As you maybe have heard it in the chant we do at noon service, it says something like, from the first time you meet a master, just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away. That's an abbreviation. It says, In abbreviation it says, from the first time you meet a master, just wholeheartedly sit, dropping away body and mind. The part I left out was, from the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, confession and repentance, reading scriptures, and so on. Just wholeheartedly sit and drop away body and mind.

[01:04]

So here the advice from the ancestor is just wholeheartedly sit and drop away. But he also mentions that this happens upon the occasion of meeting a master And he also points out that it's to meet a master. So it seems like we need to meet a master in conjunction with wholeheartedly sitting and body and mind dropping away. And in the chant we just did, which some of you don't know by heart, it starts out by saying, this again is the same teacher, the ancestor Dogen, he says, I vow, or we vow, from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma.

[02:33]

And he doesn't mention in that text, but I propose to you that hearing the true Dharma is something that occurs in a certain situation. And that situation is the situation of meeting the teacher, meeting the Buddha. So you could say, we vow from this life on to our countless lives to meet the teacher, meet the Buddha, and hear the true Dharma. Hearing the true Dharma, we will wholeheartedly sit and body and mind will drop away.

[03:39]

But this practice, this simple practice of sitting or whatever, standing, walking, basically it could be simplified and said, say, from the first time you meet the Buddha, just practice wholeheartedly dropping off. So, do we vow to meet the Buddha and hear the Dharma and practice wholeheartedly. You've just heard the claim that when you do meet the teacher you will be able to hear the Dharma and you will be able then to wholeheartedly practice and In these meetings that we're having during this three weeks together, I want you to know that sometimes they go on for a while and the kitchen usually leaves around, what time do you leave?

[05:09]

Huh? Kitchen leaves at 10.30. So they know they can leave at 10.30, but I'd like you to know that if you need to leave the room, like go to the toilet or something, you can go. Don't feel you have to stay here. Because it might go on later than 10.30 sometime. And also, I invite your feet on what's going on and I encourage you to express yourself fully, if possible. I'm not proposing to you any particular person in this room is the teacher. But I do propose to you that it is necessary to meet the teacher.

[06:16]

And in order to meet the teacher, you have to come forward and express yourself. You can't be totally passive, or I should say only passive. You have to be receptive and active. give and receive, receive and give in a meeting. Does that make sense? That in a meeting you give and receive, you don't just receive and you don't just give. So once again, it's quite simple. The practice is just be wholehearted and body and mind drop away, and then we realize the Buddha way. Another way to put it is, during the true Dharma, when you hear the true Dharma, when we hear the true Dharma, we will renounce worldly affairs.

[07:30]

Renounce worldly affairs and I would suggest to you means renounce being distracted from where you are and what's going on with you. Worldly affairs are like not being mindful of your experience. If you're talking to somebody and you're mindful of what's happening as you speak, then talking is a worldly affair. But if you're talking to someone and you're not mindful of what you're experiencing, then you're involved in worldly affairs. Like if you're talking to someone, not so much with what's happening, but what you're going to get out of the conversation, what gain or loss there might be in the conversation, then you're somewhat distracted from simply being mindful of the activity that you're experiencing.

[09:02]

That's right before you. When you hear the true Dharma, it's possible to be mindful, to renounce distractions, and renouncing distractions to maintain the Dharma which we have heard. And when we maintain this Dharma, when we hear it and renounce distractions and take care of the Dharma which we have heard, then this wonderful thing called enlightenment occurs throughout the universe, is realized universally. So that's kind of the basic logic of the practice. Here is the Dharma. Renounce distraction. Practice wholeheartedly. Maintain the and realize enlightenment universally.

[10:03]

And then it says, the way he says it is, although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and condition of obstacles in practicing the way. May all Buddhas and ancestors be compassionate and free us from these karmic obstructions. So first of all, he tells you the logic of enlightenment and freedom. Then he says, and then he says, Although we have obstructions to this path which we've just talked about, we pray that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas will be compassionate to us and help us become free of these obstructions so that we will be able to practice the way without hindrance.

[11:14]

Here's the logic, here's the path of liberation, here's the path of enlightenment. And even though we have lots of hindrance to practicing this, we still pray that we'd be helped to become free of the hindrance so we can enter this practice. Another way to put it is, here's the path, and yet, even though there's a path here, we have problems hearing the true Dharma. But even though we have problems hearing the true Dharma, we still have a chance to overcome these problems of the true Dharma. And then we will be able to hear it, and the obstructions will be removed, and we will be able to enter. There are different nuances in the way you can put it. And the obstructions are karmic obstructions, first of all. And then there's obstructions of defilement and there's obstructions to omniscience, different levels of obstruction.

[12:30]

But the first ones are karmic obstructions, the things that make it hard for us just to practice. Karmic obstructions. Again, going back to what I said at the beginning, Dogen says, when you first meet a master, when you're first able to meet, in other words, when you're able to meet without obstruction, then just practice wholeheartedly. He says, without practicing confession and repentance, But if you can meet, you don't have to practice confession and repentance because if you meet, there's no obstruction. But now we recognize that it's hard to meet. There are obstructions. So we can't, we haven't met the Master yet. We haven't met the Buddha yet.

[13:30]

There are obstructions. So we can't skip over confession and repentance. So that's what That's what the voice is about is we have accumulated these obstructions. We can't hear the Dharma. So we need to practice confession and repentance. By practicing confession and repentance, these obstructions melt away. We hear the Dharma and we'll be able to practice. So again, in one sense it says, Just practice wholeheartedly, drop away body and mind. But that is predicated on hearing the true Dharma and hearing the true Dharma predicated on being open to hear it. And being open to hear it means the karmic obstructions have been opened up for a moment anyway to let the light in, to let the sound in.

[14:37]

So I start out by trying to make clear what the practice is. The practice is basically being wholehearted, dropping off body and mind. That's our meditation practice. Yeah, that's our meditation practice. That is the meditation practice of the Buddha. That's the Buddha's meditation practice, which many of us might want to aspire to, to actually do the practice of the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas. That's their practice. That's the way they practice. Dropping off body and mind. That's their practice. It's pretty clear that's what it is. But it's also not that easy to understand what that is. So we need to do groundwork along with this aspiration, and that is basically to study the problem, learn about the problem.

[15:54]

The problem is karmic hindrance, karmic obstruction. which, of course, come in relationship to karma. So that's why I'm forced into, by causes and conditions, discussing karma with you. And I kind of apologize to eight or nine people here who were at Tassajara at the later part of the last year where we talked a lot about, studied a lot and talked a lot about karma. So I'm sorry that we're what you've been subjected to for three months. But I can't get away from it. I forgot about it all. Oh, great. So karma is something that requires, when it appears, it requires close attention in order for us to hear the Dharma.

[17:27]

we have to pay close attention to karma otherwise karmic obstructions will appear and that will make it hear the Dharma that will make it difficult for us to meet the Buddha and hear the Dharma. 2500 years ago there was a person the Buddha appeared as a human being Buddha appeared as a human being on this planet, had name and so on, like us, and spoke to people, the true Dharma. And then that person, being a person, died. That person also told us that Buddha doesn't just appear as that person. Buddha appears in many ways. And so it is possible then, after the Buddha's gone, to continue to meet Buddha.

[18:32]

And some people might think that... Well, I guess this is why maybe Buddhism's kind of like a religion in the sense that we're talking about meeting Buddhas, but we don't actually have a human Buddha anymore on this planet. because Shakyamuni Buddha, in this historical container that we're in, he took up all the Buddha. He's the Buddha. So everybody after him is not a Buddha, even if they understand perfectly his teachings. that they heard it from. So we can have people who have the same enlightenment as Buddha in this world, but they don't get to be the Buddha because they weren't the one who delivered it originally. So that's a kind of technicality in a sense.

[19:36]

It looks to me like we have to continue now to meet Buddha. We have to meet Buddha face to face. That's what I proposed to you. And also I just briefly mentioned that this is a proposal to you And of a truth, actually, I'm proposing that this is true, that you need to meet Buddha. I mean, within the Dharma tradition, within the Buddha Dharma tradition, I propose that it is the Dharma, it is the truth, that you must meet Buddha in order to hear the Dharma. And so I propose that to you as a truth, but I also suggest to you that there's three levels on which you can verify or validate that truth.

[20:53]

One is direct experience, another is through reasoning, and the third is through Scripture. Through Scripture it's easy to find proof of this. But that's not the whole story. And the best way to, the primary or the highest authority would be through indirect experience. And, but it's also, you know, it's possible to do it also through that you would experience some validity to the teaching that we must meet the Buddha, hear the Dharma in order to do the practice, the actual practice. But it's also part of the tradition to tell you again that in order to be able to we must meditate on our karma

[22:03]

And by that meditation on our karma, karmic obstructions are removed, and then we can meet the Buddha. So this is part of the justification for the problem of karma, which is the basic problem, to study the problem of karmic obstruction. There's lots, many books about karma, of course, and I made a short reading list of A Bon Karma, which has a combination of early teachings from Shakyamuni Buddha and Mahayana scriptures, and also some Zen discussions of karma, in koan form and also in essay form. So if you'd like a copy of that, up that reading list.

[23:13]

It will be made available to you. And so maybe Catherine could make about seven copies of that. So you can get a copy of the reading list from Catherine. Yes? Could the reading list be posted? Yeah. Where would you like it posted? The usual places. Would you post it? Post it, yeah, yeah, the usual places. One story you can hear about this study of karma is in the, again in a Zen text, I've mentioned many times, it's called in Japanese, Genjo Koan, Shobo Genzo, Genjo Koan.

[24:28]

And in that text, which we will perhaps chant tomorrow morning during morning service, Please. Oh, we have a short service because? Because of Sunday. I think we do. We have a short service tomorrow? So we'll chant the Ganja Koan pretty soon. And then in that text... If you go out into the, if you're riding in a boat, or when you ride in a boat, and you look at the shore, you might think the shore is moving, but when you look closely at the boat, you realize, oh, the boat's moving. Of course, the shore is moving. The shore is moving is not the way it looks when you overlook the fact that the boat's moving. They're both moving, but when you pay attention to the boat,

[25:31]

you start to notice something which you overlooked before. And he says in a similar way, when you examine your mind, or when you examine your experience with a confused body and mind, you might assume that your body and mind have an unchanging self or independent self. But when you look closely at your body and mind, and particularly when you look at karma, the actions, of your body-mind, of your psychophysical complex, it will become clear that nothing whatsoever has an abiding self, including karmic obstruction. So when we see that things don't have an abiding, independent self, our eyes become clear, we see the Buddha, we hear the Dharma, and then we can practice without hindrance.

