Now, you are, you are, you are. Can you hear me in the back? Nope. You are, you are, you are. You are, how's that in the back? Nope. You are, how's that? You are, you are welcome. To settle down and get ready for a a potentially nauseating ride this morning.

[01:09]

You're welcome. I don't exactly welcome you to be nauseated, but I welcome you to get ready for what might be kind of a nauseating trip. I offer you a story, a bunch of stories. Stories about how stories are not really what they're about. like I tell a story about you or a story about me. I'm going to tell you a story about you and me. But this story is to help you become free of the stories of ourself and our relationship with the world.

[02:24]

So I'm telling you this story, but this is a story, a story about our life cycle, a story about what we call samsara. Samsara means going round and round, birth and death, birth and death. and a kind of a locked in way of going around. So I like telling the story. I like very much. It goes like something like originally. In the Buddha Dharma, we don't say in the beginning because this process, this light process is beginningless and endless. It doesn't have beginnings and ends, actually.

[03:38]

So it may be better to say originally or at the source. at the source there is the unborn. And it's like a river. The river became a road, and the road branched out and covered the whole world. But because the road was originally or is originally a river, the road is always hungry.

[04:54]

more in terms of consciousness. Last night I was reading, actually I was listening to a story being read to a young man, male, he's just turned seven, and we're reading him the story of It's called Briar Rose or Thorn Rose. It's sometimes called Sleeping Beauty. It's a story about consciousness also. Do you know the story of Sleeping Beauty? It's a story about, you know, something very precious, something wonderful. River. And we celebrate that river, but if we don't invite all the fairies to the birthday party, one of them will put us to sleep for a hundred years, will actually try to kill us.

[06:32]

But anyway, after a hundred years, and live happily ever after. So that's the story we told the little boy last night. Now this morning I'll tell you this similar story about going to sleep in the river, but we can wake up. Beginninglessly, at the origin, there is unconstructedness in stillness. there is immediate realization. But then the unconstructedness is covered by mental constructions. Originally, there is an unconstructed and it's like a river.

[07:46]

But then this unconstructed river gets covered by mental constructions, which we can grasp onto. The constructions are originally a river. They're always hungry. They're always desiring. at the source of our life, which is always here, right now, it's like a river. And there's actually no way to get a hold of the river, even though we're completely supported by it and support it. We support it, it supports us, this is our life. But we're afraid

[08:54]

of this world of change. Fear and anxiety being in a place that's flowing and changing. But we know what to do about that. Build a road. Cover it with thought constructions and then we can get a river. We've assuaged our fears because now we can hold on and maybe we'll survive. But because what we're holding on to is a river, we want to go back to the river, we want to go back to the actual world of living, pulsing change. So we've assuaged our fears but now we desire. Living in the river, we want to maintain ourselves.

[10:11]

We want permanence. We want to stop the flow and change. So we project with our mind. And you can see children do that. When they're scared, you can see them project, I'm okay, it's all right. And we even say, yes, you're okay, it's all right. Nothing's going to change. I'll always be here for you. Daddy will never die. I'll always be here. But we give the child something to hold on to in the flow. But then we want to change. We want to be some other way. We desire transformation. We desire to be other than we are. We desire to be other than we are because we are other than we are. We're not really a road. We're not really our thought constructions. We're not really our stories we use to cope with change.

[11:14]

So of course we desire to be otherwise. And then we desire, we get scared, and try to then project upon it to get a hold of it again. Because what we are is actually ungraspable, un-graspable. Nobody can get a hold of us. We can't get a hold of anybody else. And we love that, but we're afraid of it. So, forget this wonderful thing, put it in a box, and now we're not so afraid. But then we want what's in the box, that changing, pulsing life. So round and round we go between these. Keep things from changing and being somewhat successful at dreaming that we've stopped the change and got a hold of something for a little while and then yearning for life. Desiring to go back to the river.

