop its effect. It just can switch to the track and go from a disaster to a liberation. It's possible. Only that. So, yes. Yeah, that's a good question to look at. Sure. Is there something intrinsic about interacting, the interaction, that keeps solving this hole in this person's life? Is there something what? Is an interaction with another being necessary? Is it necessary? Yes. None of this stuff happens, none of these transformations, nothing happens by one person alone.

[68:04]

So people who imagine that they're alone are not, but the imagination that they're alone as consequence. Imagination that you're not alone has consequences too. But even when you find yourself slipping into karmic hindrance, you're not alone in that either. It's just that you aren't aware that you're not alone. You think you're there acting upon the world. You don't realize you're with everybody. And that's where the action comes in. When you do realize that you're with everybody, in your activity, well then, there is somebody there. And now you know that there always was somebody. So these positive transformations are never done by one person alone. And you realize, therefore, they are positive.

[69:12]

Negative transformations are never done by one alone, but you think they are done by yourself alone. And so probably this monk, when he was asked the question, and he said, does not cause you effect, does not only cause you effect, he probably thought he said that by himself. He probably didn't realize that we were helping him. Those who would hear this story later would have assisted him in giving that answer. And if he had known we were helping him, it wouldn't have the same effect. Because he would have been thinking differently, as he is saying, does not fall into causative effect. It would have been a different cause of pattern. It would have had a different result. And they wouldn't have, why don't you have to let this happen, et cetera. So this way of talking is maybe this is according to deep faith and cause and effect, meaning that we're meditating on cause and effect.

[70:25]

We're meditating on cause. We're meditating on causation. So meditating on causation, and especially current causation, is now, by this discussion, highly recommended. Yes. I feel like that. It's just kind of a fact that I keep falling into it when I take notes. Okay, I conceptually get the fact that it's not me and I'm the universe. So I conceptually get that, okay, it's just the universe. But I think that when I understand things, that... You know, the universe. And then Buddha, he dropped sides and now he's stuck. He's stuck in the side. Yes, when I understand what I... You imagine when you understand?

[71:27]

Yes, I imagine that when I understand. Then it'll be... me and then the universe all somehow sidestep all the cause and effect. It seemed like that's what the story, what was happening in the story, is that he was imagining that an accomplished, cultivated person would somehow sidestep the universe and then be separate from the universe. That's it. It just steps out. Do you also feel that way, like you understand that you're not an addition in the universe? Conceptually. But then if you really understand that, you would get to be separate in the universe?

[72:31]

Yeah. Wait, I'll just stumble. I was holding up. Oh, heck, I'm right there. Another possibility is, I understand, I understand conceptually that I'm not an addition to the universe, of course. If I understood that, finally I'd be willing to not be separate from the universe and just be living with its trickies. No advantage. Living with these other trickies. I'm just, so the Bodhisattva is really willing to live totally immersed You can all be, but they need, a human being needs a lot of understanding in order to be able to do that. In order to be anybody. And with anybody. We need people to get more understanding of what we're not.

[73:32]

In addition to believers. But, yeah, so it sounds like you're saying this is a subtle recidivist twist. If you were circuiting, of course you know you're not in this universe, that you would think by really practicing how you could overcome. That's obviously so. But then, I think clearly, but then I would be alone up there sitting on top of the universe. You know, with all those people swinging around, doing that, they get blown. They have to get back in. But, you know, some of them don't want to do it. I don't really need this. Some of them don't. It's a lot of pain. So let me have one second, let's see.

[74:43]

Yeah, we did the closing chat now. Now we're going to go to the Kindle. Now we're going to the Kindle.

[75:15]

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