[26:43]

But most of us have not been looking closely enough at our actions, so we don't see that nothing whatsoever happens. has an independent self and therefore we do see that things do have an independent self and then therefore we're circumscribed by hindrance and we can't see the Buddha and hear the Dharma. So we need to pay, it seems to me, attention, we need to give close attention to our actions. And this kind of meditation is the kind of meditation which this intensive is set up to make possible. Because most of you have nothing really you have to do than pay attention to your actions.

[27:59]

No one's really asking anything more of you than that. Now, some of you may argue with me about that, but most of you probably won't. Now, like Judy sitting there, and when she's back home talking to her business client, she might say, no, no, they don't just want me to watch my action. I say that, but she knows at Green Gulch nobody's asking her to do anything else than that, right? pretty clear here, right? All we want to hurt you to do is give close attention to your actions moment by moment. You know that, right? So the only person that's making it difficult is this karmic person that keeps appearing here as you. So then you have to like deal with that. But that's your job here. And for most of you, that's really your job. It's a job we want you to do.

[29:02]

And if you have trouble sweeping the floor while you're doing that, let us know. We'll try to find a way to help you pay attention to sweeping and still sweep. At first, though, when you first start switching from sweeping to sweeping, you may think, how can I do that? You might not know how, but you can learn. And I see Max raising his hand now. I just want to mention something about the questions, and that is I welcome them, or comments, I welcome them, but also it's good to spend a little time before they start, otherwise some people experience an overwhelming sense of chaos. Okay, so one more thing I want to say, though, before opening this up, is that the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, there's quite a few Buddhas that you may have heard about, but the one in this historical afterword we call Shakyamuni Buddha, this is a historical Buddha who lived in India, apparently for about 80 years and died.

[30:21]

And he told us that there's lots of other Buddhas. And so right now, there's other Buddhas, but the historical Buddha taught that what he meant by karma is intention. And he is just... We don't know what word he actually used, but it was... But then... Because he spoke, you know, actually like some kind of like way that the people he met could understand. So he didn't write... didn't speak Sanskrit, but when they wrote down what he said, whatever it was, they wrote it as chaitanya. And in Pali, it's also chaitanya. So when they wrote it into Sanskrit in Pali, they wrote it as chaitanya. This word is translated as intention. It's translated as will. motivation, also translated as synergy.

[31:28]

And when the Chinese translated cetana into their own character system, translated it with this character. which is often translated as intention, but also very importantly it's translated as thinking. So the definition of karma that Buddha is talking about, the religious karma, the karma that bears on spiritual liberation, that karma, the definition of that karma, that action, karma means action, the type of action which is evolutionary action, you might say. Evolutionary, which is a type of action which goes towards or away from, promotes or hinders spiritual awakening, that type of action is defined as chetana.

[32:41]

It's mental activity. It is mental activity, but another way to say it is it is the activity of the mind. Mind is not, basically mind is not active. It's basically mind is clear light. It is a clarity and illumination. It is a clear knowing. That's what basically mind is. It's not really an action. So mental activity is not the same as mind. Mind has mental activity. There's no mind without mental activity, at least for unenlightened beings. But I think even for enlightened beings, mind has activity, has function. and the function is the overall function, the overall activity arising with the knowing.

[33:55]

Amazingly, in a way, it is possible to learn, to study, our intention. We actually can be, we can know, we can be aware of, we can see mental activity. We can see our thinking. We can know our intentions, our wills, our motivation. We can know these things. So this is a type of study In some sense, the most authoritative, which is direct empirical study. You can directly study and know directly your mental activity. The way it works, when you hear some of the things that the Buddha has taught, how mental activity works, is some of these things you will not be able to see directly until you're perfectly enlightened.

[35:08]

So part of the teachings on the way mental activity functions are so subtle that they're more subtle than understanding selflessness. our understanding of selflessness opens the door to realizing the subtleties of the workings of karma. So part of the difficulty in this kind of study is that you will hear teachings which you will not be able to empirically observe. But you can hear them on the level of scripture, and you can understand them potentially on the level of reasoning. But the direct perception of them may not be available to you now, so you may have to just listen to some of these teachings and understand that the level of understanding them or verifying them is not yet available. But also just be aware that we're not just saying in this tradition that you're supposed to take everything at the level of scripture and that by scriptural authority is the only way you know these teachings.

[36:19]

clear about which modes of knowledge you have attained and be aware that ultimately we want to have direct empirical knowledge of all these teachings. The first thing is the definition of karma, which is chaitanya. The definition of mental activity is intention. The next thing is that, he said, is that intention has consequence, or activity is effective, it's effectual, it's consequential. So he's teaching cause and effect. He's teaching causation, and in particular he's teaching causation, cognitive causation, and moral causation.

[37:25]

Same thing in this case. What I mean is that actually I wouldn't say that cognitive and mental are the same. I would say actually that it's cognitive causation and cognitive can be mental. But the type of causation it is, it's moral in the sense that, it's the same as moral in the sense that it has moral consequences. If studied or not studied, it has moral consequences. So cognitive and moral are, we don't usually bring morals into non-cognitive fields.

[38:27]

So it's cognitive causation and moral causation. And it's not, but I think it's nice to distinguish between mental and cognitive, bigger than mental. Because vocal activity that's emerging from mental intention is cognitive. It's not just a physical action. It's a cognitive action. It has a thread of moral and of intention in it. Basic intention, the basic definition of karma is mental activity. So that's cognitive, mental cognitive. But mental intentions can get translated into vocalizations and physical postures. But these physical postures that are related to moral evolution and spiritual evolution are the ones that have cognitive thread running through them.

[39:38]

So there's one more point I want to make before. There's a question mark after that, I know. The other point was, what was it? Oh, I don't know if that was it, but another point I want to just mention is that, and in this teaching of cause and effect, it is not what we call determinism. And I'd like to talk to you about that. I just want to tell you that now, that this is not a deterministic cause and effect process. It's a cause and effect process which the Buddha teaches and which when studied comes to fruit as freedom. But it's not freedom

[40:50]

outside of cause and effect. It's freedom in cause and effect or with cause and effect. It's freedom which demonstrates itself in the arena of cause and effect. Well, maybe that's enough as an introduction. I don't know if it is or not. I can't tell. Do you need more before we open up here? You don't know? Mack, did you have a question? Yes, about the praying to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Pardon? Praying to them, yes. So, Judy's having trouble sweeping and being mindful, right? Is it at that point that she... She doesn't have any trouble. Let's say she is. Oh, let's say she is, okay. Or does that have to be... Yeah, let's say you are. And then I... So, you're sweeping, you're sweeping in what? And you're having trouble being mindful? Yes. Yes? Is it at that point that you do the prayers? That would be a good point, yeah.

[41:51]

Whenever you're having trouble is a good point. So you're sweeping and you're noticing you're not being mindful. So then you say, you stop. You notice, oh, I'm not being mindful. You just started being mindful. And you say, okay. Hey, I got my hands on this broom. And then I get very inflated by that. And I'm getting inflated. Yeah. Zen monk now because I've got my broom. I've got my earth. I'm a great master. I'm inflated. I confess this to the Buddhas. Anyway, I'm okay with the idea of praying to Buddhas and monks because it's sort of a faith. It's a faith thing, right? But where I'm confused, there's no way to describe how they can remove obstacles. Is that correct? Like, say, for example, a lot of aspects of Buddhism cause and effect, it's easy to rationalize that, but to see how Buddhism myself can actually... Or are they removing the obstacles, or are they just helping me?

[43:07]

I think that... It seems to me, but you can check this out, of course, that as soon as you notice... that you're not being mindful, you're starting to be somewhat mindful. And as soon as you say, may all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas free us from karmic effects, at that moment you're somewhat mindful. Now, you can also be reciting this text, right? I remember the main thing I was going to say. okay, you're reciting the text and you're intending to recite the text, but that does not mean you're aware that you're intending to recite the text. So you could say, may all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas be compassionate to us and free us from karmic effects, but not really stop there and say,

[44:07]

I'm really asking that. I'm actually asking that right now. And not really stop and feel that. Not really be mindful that you have just committed a verbal act. And to check out what was your motivation when you did this recitation. Like we recite this text and were we checking out our motivation as we were reciting? Am I reciting this actually for the welfare of all beings while I'm reciting this? What am I reciting this for? Just to kind of like clear my lungs, go along with the group? What's your intention while you're reciting this? This is a great file. Or not. But your intention is there. It's there. So that was the main point I want to make is that we are always active. There's not a moment when we don't have mental activity. But I'm not saying that we are always aware of our mental activity.

[45:10]

So that's the key difference between the practitioner and someone who is involved in worldly affairs. The person who is involved in worldly affairs is active, just like the practitioner, but they're not paying attention to their intention. If somebody's paying attention to their thinking, to their motivation, just to do that, it's not occurring. If someone's not paying attention to that, the person is involved in worldly affairs. That's basically the definition I would propose to you. So if you're praying to bodhisattvas and you're not noticing that you're praying to bodhisattvas, that's a perfectly nice thing to do, especially like in Green Gulch. Nobody's going to bust you for that. Not going to bust you, they're going to say, like that story I've told you many times.

[46:15]

one of the disciples of Sankapa, you know, this monk, you know, who was doing, you know, like, I don't know, who was like praying to bodhisattvas, you know. And he saw him praying. He says, that's a beautiful prayer you're saying there, you know. It's just really so moving to hear you do those prayers to the bodhisattvas. It would be nice if you did something spiritual. And then he was like instructing the new monks, you know, in meditation. He said, you're such a kind person, it's really great. It's just so moving to see how kind you are to the young monks. He said, but it would be nice if you did something spiritual sometime. And he praised him for all these good things he was doing around the temple. He was going around the different altars, making offerings and chanting mantras and stuff. And he said, that's terrific, that's great. It would be nice if you did something spiritual. In other words, he was doing worldly affairs.

[47:19]

Some people are doing worldly affairs and they're beautiful the way they do it. It's not to say that they're not beautiful or lovable, right? Like children, they do worldly affairs and they're beautiful even though they're totally into game and not paying attention to their intention. not paying attention to their karma. They're totally into karma, but they're not paying attention. So, sweeping the ground and praying to bodhisattvas, yes, but I really want the bodhisattvas to help me pay attention to what I'm doing. And I know that that's what they want me to do. So I pray to them. And when I pray, I look, do I really want them to help me? Do I actually want help to pay attention to what my intention is right now. Do I want help with that? And I actually do.