[12:17]

Always hungry when we are living in the world of thought constructions. I should say we're always hungry when we live in the world of thought constructions and hold on to them as being what they're covering. If we just see them as thought constructions and don't forget that that's what they are, then we don't have so much desire But we tend to forget and think that the way we imagine, the stories we have about ourselves and others are actually what's going on. Not just a story. You really are a nice person. You really are not a nice person.

[13:21]

You're not a nice person. That's not just a story. It is a story, but it's actually a true story. But then I desire something different. I desire you to be different or have a different story of you. Or we live together in radical flow. Fundamental and incessant change. We deeply conscious of it or not and even if we're somewhat conscious there's a much deeper unconscious desire to experience to return to experience which is this flow which is flow the source

[14:24]

cannot be grasped, and we want to go and be with what can't be grasped. The poet Conrad Aiken wrote a poem to a Chinese poet, and the end of the poem goes, Each morning we devour the unknown. Each day we find and take and spill and spend or lose the sunflower splendor. of which none knows." Reading that poem, I think, oh, yeah, we have a practice of getting up early in the morning here, real early, in the dark, and somehow flowing out of bed and then sitting in meditation

[15:28]

in hopes of meeting the sunflower before we devour it, before we eat the unknown and lose it. There's a little while there in the morning when you can maybe catch the river before the road gets replaced. We are, in our unenlightened state, we are sometimes called sentient beings. And sentient beings means we are sensing sensuous beings. We are sensuous bodies. And we live in a world that that touches us. We live in a world that wants to touch us and wants us to touch it.

[16:37]

And it does touch us, and we do sense it. And when we sense it, the world and us live together. the interplay between our sensual bodies and that interplay is our experience. Sometimes we say our experience is born of the interplay between our sensuous body and the sensible world. Sometimes I say our experience is born of that interplay, of that dance. Which I think is true, but another way to say it is Our experience is the interplay. To not get into that the experience is something separate from the interplay. We are born of the interplay.

[17:49]

We are the interplay. We are not just our sense organs. I am not just my sense organs. which include, you know, body and mind sense organs. I'm not just my sense organs. My sense organs do not exist. They do not exist unless they're functioning. And they don't function unless they're touched. So what I am is actually not my mind, but I am the dance between my body and the world. And so are you. That's a story about you. And a story about me. It's just a story. And because, and according to this story, because this experience that you are right now

[18:52]

is born of the interplay between you and the world, you're always changing. Just you change. When you're born, the world is born. When you die, the world dies. Our experience is the same as our knowing. Our knowing Our knowing, our cognizing, our perceiving is the interplay between our bodies and the world. Our knowing, our perceiving, our life, our synonyms. Our life and our knowing are synonymous. Life and our knowing are constantly changing. But again, once we have an experience, we have abilities to misinterpret and misconceive and to project upon this process of interplay a grasper and a grasped, something that can grasp and something that is grasped.

[20:16]

And we can imagine that this grasper Constant. That in this flowing relationship, there is a constant grasper. And then that spreads to what's grasped. So we start to set up, again, belief that this construction is essential. So now we got the road. But again, because now that we have this, a grasper and a grasped, the knower and the known, the subject and the object, because we interpret this as having two parts. But actually our life doesn't have two parts, really. It is the two parts, it is the dance of the two parts. It's not the two parts, it's the dance of the two parts. The dance is not either of the parts. The life, the knowing,

[21:19]

the body, and it's not the world. It's not one or the other. It's the interplay. The extremely dynamic dance is the life, is the knowing. Like dancing. Two people dancing. There is the dance, but the dance isn't the two people. And the two people aren't separate from the dance. But you can't get a hold of the dance. If you get a hold of the dance, the dance is dead. The dance is a road. The dance. But when we're in the dance, we want to get a hold of the dance maybe. But actually, when we're actually dancing, sometimes we say, hey, I can actually tolerate a few seconds of not getting a hold of the dance and just enjoy the dance. So that's why we like to dance. It's possible. It is possible to wake up and enjoy the river fearlessly

[22:32]

peacefully. I tell this story in hopes that by telling there will be the promotion of freedom from believing this story and all other stories. Tell the story of samsara in hopes of realizing what we call freedom. and peace, and the ability to act from the river. So again, there's the river, then there's fear, then there's road building, then there's desire to go back to the river, then there's fear, then there's road building, then there's desire.