[48:26]

And I am paying attention to my attention and I do want help. I do want to be supported to look inside and I can look inside with help. And so I want you all to help me look inside moment by moment my intention right now. What do I wish What do I want the current moment of life to be for? And now I'm praying to bodhisattvas or to people to support me to look what I'm up to. I am up to something. I would like to ask for help and pay attention to that. And people say, well, what are bodhisattvas? I would say bodhisattvas are the forces in the world, the functions of the world, which encourage you to do this practice. And they have been depicted in various, very moving art forms,

[49:32]

And sometimes we see people who seem to be manifesting them or dogs or trees. Many things seem to like up and make us be aware. At that time, the bodhisattva is functioning. When we suddenly become aware, that's what we mean by the function of these bodhisattvas. These bodhisattvas are not something other than their function. It's not like there's a bodhisattva. who doesn't have a function and they're still a bodhisattva. They're only a bodhisattva when they function. When they're not functioning, the bodhisattva is turned off. Like your eyes. When your eyes are not functioning, there's no eye organ when it's not working. Like when you sleep at night and you have your eyes shut in the dark, your eye organs are not, there's no eye organ, there's no eye of consciousness. They have to be turned on. And when they're turned on, then they exist.

[50:35]

The same with bodhisattvas and buddhas. They exist, they come into being when beings are helped. When you're helped to do the practice, the bodhisattvas are functioning. That's their job, is to support you practicing. When you're not practicing, there's no bodhisattvas for you. Does that make sense? Huh? What? Yes. Yeah, so, and you can verify this and see if you, you know, check out, do you want any more of a bodhisattva than the bodhisattvas that help you practice? That's enough of a bodhisattva for me. And I do want those kind of bodhisattvas. Everything in the universe that helps the practice is what I mean by a bodhisattva. And the enlightening being, the form of being which is enlightening, and for people who have karmic obstructions, enlightening being is to enlighten you about your karmic obstructions, in other words, bring your attention to your intentions.

[51:42]

Once again, the intentions are there, the intentions are there, the intentions are here, the intentions are here, the intentions are here. It's a question of paying attention to them. So there's a little triangle here. And Ray, and can we call you Roran? Yes? I think you just answered it, but when you said that Shakyamuni was the only Buddha, I got a little confused because I feel what you just said, that awakening is... Oh, but I mean only historical Buddha. So we have these three bodies. No, I don't think I said that. I said, but maybe I did. Anyway, he's a historical Buddha. And once a historical Buddha is in a world, then everybody after that is living in a world where the teaching has appeared.

[52:46]

So a Buddha is somebody who presents a teaching in a world where no one has presented it before. Once it's presented, everybody else is a disciple of that Buddha in that world. But the disciples sometimes understand as well as the Buddha did, but they're not the founder. And as you may know, sometimes the first person to think of something is, the first time that something is thought, it's more powerful than the second time it's thought. So there's something special about this historical, this teaching. even though his disciples did understand it really well. So the Buddha, the tradition is saying that at some point this whole thing is going to be like, this world where we have Buddha's teaching and where we have, you know, you go into these shops on various streets, you know, in San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Texas, what is it, Stockholm, Sweden, wherever you go, you go and you have these little Buddhas in these stores with the incense, you know,

[53:52]

So that world's going to go away pretty soon. There's not going to be any Buddhist statues or incense shops or anything. And then in that world where there's no record of Buddha, although there were Buddhas there before, a Buddha will appear, and then that will be a new Buddha. But the teaching that the tradition's impermanent, that's part of the teaching of the teaching, and it applies to the tradition itself. So there will come a time when Shakyamuni Buddha will be forgotten on this planet. So is there no awakening possible then? No awakening? No hearing of the true Dharma. But the awakening can start even before hearing the true Dharma. It's just that you haven't heard the true Dharma. And before hearing the true Dharma, it's very difficult to practice without hindrance. As you may have seen, some people have trouble practicing because they haven't really heard the teaching deeply enough, so they keep kind of like forgetting it or thinking about it.

[55:01]

There comes a time when you hear it and you don't have any doubt anymore. You're just like on the ball all the time because you heard it. And the Buddha, by the way, the Buddha doesn't say the true Dharma. The Buddha goes, woo, [...] The view, I'm here for you, and you go, wow, and then suddenly, hmm, I hear something. What is that? You know? What's that sound? The true Dharma is not what the Buddha is saying. It's what you hear when you're talking to the Buddha. Like I often tell that story of, I'll just tell the short version of this guy who was looking to meet the Buddha. He met the Buddha. He didn't know it was the Buddha. He was coming to see the Buddha. He didn't know it was the Buddha. and he's talking to the Buddha, and while he's talking to the Buddha, he heard the Dharma. And when he heard the Dharma, he thought, oh, this must be the Buddha that's talking to me, because I'm hearing the Dharma. But he heard the Dharma first, and then he realized that it was the Buddha that was talking to him, and he was right, it was the Buddha.

[56:08]

So the true Dharma is not what the Buddha is saying. The Buddha is talking to you to get you warmed up, And then when you're warmed up and when you open up, you hear the true Dharma, which was pulsing all the while, but you need the meeting with the Buddha to hear it. So we say Chakyamuni delivered the true Dharma, but he didn't really speak it. He was delivering it, but everything's delivering it. In such a way that he met certain people and he talked to them in such a way that they could see that he was delivering it. But you're delivering it too. We don't really need little statues and things. You don't need little statues? No, you don't need little statues, but you do need little Buddhas. And sometimes little statues are the way you see the Buddha. Looking at the statue, something funny about that. Oh, it's a Buddha! You know? So we, we, there is a, these statues are

[57:14]

It's possible to look at statues and realize that actually meet the Buddha. Somebody's looking at a statue, they're looking at a statue, and then suddenly they hear it's your dharma. They saw the Buddha. But you can also see the Buddha in somebody's palm. So you don't exactly need a palm, but you need something to look at so you can see that that's the Buddha. You need to see the Buddha, what you're looking at to see it. isn't limited. So isn't the Buddha always there? That's my question. Do we really need a manifestation? Isn't everything manifesting? Yes, you do need manifestation, right. Yes, you do. But isn't everything manifesting? Let's see. Yes, right. So everything is manifesting, so you do need manifestation, right. You need everything. It's there every moment. It doesn't last, but it's there every moment.

[58:17]

Yes. Right. Teaching about studying karma, which opens you to see that. Because some people can't see it, right? Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Sometimes you say, oh, my God, it's Buddha. And then you say, no, I don't think it really was. Oh, everybody's helping me. No. Sometimes you see it, sometimes you don't. Almost everybody knows how to see that not everybody is helping them. People seem to have that down. But some people have seen that everybody's helping them. It wasn't just like a passing thought. They actually were totally convinced. And then that was a big change in their life. That's what it's like to hear the true Dharma, is you actually really hear it. It's not hearsay.

[59:19]

You hear it from you. Ray? You know, all the news that Brent appeared last Sunday There was a full-page article in the Sunday Times about how cultural anthropologists and epistemologists have looked very hard at cause and effect and have decided there is no such thing as freedom. So would you say something more about how karma comes to fruition as freedom and maybe give an example that somebody like me can understand? I would say it's like the basic kind of freedom that comes to mind is the freedom to be kind. The freedom to be kind. That's the basic freedom from the passions of selfish concerns, you know, freedom from

[60:26]

being worried about what's going to happen to me and freedom to be kind to you. No obstructions anymore to be kind to you. And the people who are free to be kind to people, who are freed from their personal concerns, those are the people who attracted me to this tradition. They weren't people who could fly. I've heard about people who can fly. And I liked Jesus, actually, when I was a kid. He did what he was able to do. I just couldn't see how I would ever be able to, you know, walk on water or bring people back from the dead or something like that. I could kind of understand the thing about the loaves and the fishes. That made sense to me. But I just, you know, I thought a lot of stuff he said was interesting. The miracle of his speech I thought was cool. But out of the miracles he did, I just didn't move me.

[61:29]

But when I heard about these Buddhist people who were like free to be kind, like somebody's bugging them or something, and usually were like trapped in something. but they're free from that concern so that they can still come up with kindness even under, even when they're like, like some people have trouble being kind when they're getting a lot of praise, you know, because they're kind of intoxicated by the, kind of distracted by the praise. Other people are kind of like distracted by the praise. So they're not free. They're, you know, like they're caught in cause and effect. And they're not able to be free, even though they want to be. Like they want to be kind to, for example, their own children. Or someone who they, yesterday they could see my wife, you know, who I've been living with for more than 50 years, and she's really a wonderful person, I love her. But right now I'm kind of caught by some personal concern, and I'm having a little obstruction to, I'm not really free to be kind to her right now.

[62:33]

I'd like to be, but I just can't be. Now to be free to act on what you really want to do, be kind to her, that freedom does happen. And when it happens, I would say this is a case of a person who is free from usual human selfishness and self-concern and free from their own biological imperatives. That kind of freedom is the kind which is possible. And action patterns are what set up the hindrance, and studying them is what sets up the openings. I don't know if any of those people who wrote this article would disagree with that type of freedom or not. I don't know. Lauren? I was wondering about the awareness of intention and what that might mean. look like? Like, does that occur as a thought?

[63:35]

I was just imagining trying to become aware of my intentions and that getting into a sort of a psychological analysis. No, this is psychological analysis. This is psychological analysis. That's what this is. It's analyzing your psychology. It's analyzing, yeah, this is a psychological study. This is not... But it is... The purpose of the psychological study is to free us from our psychology, eventually. It's not that we're... It's not just to study your psychology and understand your psychology. It's to become free of it. So it does involve actually looking at what you're doing now, like when you move your arm, to be aware of what you're doing. And like I went to the dentist the other day and they said, your tissue is in pretty good shape.

[64:35]

I said, pretty good? Not good? And she said, well, yeah, it's not excellent. I said, what's excellent? She said, excellent is when we clean your teeth, there's no bleeding. That's excellent. Excellent. So they're pretty good. She said, you're doing a good job. Pretty good. But still a little bit of bleeding around the cleaning, the deep cleaning. And, you know, I think about the way I floss. And I thought, you know, I do feel, you know, I must confess to you, I don't necessarily do both directions at each tooth. You know, there's this little point there, you know, where the gum comes up between there and you can go to the right and the left or whatever.

[65:44]

I sometimes just go down and I don't even know which side I went down on. So that's kind of a weakness in my mindfulness practice there. There's a story I read was about this monk who trained for quite a while with his teacher and then he kind of graduated and was off and he came back to visit his teacher on a rainy night and he put down his umbrella or his raincoat and his shoes and went in and the teacher said, which umbrella did you put your umbrella on? And he didn't know. So he stayed and studied six more years. So to be aware, you know, if you come into the entryway and you say, okay, now what am I going to do with this umbrella? Where do I want to put it? I'm going to go see the teacher. Well, forget about the umbrella.

[66:44]

It's treating umbrella placement as something pretty important, because this is an example of mental activity. What do you wish to put the umbrella down? Do you wish to realize the Buddha way here? Is it easy to get caught up in that kind of process? Very easy. It's not doing the opposite of what? Of the awareness. No, you can still be aware and be caught up. It's the opposite of... Being caught up is the opposite of what? Freedom. Huh? Freedom. Right. That's what it's the opposite of. But you have to get into the opposite to realize freedom. That's a bumper sticker. Which I have the copyright on. Do you understand what I'm saying, anyway?

[67:51]

If you put the umbrella down, you can be totally caught up in that, too. Doing it totally out of karmic habit, karmic obstruction, not seeing it as putting the umbrella down as an act assisted by all bodhisattvas and assisting all bodhisattvas. Not seeing that. Does that seem reasonable? Hmm? totally like trapped in, but not notice it. When you start to notice it, you start to notice, oh, I'm kind of caught up in this. However, you don't necessarily get caught up. You say, okay, I'm just like, there I am. But you can get caught up in it because we are caught up. But by noticing it, you can become free. If you don't notice that you're caught up, then your caught-upness will just reproduce itself in the dark. If you start bringing light to it, the process of liberation has been initiated.

[68:54]

Yes? You said... Dharma is what you hear when meeting a Buddha. Yeah. So it's not the words, it's like those very words somebody else could say, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. That isn't Dharma unless what you hear is Dharma. Well, for example, the Buddha usually says, like the Buddha might say, all compounded things are impermanent and constantly flowing. The Buddha might say that, and one of Buddha's disciples might say that too. But also somebody who just heard it on the street might say it. If the Buddha said it, if Shakyamuni Buddha said it to you, and you didn't hear the Dharma while Shakyamuni Buddha talking to you, you wouldn't be actually meeting Shakyamuni Buddha at that moment, strictly speaking. But if the person on the street goes, oh, you know what they say in the Buddha Dharma, blah, blah, blah, and you hear that, and while you're hearing that, you hear the true Dharma, then you actually meet Buddha while you're listening to the person in the street.

[69:58]

Was it St. John of the Cross? He did this practice of putting himself in a closet for a long time. Yeah. So he put himself in a closet for a long time. And while he was in the closet he heard somebody singing in the street. He heard the true Dharma. So at that time I would say he met the Buddha. But the causes and conditions are such that when Shakyamuni Buddha was talking to people, a lot of them by the function of his presence, able to open them up and warm them up in such a way that they opened to hear the true Dharma. Usually, however, they were people who wanted to hear it. So it wasn't like he, even Shakyamuni Buddha, could not wake up his cousin. He had a cousin, you know, who was a powerful yogi and, you know, actually in Buddha's family, but Buddha could not wake this person up.

[71:08]

This person did not hear the true dharma. So even the Buddha had his limits about who he could... Yeah, the Buddha could not meet on that particular day. But some people he could wake up the next day. But some people he couldn't. Day after day he could not do it. But when the Buddha is talking to someone is a condition such that people do sometimes hear the true Dharma. At that moment they really are meeting the Buddha. And that's why, according to that kind of reasoning, if we have that kind of presence with people we meet that someone would have if they met such an important teacher, if we had that kind of meetings with people, we have a chance to meet the Buddha.

[72:10]

Even though there's just an ordinary person in front of us, we actually see the Buddha there. And then we can hear the Dharma. But we don't have much of it. We have a much better chance, I would say. We promote the opportunity to being present with situations the way we would if Buddha was talking to us, if we are taking care of our actions. If I make a bigger effort to floss, not to prevent my teeth from falling out, which they're going to do quite soon. Anyway, no matter what I do, these teeth will soon be ashes. but they offer an opportunity for me to be there with that flossing, to be there with that intention, moment by moment by moment by moment, and to see that that is a normal religious practice, dōto zen,

[73:21]

but it's a normal religious practice in Shakyamuni Buddha's time too, that he taught his monks to clean their teeth. He recommended that they bathe, you know, and he recommended that they be minutely mindful of the present moment. He taught that as a basic practice. So when we're doing that, we're doing his practice, but also we're not just, we're doing mindfulness of body, but we're also doing mindfulness of intention, mindfulness of karma. So, we have a chance now, all of us, to look at our intention. Every moment has an intention. It's there for you to enjoy. It's your intentions that you need to watch. And then when you can look at your intentions, you can also watch other people's intentions, if you want to. At the shore, But first look at the boat.

[74:23]

Another kind of topic at Tassajara was people coming to talk to me, and I told the sangha, a lot of people coming and talking to me about the shore. The shore, particularly in terms of other practitioners. All that practitioners moving, practitioners moving. And usually when they're talking about them, they're really upset about the movement of the shore. And I usually felt when they were talking to me, I said, I really think you, I don't feel like you're looking at the boat. And almost nobody argued with me when I said that. Most people said, oh yeah, that's right, there's a boat here. I wasn't moving in this boat, I wasn't noticing it. So then you get really upset about what's going on on the shore. So it's okay to look at other people and see their intentions. That's all right, but first of all, what's yours? Okay. My intention is to look at other people's intention. My intention is to ask other people, what's your intention? But first of all, I'm aware that's my intention.

[75:26]

I want to know. I think it would be helpful for me to ask other people. So I see that intention, so now I'm going to ask. And then before I ask a second time, okay, and see that I have the intention before I ask the next time. Rather than, what's your intention, what's your intention, what's your intention, what's your intention? It's like, okay, I want to ask Grace, what's your intention? And then she tells me. Okay, now, instead of just moving on to Fred, I check, do I want to ask Fred? Yes, okay. All right, he tells me or doesn't or whatever. And I just don't ask Jane right away. I think now it I actually do want to ask her. I think that would be beneficial. And I see that. Already, before I even speak, I'm already checking the boat out. I may never get a chance to ask her. She may go off. But I did the practice of looking to see.

[76:27]

I would like to ask her. I think that would be helpful for me to ask her. And I'd like to hear her answer. But she went away. I never did ask her. I never did hear her answer. But I was doing the practice of I was paying attention to my cognitive mental activity, which was there. And sometimes you do not want to ask somebody else what their intention is. And that is your intention. You do not want to. And that's what you look, and that's what you find, and you're doing it. Yes? One basic intention that I have in my mind, and maybe other people can relate, is the intention of going to get a maple tea. Yeah? You said that's a... Did you say... Yeah, you could say basic or you could say common. It's very common that people want to get away from pain. So pain arises, and then there's... But, excuse me, but strictly speaking, as you do the psychological analysis,

[77:35]

the wish to get away from the pain is not necessarily your intention. The intention is actually the overall activity of your cognition. So if you've had a pain and there was an impulse or some feeling to get away from the pain, that might not be your intention. That might just be sort of like an element in your intention. But it could be your intention. The overall... So some total of that moment is that you actually do wish to get away from it. But you could also have, it's also possible to have pain feel some kind of shrinking back from it, but also feel like, I want to meet it. So it isn't just an impulse, the avoidance doesn't necessarily dominate the whole state of consciousness. But when the whole consciousness lines up with that, then the intention would be to avoid the pain. And that's a very common one. So pain is very common, as you know.

[78:36]

And impulse is very common, which you know. And then the intention to line up with that avoiding factor is common. But sometimes there's pain and impulse to avoid, but it doesn't take over. And you stay in the situation. For example, practicing patience. You feel the impulse to avoid, but you're putting emphasis on being present with the pain because you're practicing patience. And you know, or you've heard, and or you know from experience, that not being pushed around by the impulse to avoid pain is sometimes because then you can see clearly. But if you get agitated... from the impulse to avoid pains, especially habitually avoid them, rather than look to see carefully, and so on. So, see how that's an analysis? That's a psychological analysis, which you can do, part of studying your karma.

[79:42]

Yes? In that impulse to drink away, there is this idea that there is a place without pain. There could be or there may or may not be. There may or may not be. Both scenarios are possible. I'd like to consider desperately looking for the Did you say, did you use the word confess? Yeah. So she confessed that some kind of feeling that there's some place of peace and ease and you're interested in going to that place. Pain and the wish to go to this place where there's no pain? Yeah. Yeah, so now we're one, there's another element in our cognitions is wondering what it's like to meet pain completely.

[80:49]

And that's basically the practice of patience, is to find a way to completely meet pain. here's this great practice called completely meet pain. Not lean into it, not lean away from it, not lean to the right, but meet it wholly, completely, in the moment, fully meet the pain. To learn how to do that is called the practice of Buddha. And in order to be a Buddha, we need to learn how to do this. And part of what makes it difficult is interest in some other place where it's not painful. That's part of what makes it difficult to focus on what's happening now. Namely, more or less. But this is this amazingly highly recommended practice of patience, which is exactly to wholeheartedly meet

[81:51]

discomfort. And this is also part of the warm-up to wholeheartedly meet Buddha. When you're around in your meeting with pain, you'll probably wiggle around with your meeting with Buddha. Many of you know the experience of going to somebody who you want to go to be with, who's supposedly a teacher. Maybe in the teacher meeting, meeting with the teacher, you'll meet the teacher, maybe you'll meet the Buddha while you're meeting the teacher. To help you meet the Buddha, and you start wiggling, you feel uncomfortable with the teacher, you want to get away from the teacher, or get away from this uncomfortable meeting. So the meeting the teacher and the meeting the pain, they go together. You can do the meeting of the pain with the teacher. Of course, if you can meet the teacher, you can meet the pain. Meeting the teacher is kind of even more difficult than meeting pain. But oftentimes they're both there when you meet the teacher.