[23:38]

So this is the cycle of suffering. Studying this cycle leads to understanding of it, and understanding of it leads to freedom from it, even while going through it. Realizing the dance even includes the road building. Because of conscious fear of change, we grasp.

[25:02]

Feeling successful at grasping, we desire change. getting what we desire, we become afraid and try to grasp. This is again going round and round. Grasping is birth, seeking change is death. Grasping, seeking. Birth and death, samsara. So we need to train ourselves, we need to train ourselves to realize and accept this radical change.

[26:05]

In the last few days I was talking four male homo sapiens. One of them was me. I talked to myself quite a bit. And one of them was close to 80. Another one, the person who's kind of between zero and 80. kind of in the middle. And one of them is the early age. Just about when I was talking to him, it was the last day in his life of being six years old. We were walking in the dark evening of his last evening as a six-year-old. And I said to him, this is your last night of being six.

[27:15]

How do you feel? And he said, I feel sad I like being six, and now I'm going to lose it. He could sense the river a little bit. and he felt sad. And then I heard from a man who was very sad also. He was crying and he was talking about how he misses the place where he was born. He misses being in the place where he was born. He was recently in the place where he was born, but he's not there anymore. Now he's here.

[28:17]

He was not born here. And they have very nice things, like they have very nice croissant shops. And he was just having some delicious pastries there a few days ago. And he was missing that. He was crying. And then I talked to another person who was like I said, getting close to 80 years old, and he was sad about losing just about everything. But in all these cases, and also with me, I'm losing quite a bit too. I'm losing my ability to speak You may not notice it, but you may notice it.

[29:23]

My mouth doesn't work like it used to. My speech is becoming slurred. The tongue doesn't quite come up to the task anymore. The lips are unresponsive. Change. Loss of... We're going to lose it pretty soon. Loss of each moment. Loss of our whole life up till now. Sadness is an offering of our wisdom body to help us go back. It's a lubricant to help us go back and dive into the river of the present moment of change.

[30:32]

At the fullness of opening to our sadness, we can open to change as it manifests as a moment of freshness where we're not trying to seek change and we're not trying to hold on. so fresh we have not yet tried to get a hold of this ungraspable, extremely dynamic interplay between our body and the world, which is our knowing, which is our experience. So sadness is a help.

[31:47]

It comes when we're really, well, I shouldn't say really, but pretty much holding on to what is no longer around. This is coming along and saying, would you please come and live now? Feel this, take this, take this, feel this, and come back to the present of the river. And if we'd open to it, then we get to deal with the present. And that's where we That's where we train to realize our life and understand and become free of our stories. It's where we find the current story and be dealing with it, not distracted by holding on to old stories which we don't have anymore, but deal with the present one

[32:51]

present story. The present story, the present mental activity. The present mental activity. Right now, each of us has an active mind. We are knowing, we are experiencing. We are knowing, we are experiencing, we are living. And we're not just knowing, But we're imagining, we're constructing along with this knowing. We know, we sense the presence of each other right now. We do. And that's our life. We don't have a life in addition to being aware of living together. And we have the ability to imagine a story about this, about our relationship.

[34:07]

Like, you know, I can imagine that Maya is not my grandson. And she's not going to probably. I can imagine that somebody's being unreasonable, or that they're being quite reasonable. And I will imagine, I will, I have a mind, everybody's got to have a mind. And the mind imagines a story about everybody it knows. It has this amazing function. It can make a story very quickly upon every moment of experience.