[82:54]

Both some discomfort and the teacher. And then meeting the Dharma, which is this kind of like big adjustment, which we want, and yet it's an adjustment. So part of us wants to just leave me alone. Let me continue to be this way for a little bit. and then later I'll listen to the Dharma. Another part of it is, please help me be willing to open up to hearing the Dharma, which I know is going to be kind of an adjustment. Please help me be willing to change and open to something I've never opened to before. Was there some other? Yes? I want to go back to... detailed discussion of mindfulness. Yes. So it seems like usually when there is an instruction to be mindful, say, while sweeping, it's understood as

[83:59]

knowing that you're sweeping. Yes. So sweeping, sweeping, sweeping. Yes. But it seems like you're also saying to be aware of what is the intention, to understand that all the Buddhas are helping me to do this. Yes, or whatever. So there's four foundations, right? So first one, most people start with the physical thing. If you're sweeping, first of all, know you've got the broom. Know which hand's farther or closer to the earth. Be aware of your posture. and so on. Be aware of what size sweepings you're making. Then go on to be aware of your feelings. How do you feel? Like, I'm feeling kind of uncomfortable sweeping today. Actually, I feel quite happy sweeping today. And then move on to, you know, moment by moment, feel the posture and the feelings, and then move on to the mind. and look at both the general mind but also specifically in an analytic way, look at the fourth foundation and look at the which comprise your intention and your story you have, the story you have of what you're doing.

[85:07]

I'm a Zen monk or I'm a Zen nun or I'm a whatever, sweeping the ground, meditating, that's my story. So you're aware of, and I think this is a wholesome story or unwholesome story, Now, some people say, well, what about this thing about just sweep? Fine. Just sweep. That's fine. And what's the intention there? The intention is to just sweep. That could be your intention. Is that your intention? No, actually, that's not my intention. I'm off to thinking of Hawaii, but I've heard the teaching of just sweep. And sometimes there are moments where there's, my God, my Lord, my Buddha, it's just sweet. That sometimes is the intention. That's all there is. And that's fine. But that instruction is to help us, I think, identify our intention and notice there's all kinds of other intentions, which are distraction and so on and so forth.

[86:10]

But that's our intention is to be someplace else, like Shoho was saying. feeling pain while you're sweeping. So then you distract yourself. There's discomfort here sweeping. There's pain here. There's depression, whatever. And there's patience. And there's the intention to practice patience. And there's joy here actually now. I'm in pain at the same time because there's patience with this pain. There's patients with this rickety old body doing this sweeping, which is real cute when you're 20, but now it's actually painful. So yeah, it's body, feeling, mind, all those things. And the details are in the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which is analyzing and becoming aware of whether, knowing whether you have a wholesome state of consciousness or not.

[87:13]

I say not exactly knowing, but more like examining whether it's wholesome or not, because it's too conclusive. And as you meditate on the psychological field, you will see, it will become clear that nothing whatsoever has an abiding self. that really wholesomeness and unwholesomeness have no abiding self, skill and unskillfulness have no abiding self, you and others. So the whole illumination process can occur in this meditation where you become free of the psychological process which you've analyzed. Was there some other hands raised? Yes. One question. Earlier you mentioned about confess and repent, a way of hearing the true Dharma. Yes. Is that a confession that you just acknowledge, like, for instance, I didn't put my sandals down as mindfully as I went into the sandal? Mm-hmm. I mean, that's... That's one.

[88:16]

I confess, and the next time I'm going to do better. That's on one level. Yeah, on one level, just like being mindful of where you put your... In the story, the teacher actually asked him. The monk didn't go in and confess. He didn't go in and say, Hello, teacher, nice to see you again. And guess what? I don't remember where I put my umbrella. He didn't even notice that he didn't notice. But the teacher asked him, Where's your umbrella? Which side of the door? And then he said, Oops. So then he confessed that he didn't know. And he confessed to the teacher. and it had a profound effect on him, making him feel like, you know, I've really gotten, I'm still involved in worldly affairs. I'm visiting my teacher, but I'm not really doing the practice. I'm doing a nice, wonderful thing of visiting my teacher, but I'm not doing the practice which my teacher teaches me. So maybe I should learn that some more. But there was a little confession there in that story. And then of course there's, generally speaking, the more advanced

[89:19]

...notices things to confess. Well, as we usually think, the more advanced, the less you have confessed. It's really the opposite. The more you advanced, I think, the more you see little things to... more and more little things to confess, because You don't do huge, big things. Most people do little things every day or several times a day. But most people do little unskillfulnesses many times a day. And when you get over the big, gross, monstrous acts, then you start to notice smaller and smaller things, and there's innumerable. So there's lots of opportunities to notice little things like sloppy flossing and sloppy meetings with people, sloppy speech, inattentive attention, half-hearted this. Basically, distraction from being here.

[90:24]

There's lots of opportunities to notice a little bit of distraction, right? You can learn a way to confess them, but that's a skill. If you confess them too elaborately, you don't have time to notice the next one. Like saying, oh, this is so terrible, I didn't really pay attention to that person, and in the meantime you missed ten other things. It's more like, very subtle, like, hmm, okay, okay, that's too much, [...] too little, too much, too little. And then not even saying, just constantly, you know, bound. Always walk, always on a tightrope. You know, and not get distracted from any discomfort or pleasure that might arise. Yes, Matthew? Yeah. Well, they're not... You know, if you look in the dictionary... and then they list the synonyms, and then in some dictionaries, then they go through the synonyms and talk about the difference between the synonyms.

[91:48]

So thinking is a little bit different from volition, but I think thinking is a nice… thinking, also storytelling is another good… story is another good translation of karma. and sometimes they talk about karmic conditions, and the word they use for conditions there means a story. This Chinese character doesn't just mean thinking, it also means intention. But usually when they translate the Sanskrit, it means thinking. But we have this text, you know, Fukan Zazengi, where we say, what kind of thinking is going on? Thinking of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking, non-thinking? So they're talking about the same thing, I think. And they use this character along with another character, which means to measure. This character is she, and the other character they use is ryo, which means to measure. So to think and measure. What kind of thinking and measuring are you doing in your sitting?

[92:50]

And so he's actually, Dogen's suggesting we study our thinking to realize non-thinking, which is non-thinking. But otherwise we're involved in our thinking and our thinking is, generally speaking, for most people, I think most people's thinking is degenerating. There's some ups and downs on the process, particularly like sometimes their thinking does seem to in some ways get better during their first ten years of their living. But then as people get older sometimes, because of inattention to their thinking and not being in school anymore, you know, getting outside the education system, their thinking often degenerates so that when they're older they're really unskillful thinking. So I think thinking is really good for a good word to add to the list of words we use to locate chaitanya, to locate chaitanya.

[93:55]

karma to locate our moral activity of our consciousness. And is there something in thinking that is not creating karma? The Buddha says that, first of all he says that this thinking of this has consequence. Even the thinking of a Buddha, like the Buddha thinking and wanting or thinking the desire that all beings will hear the true Dharma and enter Buddha's wisdom. That's Buddha's thinking and that has consequence. And the consequence of that kind of thinking is the appearance of a Buddha in the world. So the Lotus Sutra says that the conditions for Buddhas to appear in the world is that kind of intention or the wish to benefit beings has a consequence.

[95:01]

A Buddha is appearing in the world so we can receive this teaching. But even Buddha's karma or Buddha's thinking has consequences. But it's this wonderful consequence rather than the consequence of perpetuating what we might call entrapment, which most people are trapped inside their mind, trapped inside their psychology, stuck in their mind. And therefore it's hard for them to open to hear the two dharma and drop body and mind. It's hard for them to allow the dropping of their body in their karmic entrapment, their cognitive entrapment. So by studying, basically by studying the entrapment, the entrapment drops away. And then we experience freedom. Yes? I find it difficult to get to the real intention.

[96:05]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, right. I often hear that when people look, they have trouble for quite a while getting to the real intention. And I think that's normal. Just get to, first of all, a superficial intention, then somewhat more deep, and somewhat more deep, and somewhat more deep. The more you look, the more you learn. At first it might be rather superficial. Like I think... Someone used an example before of intention, but wouldn't necessarily be intention. Like a feeling of wanting to avoid something isn't necessarily the intention. It might be an element in the intention, but that may be the first aspect of the... It's a whole field of your mind, right? And so you might notice just one part of it at first. And so that's fine. You notice that. You notice that similar thing, but you notice a little bit more. Then you notice something different from that, but also something more.

[97:06]

And you start to see more of the field. And then you start to realize, oh, there's pain and there's an impulse to avoid, but there's also an impulse to stay here and perform some other duty or some other deed which is helpful. Sometimes people might be trying to lift a heavy object off someone, you know, and it might be very painful to lift it, and they feel the pain, but they practice patience with the pain and they don't succumb to the impulse to avoid the pain because they want to help this person. That's quite wholesome. Whereas if we feel pain and then we don't notice that there's an impulse to avoid, we don't wholeheartedly exert ourselves so that we can't lift the thing off the person because we're distracted by our wanting to avoid the pain, which in this case is not necessarily telling us to stop. It's just information. Most of us want to lift this thing off. But the body is saying, this is painful.

[98:09]

It hurts my hands to lift this heavy rock. Yeah, okay, but this is good to keep, you know. And being aware of the pain and being aware of the impulse to avoid would help you maybe. So the more you study, the more you look, not only transforms the patterns that appear, but also transforms your vision. Your vision gets clearer from looking at karma. Your vision will get clearer from looking at body postures. Your vision will get clearer from looking at feelings. Your vision will get clearer from looking at intentions. Intentions are more subtle than feelings or body postures. So some people might not be able to find their intentions, so they might say, well, why don't you start just with your body then? Be aware of your standing, walking. Be aware of your breathing, be aware of your feelings. Now can you see your, now can you see your intentions? Oh yes, now I can see them. And then the more you study intentions, the more your vision gets clearer and you see more and more details and depth.

[99:15]

Could it be that... Could it be what? Could it be that you don't know exactly if it's like a good intention and a bad intention at the same time, you know? You don't know, you don't really know Yeah, sometimes what it seems to be is what we call indeterminate. So there's wholesome, or skillful, unskillful, good, bad, and so on. But it's also quite commonly indeterminate, where it's not that clear which way it goes. That's very common. That's not that clear. Well, just notice. It's not clearly good or bad. You're looking at You're looking at what you should be looking at, you just don't know clearly what it is. But you are looking in the right place. Was there some other question? Yes. I have a question about your use of the word freedom. I've heard it used in a couple of different ways.

[100:18]

One is being free of the mental process, I think you said. But then you also said early on that freedom arises in the field of cause and effect. And I think it was more to the example of Ray's being free to be kind. Yeah. And so I'm just trying to understand the model then, maybe the flossing example. And now you have that karmic activity, the normal pattern of doing it as you always do. But now, because of awareness and mindfulness, you are aware of your intention to be mindful as you floss. So at that point in the awareness, there's a choice. So are you talking about, in that cause and effect now, having freedom of choice to either follow the normal karmic activity or to choose to be mindful in how you floss? Is that what you're describing as freedom in that?