[35:10]

So you can get a hold of. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time. Like, is this a friend or enemy? Let me check a little bit more data before I I'm not sure, he's not, he's, [...] I can't tell. That's a story too. He's not smiling, he's not frowning, he's not winking. I'm not sure if he likes what I'm saying. But that's my story. So this is what I watch out for because I don't know if he's a friend or not. That's my story. That's my story. And I make up these stories about everybody and everything I meet. And I just get back to the river rather than dealing with my stories about everybody. And then I get back to the river and I say, no, thank you. Go back, let's do stories again.

[36:13]

And so right again, I've got a story. Story is our basic essence. life activity. It's our basic action of life. It's the basic form of what we call karma. Karma is basically mental, it's cognitive action. Karma is basically a cognitive representation of your relationship with the world. I have a story right now that you do have a relationship with the world. I told you before. You have a body. Your body interacts with the world. You become a knowing being. That's a story about your relationship. Okay? And then now I say that once you have this experience, then you have the ability to make a story about that relationship. And that story is a cognitive experience.

[37:16]

representation of the relationship, which you actually see in the real world. But the actual relationship, you can't grasp. And it's quite frightening to not be able to grasp it. So you make a cognitive version of it, which encloses the relationship in a nice little cognitive package, which is more or less a skill. But it's not the actual relationship. It's a story about it. It's a cognitive construction of your relationship with the world, which is the same as a cognitive representation of your life, because your life is your relationship with the world. We do not have a life separate from the world. Our life is our relationship. constantly changing relationship, that's our life.

[38:18]

We then, we construct upon this relationship, this unconstructed relationship, we impose, we project, we overlay with the activity, the basic karma. And this activity has consequence, of course. And believing it heavily reinforces and weights the consequence. So the part of the training, big part of the training in becoming free of What? Of fear and desire. Fear and desire. Fear and desire. Fear and desire. Plus all the behaviors that arise in the cycle of fear and desire.

[39:23]

The freedom from this entrapment in this coping with fear and desire is to study the process. To notice what is the current story you have. And again, what is the story? What is the story? What is the story? Every moment is a story. You never don't have a story. You never don't have a story. You never don't have a picture, a history, a herstory of what your relationship with the world is. You're never without it. And every one of those has consequence. Every story has a consequence. Your mind does this thing called a relationship with each person and everybody and all subgroups and all whatever.

[40:25]

You do this with incredible, wondrous creativity. We all do it. And all of those things have consequence. And if we're not studying this process, if we're not studying the process, if we're not noticing these things, here's the fire and brimstone part of the talk. Brimstone. If you don't notice what you're doing, then one of the things that happens, one of the consequences is what's called... hindrance, karmic hindrance, or hindrance and obstruction from your actions, from your imagination of your relationship, which you don't intend to, but believe.

[41:29]

You don't look at it, you just believe it. Okay, this is the kind of relationship I have with you. I don't look at it and say, oh, that's my imagination, this is my story. Based on something, I have a relationship with you, yes, and that is my story of it, and this is my story, and I'm responsible. I accept responsibility for the story I'm telling. This is my karma. Watching it has the capacity of illuminating it. Not watching it has the consequence of darkening it and creating obstructions to becoming free, obstructions to understanding, obstructions to directly our life. And when we experience directly with understanding, we are not afraid of the river.

[42:34]

We can still imagine that the rivers are... But we don't do it out of fear. We do it out of going to talk to the other people who are on roads and telling them how to study their road building so they can have access to the river with fearlessness and how they can build roads and work with roads without desiring to go back to the river... left the river. if we study our karma, if we study our mental activity, which infuses our verbal and physical postures, we're free of the fear of the river and free of attaching to the road building, which we still have to do in order to talk to people. And we do want to talk to people who are afraid of the river. Once you're not afraid of the river, you very much want to talk to people

[43:39]

Once you're even starting to get a little bit free of the fear of the river, you want to talk to people who are really afraid of the river. You want to talk about fearlessness and invite them to come home to the waters of change. and show them that you can be there with them and we do not have to be afraid. We actually do live there all the time, quite nicely. We live there, experience there. But we exile ourself from it because we're afraid of it. Because we think we must be able to hold on to something or we must be able to hold on to ourself. which is not true. I mean, it's not true that we can or can't. It's just our habit. And there's reasons for having the habit, but anyway, there's a possibility to become free of it.