[101:18]

I think that choice-decision-selection is an element. And it's an element where when we're not clear, we feel the issue of freedom comes up. When we're not clear of the decision? When we're not clear of what the field's like, then we feel minimally, we feel like we don't feel clearly that there's freedom around choice or around decision. So no, we don't feel free at decision points. We feel encumbered and we feel pushed around by various patterns. So I guess, in a sense, what I would propose is that the function of choice, as we become more clear, the choice seems to be more free.

[102:34]

And when we're less clear, the choice is more encumbered and obsessional or forced by conditions. And we may feel like the world is forcing us to choose one way and we don't really have the freedom to choose the other. We may feel like, okay, these people are being cruel to that person. I really can't make the, it's hard for me to have, I feel like I have to go along with it or something, or I don't feel clearly like I really can choose wholeheartedly to go along with them being cruel, or I can clearly, wholeheartedly have the freedom to choose to oppose it. you know, in this example, I feel kind of, I don't feel a lot of freedom. I feel, either way I go, I feel kind of like stickiness and uneasy. It's not like crystal clear, I should go along with them or I shouldn't. So it's a moral clarity.

[103:38]

Yeah. There's this guy, what's his name, uh, There was an article on him in the New Yorker a couple years ago, and he's still sort of well-known. His name is Dr. Farmer, and he works in Haiti. And anyway, he's a very medical person, helping lots of poor people in this extremely poor country. He's very effective at raising funds around in rich countries like the United States to take money back to assist these people in their medical difficulties. And he has this term called AMC. Yeah, AMC, Area of Moral Clarity. And he recommends that you try to find areas of moral clarity. And then try to extend it. Find some place where you're clear.

[104:39]

And then by focusing on that, which is, I think, again, focusing on your karma in some clear area, the more you focus on that, the area of moral clarity may spread. So it isn't, you know, to say that there is free will or isn't, It's difficult in the world of Buddhism where we're avoiding is and isn't. But I think we do want to find freedom. And I think one of the places that I often experience with people when freedom is difficult to find is at decision-making time. And it's partly because people have the idea that they have to make the decision all by themselves. the misunderstanding of their relationship with the world, the lack of clarity of their relationship with the world seems to manifest painfully around decision-making, which makes sense because, you know, you're making a decision in the world, right, about whether to drive a car or ride an airplane or... And again, another...

[105:54]

way to express what intention is, is intention is a cognitive representation of your relationship with the world. It's not your real relationship with the world, it's the way you see yourself in relationship with the world. That's your intention. So if you see yourself as separate from some people, friends with some people, enemies with other people, at that moment, if that's your story or that's the way you think about your relationship with the world, if that's your cognitive relationship with the world, that's your intention, then it's time to make a decision. Decisions will probably be somewhat sticky and not feel real free because you see yourself not in a harmonious, cooperative relationship. So any decision you make in a world like that is It's fettered, you know.

[106:58]

How do you make a decision which is going to please people who don't like you? They're looking to get you. They're waiting for you to make a mistake. They're not really supporting you. And those who do support you, you don't want to let them down, you know. And it's just a big mess. because we don't see clearly our relationship, because we don't clearly see how we represent our relationship, then I think around free will or free intention dash free intention or intention regarding choice, things are murky dash sticky. So I would propose that one of the possibilities, possible benefits of being aware of our intention is that we become clearer about our intention, which means we will become clearer the way we see ourself in relationship with the world, which will eventually free us from our version of our relationship with the world, open us to our actual relationship with the world, and then the choices free

[108:14]

because we're actually in harmony. It's not sticky anymore because we're actually acting in a relationship. So then there would be the realization of free will, but the realization of free will isn't the same as saying there is free will. It's more like realizing. It isn't like we say there is Buddha. It's more like realizing Buddha, free of the category of existence, or realizing the middle way. on the occasion of choice, which is happening in every moment. Every moment our body and mind in the world chooses to pay attention to something and doesn't pay attention to something else. Our body and mind selects this person or that person. Selection is going on. Where's the freedom in the picture? Well, that's what we'd like to see. Not to make the freedom, but discover it. Once again, we have a cognitive representation of our relationship with the world in which we're making decisions.

[109:19]

If we study that, we'll become clearer about that. Becoming clear about that, we will become free of that. Becoming free of that, we will actually realize our actual relationship. And we'll realize there's no self to selection. or choice and then selection and choice will be occasioned for manifesting freedom. Yes. And so I'm trying to, for me, hear the answers or know what to do. I was at Nordstrom's in Corte Madera. I was walking along and a woman was screaming and kind of dragging her children. For details, she appeared, the story I told, upper middle class white woman and her white children. I so much wanted to do to support her in a way that could at least break the tension she was having with her kids.

[110:29]

But the story I told myself was, who would she see me as? And so I couldn't figure out how to think about, you know, so I was trying to find the freedom to make the decision to go back. And I did and she was gone. So I got to avoid the... Yeah, well this is a nice example, excuse me for saying so, of what I said to Ray. You were stuck in your kind of like concern for who or what you are and so on. And that kind of hindered you from being free to act in the compassionate way you wished to. You wanted to help her. Yes. You wanted to help her children. Right. But you were kind of caught up in this other thing. That's why we have to study our stories so that we can help people in situations like that. Oh, okay. That's what you're saying. Yeah. Got it. So you got that story and you studied it.

[111:31]

Okay. and then keep studying those stories, and then the time will come when you will just go up and say, can I help you? She may say, no thanks, or whatever, who knows what she'll say, but you're free. Being free to help doesn't mean that people won't like what you offer. for help when you're sure that they're going to like it, then you're not free. You're free. You're free to say, can I help you? Can I assist you? You're free to do that. That's what you want to say. It's not a big deal. And again, maybe she says, yeah, would you help me? Or maybe she says, no. But you're free. You're not free of what she says. You're free to say, I would like to help you. I think you're having a hard time. But we have to study our stories, otherwise we get caught in them, because usually we're caught in them.

[112:34]

And then when they become conscious, then we're aware we're caught in them. And then if that's the first time we've been looking at this for ten minutes or two weeks, then we feel like, oh God, I've got a story here. So then I'm just basically stuck someplace. And then the opportunity's passed. ...studying all the time, if we want to optimize, and the more we study, the more we optimize the ability to do this, to be free to do what we basically want to do all the time anyway, is to offer ourselves to help people when the occasion is offered. Things are quieted down, are they?

[113:36]

Any questions unresponded to? I don't know if it was versus. Would people also like to have a copy of the reading list? Sort of. Is it okay to ask a question? How do we know? You were talking about the boat and the water. Yeah. No, the boat and the shore. The boat and the shore. Just mentioning a clarifying of our vision once we study our intention. I have a hard time because I'm not perfect, of course, so I make a lot of mistakes. But I find that when I... Set an intention, for example, to be clear with people, to be helpful, and let people around me... Excuse me.

[114:47]

I'm going to respond to this before you talk anymore. Is that all right? And I'm going to start by saying, this is a big topic, which we can bring up again at a later class, but for now I'd like... The difference between setting an intention and what your intention is right now. So you have set intentions, you've made vows, okay? You want to give the example again of the intention you've made? Yeah, so there's a vow and you've set the intention to be kind. And at the time you did that, you might have actually had the intention to do it at that time. Like some people say, I vowed to be kind, but they're actually not feeling that way at the time they say it. Like they say, I vow from this life on throughout countless lives. But actually they're feeling like, why are we doing this chant? That's actually their intention at that moment. They're saying this, but they don't really know. Other people are saying, we vow. Wow, we're doing that?

[115:50]

So some people are right behind it. Some people are not. But let's say at one point in history you said, I vow to be kind. I'm totally there for this. And now that's fine. At that moment, you said that, and that was your intention, was in line with what you said. Then later, you met somebody, and you still had the, there's still consequences from that past intention. But right now, you're kind of like more concerned about the fact that they just insulted you. they just insulted you, they spit in your face, and you're kind of concerned with them apologizing to you or something like that. That's your actual intention. So what I'm saying is that watching, being aware of your past intentions, your past vows, precepts you've committed to, that's important, is what's your intention at this moment. Because that's empirical. And that you can actually...

[116:52]

the memory you have of making vows in the past, it doesn't get that much more subtle in my experience. But the awareness of my current intention gets deeper and deeper the more I study. It gets much more complex. The memory I have of things is a conceptual, it's a poverty-stricken image of what actually happened. The ordination ceremony, is an impoverished version of the ceremony. It's condensed, abbreviated, abstracted. But your current experience is profoundly rich and has tremendous depth. So your current intention is to think. And so if your current intention is not in line with some of your deep, compassionate vows, then that's something to see. But the more you study your current intention, the clearer your vision will be, and the more your current intention will line up with compassionate vows.

[118:03]

But it's not a bad thing to keep remembering all your compassionate vows, but that doesn't necessarily clear your vision very much. It's a nice mindfulness practice. But if you skip over Because you're skipping over this boat, this intention machine here. You're skipping over that. And that needs to be attended to. Otherwise, sometimes people actually forget about the nice things on the ship. But if I'm aware of my pettiness, that doesn't distract me necessarily at all from my intention to be magnanimous. Did I address your question? I didn't get to ask my question. Okay, go ahead. The question, my intention is to express myself. Okay.

[119:04]

How to be with disappointment when other people, when I see myself upset or sad or angry when other people are not upholding the kind of effort that I think or I imagine or a story that I tell myself, putting forward, for example, to be clear. And others around me, I imagine, are not doing that. And I'm asking how to hold on to anger, disappointment, or how to let go of anger, disappointment, when others around me are not maybe doing what I'm doing or trying to do. Yeah, look at the boat. Not only people that I work with and my community, but my city, my state, the nation, the world. That's what I'm asking about. Yeah, look at the boat. And that's... I don't understand that analogy. I just... I'm not understanding that. If you would be aware of your... of what you just expressed, your feeling... That's the problem.

[120:07]

I'm very aware of it and I don't know what to do with it. Just be aware of it. That's the basic thing to do, is be aware that you're upset with what we're doing. And in that upset, there's an intention. And what is the intention in your upset in relationship to other people? Is that too simple for you? It's jargon. It's something that's not... I'm not taking it in. I'm not hearing you. Okay. I see somebody else doing something.