[44:49]

That's a claim. I propose that there's three ways to devalidate that claim. One is by scripture, either oral scripture, oral transmission, or reading the scriptures of the tradition, not just the Buddhist tradition. You can also read it in the neurophysiology, neuropsychology, evolutionary psychology. You can read it a lot of places. You can read research documentation of various scientific treatises. Those are scriptures. By reason. And the third way is by direct experience. So, how we are today is, you know,

[45:59]

How we are today is important, but what's really important is what we're doing right now. And we are doing something right now. And it's not just that that's important, but what's even more important... What's more important than what we're doing is to be aware of what we're doing. What we're doing right now is the most important thing to be paying attention to. if you pay attention to it, if I pay attention to it, free. Free of what? Free of believing what we're doing is what's happening. Free of believing that our stories are really our relationships. From fear, and craving and that will make us free to help all other people enter the process of freedom and peace.

[47:11]

It's 11.11, that's a nice time to stop. Now this watch, you know, doesn't have accurate time. This is a story about what time it is. But it's a nice story. And it's still 11.11. Now it's 11.12. So, anyway, I think that's enough, don't you? What do you think? Do you think it's enough? You're not obnoxious? Or you're not nauseous? Or you're not nauseated? I'm okay with that. I didn't really want you to be nauseated. I wanted you to be ready to be nauseated. I want you to be calm so that if you do get nauseated, you can stay in the boat. You know? I want you to be able to stay in the boat and be aware of it. If you become aware of the boat that you're sitting in right now and watch the storytelling, you will realize that there's no actual substance to the stories and you will become free to help all beings in the most optimally beneficial way.

[48:41]

That's a claim. Please test it. I'm into proving it. I'd like you to prove it or disprove it. And if you disprove it, please come and tell me that you disproved that claim. Most people who try to prove it actually do succeed. Little by little, they verify that being aware of what they're doing is beneficial in in the intermediate run, and ultimately, it is unavoidable aspect of practice. It's not the whole practice. It's not the whole practice. It's just the way to enter completely into the practice. Once you are doing this, then you can do lots of other things, which are not just watching what you're doing, but giving gifts to people and, you know, that kind of stuff.

[49:49]

There's a lot more to practice than just this. It's just that those practices depend on this one. We hobble ourselves from doing what we really want to do if we don't pay attention to what we're doing. We disable ourselves from the dreams of the kind of life we want if we don't pay attention to the dream we're dreaming right now about our relationship. with these beings now. If we pay attention to this relationship, which is our current action, I should say, if we pay attention to how we see our relationships, how we see our relationships is our current action, then we will be able to have the kind of life we want everybody to have. Does that make sense? It's hard though. And part of it is to calm down so that you don't get nauseated by this kind of study.

[50:54]

Because it's hard to watch these stories and keep up with them and so on. Anyway, all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are here to help us do this practice. Okay? Yes? I have a lecture for reflection today. Where are we in the end of the river road building process? A word new to me this week is a word called Sankalpa from Sanskrit. S-A-N-K-A-L-P-A. I would love to know if anyone knows more about what that means. Sankalpa is a very long period of time. Apparently Sankalpa means to resolve. I suppose we could make resolutions not only for road building but also

[51:59]

Yeah, and you could also make a resolution to study the road building and study the impulse to try to get something to cling to in your experience. I think there's moments when we kind of feel like something's happening but we don't know what it is yet. You know, like I say, when you first wake up, kind of like you tolerate a few moments of... You tolerate and enjoy where you are. It's a wonderful feeling. You know that feeling sometimes? That feeling of like, well, this could be more or less anywhere, I suppose. I mean, it's, you know, Spain, Mexico, San Francisco. It's a nice feeling in ways. You watch yourself zip through the universe to say, you know, to say, where am I? And after a while we say, okay, that's enough of that.

[53:03]

I'm in. Okay, no, that doesn't work. I'm in. Okay, there. Usually we figure it out in less than, usually less than five seconds, I would say. But to go ten seconds would really be wonderful, wouldn't it? Like a minute? Like a minute of not saying where you are, just like, I sense this, but I don't know where it is or what it is. Would that be nice to be that way for a little while and not be afraid? And then you say, you know, experiment. Let's say it's Spain. How does that work? Not bad. And so on. Yes? I'm in the process of moving to Denver. I'm sorry to see you go. To Denver.

[54:03]

Well, it's kind of the last three weeks there have been three major snowstorms there. So I kind of miss the rape county as I'm driving through this big looking for a place to live. So the change is of course difficult at times. And yet I know that if I sit or experience the flow of the river for a minute or so, I see that suffering as just my story that I'm building. And the experience of meditating or sitting or being aware of the flow is really pleasant and relieves the suffering. But I'm not doing it very often. I'm really caught in the story and creating a lot of suffering. Why are not we naturally drawn to the river, why are you afraid of it?

[55:08]

Because of karma. We are drawn to the river. We have a deep, a deep desire to return to the flow. Because that's our actual, you know, inconceivably rich, real, interrelated life. We are drawn to it deeply. That's really our intention, is to go back there. but it's hindered by the consequence of road building, of thought constructions. One of the consequences of thought construction is various kinds of feelings, but also another consequence of it is the habit of continual construction so that we can grasp. So we need training in order to tolerate being in a situation that we want to be in without grasping, like being with people we love.

[56:11]

We want to be with them. We really want to be with them rather than be with them grasping them. But it's hard to be with them without grasping. We feel that we were predisposed to be with those we love in the form of being with a graspable version of those we love. And because we've done this in the past, and like children can barely tolerate it, they're actually more open to it than many adults. And they need a lot, they need actually support to learn how to construct, to deal with their fear. Otherwise they can't go to sleep at night. So that's why we tell them stories, you know, to deal with their fears. We actually tell them stories which are a little bit scary so that we can show them that it's a happy ending and they can go to sleep. Because they're afraid. They've got stories of terrible things that might happen to them every night.

[57:14]

And of course sometimes in the middle of the night perfectly joyful, cheerful children wake up. because they're imagining something really terrible and frightening is happening. So after many years of teaching ourselves and being taught by others how to make up stories that say, you know, there really are lots of inner tubes in the water and you can actually get out of the water and be on land and be in a Hummer. And you'll be safe there, you know. These kinds of heavy constructions, we think, then the kid can go to sleep, and we want the kid to go to sleep. You know, like that story I often tell about the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says, my brother thinks he's a chicken. And the psychiatrist says, well, did you mention to him that he's not? And he said, well, I would, but I need the eggs. So, you know, it's hard to not make up these stories.

[58:19]

They do pacify our ineptitude of dealing directly with the ungraspable flow of our relationship with everybody. We're not trained at the dance. So we're scared to learn a dance. At first you feel maybe people won't like you if you don't know how to do it. or maybe you'll fall down, or whatever. So because of trying to make simpler and simpler stories about what's going on, or anyway, graspable stories, we have the tendency to continue, and that keeps, you know, so we keep, what do you call it, we keep exiling ourselves from where we are, actually. So there's a strong tendency to not be present with the flow and not even feel the fear that we might feel if we overdo it. Just keep it at bay, but then there's a thirst to go back because that's very moist and refreshing.

[59:29]

It's fresh. We want that freshness, and we're afraid of it. Like we say, you know, the ultimate closeness is almost like enmity. Real close to it. It's really difficult. Yeah, but it's pleasant. It's more than pleasant. It's wonderful. Why are you afraid of it? I think we're afraid of it because we misunderstand it. We think that hurt us, we think it's not us. We think it will overwhelm us. We think we're separate from it. We misunderstand it. Because we misunderstand it, we get afraid, and because we're afraid, we then project things upon it, which are also not really what we want, and then perpetuate continual further misunderstanding. So these habit patterns These are our karmas. These are our mental activities.