[121:10]

Okay? And then I get upset. Now that I'm upset, the main reason why I'm upset, I would suggest, is because I wasn't looking at what I was up to in the first place. I wasn't doing my work. I'm upset with them, I think, but really I'm upset because I'm not doing my own practice. I, myself, am the one who is the problem, not what I'm seeing. They've got problems. I'm saying they don't, but they're not the problem. They are not the problem. The problem is that I'm not doing my work. Because I'm not doing my work, I'm upset with them. I'm upset with them because I'm not doing my work. If I'm doing my work... I don't buy it. Yeah, I see you don't buy it. That's what I'm saying. You don't buy it. You think that they're the problem. You don't think that you're overlooking your situation is the problem.

[122:11]

I'm saying that karma is the problem, not what other people are doing. And if you don't take care of yourself, then you will not be taking care of your practice. Plus, you will be upset with other people, with what they're doing, rather than be concerned with how you can help them. And you won't be concerned with how you can help them because you're not taking care of yourself. If you want to help other people, you have to take care of yourself first. If you don't take care of yourself first, you think other people are the problem. And most people do not take care of themselves, do not pay attention to their karma, and they think other people are the problem. And they're upset with them. They think the shore is moving. And now they think the shore is moving, but they think there's actually a self to these people, that the people are actually troublemakers.

[123:12]

That actually is the way they are. They are actually not doing good. They are bad practitioners or bad people. I will think that about people if I don't look at myself. If I look at myself, I won't think that about myself or them. And then I will be free to help them rather than be upset with them. We have to pay attention. Otherwise, we will be upset with the other people. So that's what I say. People come to me and tell me about the other people. They're complaining about the other people. They're upset about those solid, substantial troublemakers in the middle of a situation. Heavenly. Heavenly and heavily. Heavily. But I feel, you know, intuitively I feel like, I didn't hear anything about you. You don't look like you're looking at yourself.

[124:15]

And usually they say, oh yeah, right, I'm not. I'm looking at myself. And then they start looking at themselves and then that whole thing just sort of drops away. Then they come back to see these people need help. These people need help. These people you're talking about, we call them objects of compassion. They are objects of compassion. Not being upset with them, but loving them and feeling pain because we love them. But you can't feel pain because you love them if you don't take care of yourself. But if you take care of yourself, then these people will suddenly be objects of compassion. They will suddenly become objects of compassion. And you will be able to be so because you're doing it towards yourself. And you're doing it towards yourself because you're doing the job of keeping track of this very living, vital, active consciousness.

[125:21]

which needs supervision, otherwise it creates this mirror of the lack of attention. So then they look like they're not paying attention, and that's all you see is that, and then you feel upset rather than compassion. Did you buy it yet? Yeah, well, you know, I'm actually totally convinced of this practice. I'm not saying it's easy. because we're oriented towards the shore. We're taught to look at the shore and we're not taught from the boat to look at our own intention. We're not taught that that's necessary. And so I have to really strongly focus on paying attention, being mindful of my body, my feelings, my intentions. Otherwise,

[126:22]

I don't see the world properly. I see it as a result of my inattention. I see the world which appears because I'm not doing my work. It's a very upsetting world. Just a comment? Yes? As she was speaking, who was it? Nini. Nini? I was feeling great pain. Yes. And that I was acknowledging, and also passing it through me in a different situation, that something about acknowledging in the boat that there's pain. Yes. That's great. And the times that I blame others, it can't hold that pain. I can't. It's too much. Then I find something else. Yeah.

[127:28]

Okay. Can't is similar. Another way to say that is we don't have enough patience. With my own pain. Right, right. We have... Really, patience is, I think, mostly practiced with your own pain, not with other people's pain. We're not supposed to be patient with other people's pain. It's okay to be impatient with their pain. It's patient with your own pain. And then, because of being patient with your own, it isn't that you're patient with other people's, it's that you're patient with your own. Then, because you're patient with your own, you can stand to be near the other people whose pain hurts you. Other people's pain hurts us when we are patient with our own. But when we're not patient with our own, we sometimes want to get rid of other people's pain. So yeah, so it's patience. And we have our limits, right? Our patience practice is not fully developed usually. So we have a limit of what we can be patient with, and then we freak out in various ways because we don't have patience for the pain.

[128:36]

So yeah, and that's something to confess. But I wanted to thank you, Mimi, for hanging in there and expressing yourself. And also, I stopped you because I wanted to... Maybe you don't want to hear this right now. Because I wanted to just say that bringing in the issue of vows into meditation on current karma is a little complicated, but I'd like to do that later. So right now I'm emphasizing current karma. Is there anybody that didn't ask a question? I see if somebody wrote a repeat question. Yes. Is your name Marianne? It is. Yes, Marianne and what? Joey. Joey. Joanie. Joanie? Joanie? It's a reflection as much as anything else. I really wanted to thank you for that. It's kind of very helpful. We can also see what she described.

[129:41]

And I just, I really feel this kind of trying to find this place of compassion, you know, and being quiet enough to feel compassion and act from that place. And it's such a slippery place for me because I think I'm quite good at saying I'm acting out of compassion, but actually I'm acting out of compassion. You know, I was very uncompassionate and it was actually, my hand was boring. But it's really... Well, the key thing is that you know it's a story, that you keep remembering. This is a cognitive representation of your relationship with the world. This is not your ... This is a story. I have a story that I'm being compassionate. That's my story. That's my karma. This is karma. This is not reality. This is karma. This is my intention. My intention is not the same as reality. So my intention is to be compassionate. But this is my intention. This is not that I am compassionate.

[130:45]

Bodhisattvas do not walk around saying, I am compassionate. They say, I have the intention to be compassionate. That's my intention. Because they know it's an intention, they don't get caught by their believing that that's really the way they are. They're not caught by believing that's the way they are. They really are that way. They become compassionate by not becoming caught by their story of compassion. But if you have a story that you're compassionate, that you should take care of that. Because if you don't take care of it, then you're going to go around thinking that you're compassionate and believing it. And causing, you know, and probably hating people who don't appear to be compassionate. Rather than loving them. loving the people who don't appear to be that way in your story. The story is not reality. It's karma. It's your intention. Intention is not the same as reality.

[131:48]

The activity of your consciousness is not the same as reality. It is a cognitive enclosure an enclosed cognitive world. If you study that, you can become free of it. If you can become free of it, then these people who you see who are doing all these things, it will be like seeing confused, frightened children, which is what it is. Confused, frightened children from the point of view of Buddha. They don't know what they're doing. And you want to help them. And you will be happy that you want to help them. Because you're free of your own story. But we're not going to become free of our own story unless we remember that it's a story. Usually a story is not a story, but truth. We think, you know, so-and-so really is a lousy bloke, such-and-such. Not that that's our story, but that that's really true.

[132:52]

Not to say that there's no truth contributing to our story. Not to say that the opposite is true. But that we have to remember that we have limits. We live in a limited world. Yes? Oh, excuse me. Well, you... In Buddhism, you go talk to a teacher. Yes. I think that's sort of part of what my question was. Again, gratitude to Mimi, because that was part of my story too, or me too. So when I hear you talk about taking care of yourself, what kind of practices are you needing about that? Mindfulness. Mindfulness here. Yeah, mindfulness, renunciation, confession and repentance.

[133:56]

Practice is the way you take care of yourself. But there's practices of patience and nonviolence and loving kindness towards other people. There's those practices. But generally speaking, those practices are not recommended to people who are not being mindful of their own posture. Have you heard the example of the acrobats? So the male and female acrobat. The female is probably the daughter of the male. Here's his apprentice. So they're about to do it and he says to her, the acrobat says to the apprentice, now you take care of me. And then I'll take care of you. And she says, no, no master. You take care of yourself and in that way you'll take care of me. And I'll take care of myself and that way I'll take care of you. And then the Buddha says afterwards, the apprentice is right. If you take care of yourself, you will be able to take care of others.

[135:03]

Be aware of your own karma and then you'll be able to take care of others. That's how you take care of yourself in a way that helps others. And how do you take care of others in a way that helps you? By being non-violent, patient, and take care of others that way. That will help you. But if you want to take care of others that way, you have to take care of yourself first. Otherwise, you impose your idea of these things on them, which you don't notice because you're not paying attention to where your feet are. So there's many practices, but some practices are directed inward. If you try to direct them outward first, most people stumble. Maybe some people don't, but I think the people who can immediately start taking care of others are people who already have a long history of taking care of themselves, being aware of themselves. Anything left there? No? Yes?

[136:05]

I'm completely with you and then I have a question about, you know, if you think you see harm being done and you're not so sure you're completely calm, what would you recommend? Well, if you're not so sure you're completely calm, that might be because you check to see if you're calm. So you're checking on yourself. Now you're oriented. But what about action at that point? Now we're back to Thala's example. You see the mother who's... You see the children and the mother who might be harming each other. And you check on your story. As you start to check on your story, you find, I feel hindered and blocked because I'm agitated and I feel like if I go over there with my agitation, I might cause more trouble.

[137:08]

But you're starting to check your story. Now, if you've been checking your story before this came up, you might have come to the situation and be more calm. But if you're not, then in fact you find, it's hard for me to make, what I should do seems kind of sticky because I'm not warmed up enough. So I'm not saying you shouldn't try to help, but I think we often find that people, even if they look inside and see they're hindered and then they act, sometimes they're less than completely effective. It doesn't mean you're not somewhat effective. You're not saying, if I'm hearing correctly, you're not saying don't act at all until you're completely calm. I'm saying you will act all the time whether you're calm or not. If you see some harm being done, you will act in response. You will. You'll either go say something, you'll walk away, you'll stand there and cry. You will act. But if you want to be free to act, if you want to act and feel like that you were free, and plus you were free to act in response to what they did when you did what you did, you enter into that freedom in the relationship.

[138:22]

And to be up for it moment after moment after moment, that requires composure and awareness of your actions. And you need to be in that mode in order to have the continuous choice and continuous freedom of compassion. But you will act. I'm not saying not to act, you will. You will notice how effective your action is when you see some violence and you'll notice the relationship between the quality of your response and your state of mind. You will act, though. But if you're looking, you'll see, oh, my state of mind was like this in this time and it worked this way. The next time it was like that and it worked that way. The next time it was like... And you start to see, yeah, there's... But I noticed the main thing is that the main positive evolutionary factor is that I'm watching the relationship of cause and effect between my intention and how things work.

[139:33]

It's not so much just the relationship between my intention and how things work. The main thing is you're watching that. I may be unskillful today, or I may be skillful today, But if I'm watching, the watching of my level of skillfulness is the practice. Some people should be advanced and don't watch. There's no practice. Some people should be advanced and they're not, but they watch and that's the practice. The practice is the awareness of your karma, of giving close attention to your action right now. That's the practice. You are active. I'm not telling you not to be active. I'm telling you, you are active. You are active living creatures. That's the case now. Please take care of that, is what I'm saying.