[60:31]

They have various consequences of fear and various feelings, and they also have the consequence of making us prone to continue that process, to habitually, very strongly, project from our fears and desires onto a situation that's ungraspable by them. But by studying the process is possible to become free of these habits and become fearless and fully alive and have the joy of initiating others into the water, to dive into the water and gradually tip them off to the fact that you're in the water with them and they're in the water with you. And that it's actually, although there's nothing to grasp, you'll still hold their hand. I'll hold your hand through this ungraspable journey.

[61:36]

Their hand, you know, because you can tolerate the possibilities. by training. But we need training because we have the deeply embedded habits, plus we reinforce through our education, and they need it to be. Most of us couldn't grow up without learning even more heavy-duty versions of these projections. But the good news is that by study we can become free. And it's not bad news, it's just a warning that the study is not easy. You have to really be calm and alert because the study is done in each moment. It's not done generally. It isn't like you generally know that you tell stories. It's what the story is now.

[62:41]

So right now my story is you're my friend, but then later I might have a different story of you. I probably will. And again, if I don't look at my stories that I have about our relationship, if I don't look at them, I won't notice that they're changing as much. They're flowing just like everything else. But if you don't study them, you think that they're stable, and that's why you use them to protect yourself from the fear that might come up if you saw how things are flowing. But as you study the stories, you start to initiate yourself or your awareness into the flow. Because the stories are they are also phenomena which are flowing. Even though they were set up to suppress the awareness of the flow, they in fact are part of it. So you can study them. We can face our stories because we're using our stories to protect ourselves from the fear of actual life.

[63:43]

So these are available to you. Your karma is available to you. You can see it. You can see what your picture of your relationship is It's covering other things that are very important, but you can see the covering. You can see the projection. And then it can be studied. And the more you study it, the clearer your vision gets sharper, and you start seeing more deeply into the story. And then as you start seeing deeply, that also affects the story. And then as you see, and then you study that story, so your vision and your story co-evolve. But we have to be looking, otherwise our vision gets even more clouded and our stories get more and more gross and rigid and solid, which means less skillful and less adaptive. Because, you know, stories just adapt to change. change is happening.

[64:46]

We're trying to adapt to it. One way to adapt to it is, okay, make a story about it so you're not so petrified. Now I'm not petrified so I can deal with it, but I've exiled myself from the process. So that's good. But I've distanced myself from the actual, the actual So be patient with yourself as you do this study because it's hard. Another part of the river is the habits that are flowing in the river, the habits to dislodge yourself from the river and make it into a road. That make sense? Back down the components of the study. Back down the components? Of the study.

[65:47]

Well... The study of the study. Yeah. I mean, I can see that you move out of just sitting to the story. You know, that transition is the study. But what else is the study? he said that you can see that when you, did you say break out of the sitting into the story? Well, just, you know, that moment sometimes when you have just awareness, just that second of awareness, and then you notice, and I notice that I'm telling a story. Uh-huh, that's nice. So that telling of the story, then you're noticing that action, that mental action. So you're noticing that karma at that time. And what other components of study are there? Well, before we go on to other components, let's look at that one, because that's the big one, was to notice the story.

[66:53]

Now, you don't always notice the experience and then notice the story you make about it. That's kind of this moment when you actually like have a taste of unstoried experience. Or if not unstoried experience, a taste of where you feel like this is the experience and this is the story of the experience. Or I have an experience and a story of it. This is knowing, this is being, this is life and there's a story of it. So, but if you can't, if you don't have that sense of this is knowing and here's the story, at least here's the story. And again, here's the story. which means, again, I see myself in relationship to you, that we're friends, that you're not trying to attack me right now, that's my story.