[140:37]

The instruction to take care of that is perhaps one of the most basic instructions for those who wish to be free, to be compassionate. The Buddha doesn't tell you to be that way. The Buddha says if you want to be compassionate, if you want to help others, if you want to be patient and non-violent, then you have to do this first. So that's what you want. This is the price of admission to that way of being. In the meantime, if you don't do this, you will continue to act in relationship to violence, but you'll just be less free to be compassionate. You may even act violently towards violence if you don't pay attention. And one way to act violently towards the violence is to run away sometimes. Yes? In the sort of orienting to ...into the boat.

[141:42]

I know for myself it can be easy to get into this, you know, it's all me, it's all me. So how to keep this awareness of collective responsibility? What do you mean by it's all me, it's all me? That problems are just located... inside of me that there aren't actually things that are happening? Well, in some sense, you know, that's kind of not so bad, actually. That's how bodhisattvas feel. They feel like the problems in here and everything out there is opportunities, is job security. Everything out there is You know, it's our people to help, our people to love. They've got tremendous problems and they're suffering, but from my perspective, this is my family, this is the people I help, this is the people I love.

[142:53]

That's not really the problem. The problem is only me being hindered to be that way with them. is their feeling the same way as I do. So mostly it's my karmic hindrance that's stopping me from being the person I want to be. So it mostly is inside. It doesn't mean that people aren't suffering. But it isn't like it's bad that they're suffering. It's more like the good thing is that I love them. Their suffering isn't really good or bad. I've heard you speak to this before, but I think it would be helpful for me to hear it again. How does this play out in the realm of social justice? It would make you free to act in situations where injustice is appearing. That's what it would help you do. You'd be more skillful to act in relationship to social injustice. That's what it would lead you to. That was the point. That's what Buddha was trying to do, is...

[143:55]

Social injustice is social non-virtue. And Buddha was trying to help people practice virtue. So how do you get people to be virtuous? How can you be free to work for that? That's what you want. That's what Buddha wanted. That's what Buddha wants for us. Precepts. Social ethical action. Social moral conduct. So in that there's still a way to express, I think this is a problem, I want this to change? Definitely. We can say, I want this to change, or please do this, or I want this from you. Definitely. And we would like to be able to do that freely, without, you know, worry for self-concern, without worrying what's going to happen to me if I ask for somebody to help me. Or I, you know, will you please help me and tell me if you'd like me to help you?

[145:05]

You know? I'm feeling I'd like to offer you something here in Nordstrom's, you know, may I? The freedom to do that. Now, you might actually, you know, you want to ask somebody to stop doing something in Nordstrom's. That's the way you might want to help them. Feel free to go up and say, would you please stop hitting that child? I would like you to stop hitting the child. May I help you hit the child? May I take the child for a walk for a little while? You'd be free to do that. That would be the point. That's the point of this practice, is to be free to be kind. And so the freedom wouldn't be there if internally I was thinking, you know, if I was caught in your story, then when I went to approach to... Correct.

[146:06]

If you're caught in your story, you're not very free. And that would be noticed, probably. They would notice that you're caught in your story and they would want to get away from you. Because you're dangerous, you know. So that's a real dangerous situation. But if you've got your story and now you're going to try to interact with them, and you know it's a story, you're quite flexible. And they can feel that. Yes and yes? I feel compelled to ask how you would I don't know that I really want to go here, but I feel compelled to say, what is your current operating definition of compassion? Because we have a slippery slope, or at least what I'm dealing with in my life is looking at, you know, sort of a lifetime of compassion at whatever, and just sort of noticing, oh, my.

[147:15]

God, I have no idea anymore what truth is. I really don't. I have seriously no idea. You have no idea? Well, I have an idea that my idea has been so storified. Well, of course. It's a profession of storifying. Story, making a story out of it. Well, I think that one kind of compassion is where you feel compassion towards an object. That's the first kind. But compassion, what does that mean? Compassion. It means suffering with the person. It means that you love the person. And you say, what does love mean? You care for the person, you love the person, and when they're in pain, you don't feel their pain, but you feel pain because you love them.

[148:21]

That's the basic thing. The fact that they're suffering, you feel pain. Now, pure compassion is finally when you don't feel any separation from them, so they're not an object anymore. Originally, they're an object. And then it grows, it can get bigger, you know. Great compassion where you feel it very widely and you also don't just feel pain but you also wish to devote your energy to the person. So that's greater. So there's greatness and purification. So the great, unlimited, and unlimited in terms of that you give everything to each person, that's the great part, and the pure part is they're not an object anymore. That's where it heads. But it starts out by basically, the basic thing is you love beings and because you love them, it hurts you to see them suffering. Compassion is basically happiness.

[149:24]

It's basically that you're happy In fact, the greatest happiness is the bodhisattva's happiness of feeling pain because they love people. So compassion is happiness, but it hurts. It actually hurts. And that's why you're patient with your pain, but you're not patient with their pain. Their pain hurts you. So that's what compassion is, but that's, you know, the idea I have of that is not what it is. But that's the way I talk about it. That's helpful. It's helpful? Because it's not located about the shore. I mean, I think in my youth I thought a lot about those people and what it would look like if I were being compassionate to whoever those people are. Change the focus and your answer is changing the focus. Thank you. Okay.

[150:27]

Well, there's several more questions. How are people doing? You probably had enough, huh? Bob? Mine isn't really a question, but kind of an example I feel like of what you're talking about is I live way up in northern Marin, and on one side of me there's National Forest Park. And then the other side of me, there's all these, it's kind of odd. There are all these fences that say no trespassing with, you know, guns, you know, it's just really, yeah. Oh, so there's a prison near you? It's not a prison, but it's kind of, there's just signs like, if you go over there, they're going to kill you. Oh, I see. A lot of just stay away from here. No trespassing. Okay. And the thing is, it's kind of attractive to me to want to go over there more because... That whole sign, though, is all wilderness. I mean, as far as my eye can see, in front of me, there's the bay, and there's kind of a house, so I can't really walk.

[151:30]

So, of course, I wanted to go over this fence. And I've been there for about three years now, and so I will kind of walk, make sure nobody's looking, and I'll follow the fence. And I found a great little pond that I could go swimming in. But I've always felt really guilty about doing it. For a while. But as time has gone on, you know, up to three years now, I've been... I've been to anybody back there but cows. And mountain lion once, and lots of wildlife. And so Bishan is a very sort of sacred place for me. And I've always, and as time has gone on, I've still always felt kind of guilty crawling over the fence and looking to see if anybody's there. But I've prayed too and meditated. And in the last year and a half, I've actually really wanted to run into somebody. I felt like I'll take total responsibility if I run into the owners, you know, and if they have guns, I'll just have to deal with it because I knew I was trusted.

[152:40]

And also, I knew of my love for being able to walk there and the gratitude and appreciation. So I've kind of been carrying that thought around, but at the same time sort of forgetting it. I just felt pretty safe on that property there. But on New Year's Eve, I went walking back there with a friend. sure enough somebody was up on top of the hill and they had a gun and they you know i don't know what they were doing with the gun but they started yelling at me and my friend in cursing and they started running towards us and it was kind of interesting because i really didn't feel There was an initial sort of fear, you know, maybe I should run or get out of here, but I felt quite calm. I visited a pond where I'd like to sit and pray or meditate or whatever. And it was interesting because they started running, and I just, my friend, I just said, if you can, be calm, because he hadn't been there before, so he wasn't really familiar. They started running, and then they started slowing down.

[153:43]

And then as they got closer to me, after they had been yelling and cursing, we finally just met each other, and we just looked at each other. And then they got a little aggressive, but it only lasted for about a minute. They hardly even talked, and I said I was glad to meet them. I don't think they were so glad to meet me, but it was interesting because after five minutes they were glad to meet me. We actually were able to have a really good meeting and they asked if I could even And so it was... Help them how? If they saw people with guns or if they saw people... You know what, it ended up... Anyway, but it was really interesting because we both were really able to just meet each other pretty totally where we were. We had a nice conversation for about 10 minutes, and they said, you know, just make yourself at home, and there was a park bench that somehow got put back there next to this pond that this person had put back there.

[154:52]

So I was able just to enjoy myself there, and they continued doing whatever they were doing on their land. And I received an email from them the next day because somehow they went through the neighborhood to find out. I didn't really have any paper or anything. But they sent me an email telling me that they needed official permission and told me of the eight other people that they did. But I'm just saying that it's an example. Even though I crossed that fence, felt bad, feel like I shouldn't be doing it, but there was an intention that I knew I wasn't supposed to be doing, but there was an intention that I somehow felt like it was okay. And that I would take responsibility and it felt okay with my story around it and that I'd have to be responsible for when I did finally meet people. And it ended up being okay in the long run with them.

[155:54]

Good. Congratulations. Yes. I feel inspired to make a confession. Some grace is compassion. May I express that? Is that right with people? And that is, on the bus, you know, in San Francisco, I feel love for all people. In fact, I feel repelled by some, and I would like not to feel that way. So you're confessing that sometimes you don't feel compassion for some of the people you see? Yes. And you feel painful that you don't feel that compassion? Thank you. Are you using Lisa now? Yes, Lisa? Would you stand up please?

[156:58]

I'm in an interesting place where I'm wanting to ask a question about being in touch with, being able to identify and recognize my own intention. And one of the intentions is just to relax. And as I raise my hand, even before I'm set, I notice tension in my chest. And I notice the tension often. And in particular, in this situation, I raise my hand and I speak and I feel very, I know that I'm safe here. But I get so I guess My question is, wanting some help in deciphering, so there's an intention to read that.

[158:18]

There's an intention to what? Yes. There's an intention to ask for help. Yes. There's an intention in noticing the sensations and the thoughts that go along with it. there's an intention to notice these sensations? In noticing. Mm-hmm. And in noticing. Mm-hmm, yeah. Right? That's right? That's correct? And so just to be present with... Because I'm really wanting to... be able to identify and right here, I'm very interested in a larger bit, just to be able to recognize it and to say, if anyone would say, what is your intention, to be able to answer. Yeah, that's nice to be able to answer. This is how you're working with it, and this is on the right track.

[159:23]

You're welcome. Now that maybe is enough since it's just about time for noon service, right? Is noon service at 12? There's time for a little transition to noon service. to every being and place.

[160:04]

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