[67:55]

You're sincerely asking me about study, so it makes sense to me that I want to, is the same as it makes sense to do so. Since it seems good to do so, and I have no hindrance to doing it, I don't see any problems with it. So that's my relationship I see with you. So therefore, this is my action. That's what I see. And that's going on every moment. And if I feel some hindrance, then what's that about? And that's probably because some sense of what's mine and what's not mine is making it so that I feel like I am such a thing. I'm not in a relationship with you where I can be giving. That's my story. This is a more painful story, but that's my story. And although I'd rather not have stories like that, this is the story I have, and this is the story I have to accept and study.

[68:59]

It's gone, and now another one comes. So I'm usually not dwelling a lot on those stories, unless you have some reason to think it would be good to bring a story in for extensive examination. But mostly it's the current one that's really important. because that's the one that can be punctuated. That's the one that's covering current life. That's the one you can sharpen your vision of. And again, attended, it will be a condition for a positive evolution of further stories. Stories will evolve positively, and vision will evolve with the story studies. So that's basically the practice. Along with that, we need to be calm enough and present enough with what's happening, both in every way of like how you feel. How you feel is part of the story. You can have pain and be present with the pain.

[70:03]

You can have pleasure and be present with the pleasure. You can have a neutral sensation and be present with the neutral sensation. That feeling is part of the current story, whichever one of those it is. But the feeling is a way to tune into and ground the story so it doesn't include your feelings. And also your body. Tune into your body. What's your posture? Your posture is part of your story. So you tune into your posture, your breathing, your physical and emotional pain. You tune into these. All these together are part of the story. You start to see the elements. Then you start to see impulses in relationship to the pleasure or the pain. Those are also part of it. Then the total resolution of all the different impulses that might arise with the feelings and sensory data and consequence of past intentions, all that happens in a moment. Actually, in a moment. When you first start looking, you're not going to see it all probably.

[71:05]

You're just going to see maybe one or two elements. But the more you look, the more you'll see the whole landscape in a flash, because it actually is there in a flash, and it's only there in a flash. So the more you look, the better you're able to see the quality of the consciousness, and then also to study the cause and effect process. So then there's another dimension, the cause and effect, you start to see that. You hear teachings about that, which again affect and come to be present in your mind, so you see how they fit into it. This is part of your ongoing story. So some people have stories about how to study stories in their stories. Some people do not have stories about how to study stories. So that's usually they need some assistance. So actually what you're asking for is stories about how to study your stories. And I'm giving you some. There's many more that can come if you keep asking, right? And the more you look, the more you will see new ways to study what you're up to.

[72:10]

because what you're up to will offer you better and better opportunities to become aware as to study. Again, if you don't study, it tends to hinder you from being able to study. That's the bad thing about not paying attention to what we're doing, is that one of the consequences of not paying attention is it being harder to pay attention. The other thing is that if you do pay attention, it gets easy. You get the habit of, not exactly the habit, but the skill of being able to pay attention. Okay? These two gentlemen, I don't know who was first. By the way, I usually don't say stay in the present. Just be there because you've got to move on. Be in the present.

[73:13]

Meet the present. Meet the present. Meet the present. Okay? Yes? In the course of life, some of the roads that I've built are roads that dynamite doesn't seem to blow up. And you talked about some of those things. I think you said scripture, reason, and experience. You talked about those three things. Three ways to... If you hear a teaching... If you hear something that's being proclaimed as true, there's three ways to verify it. And in science, they use reasoning and direct experience. They usually don't use scripture except in the sense of consulting what they call peer group journals where you accept that their research, you might do that. But strictly speaking, science isn't supposed to do that. It's supposed to just use reason and direct experience.

[74:15]

But the problem is that there's some teachings coming from which you cannot have direct experience of prior to enlightenment. So we do, to some extent, accept some teachings on the basis of scripture, which we trust because of the supposed authority. But that level of proof is not as strong as the other two. The Buddha encourages you to directly experience what he's teaching. But he also tells you that particularly how karma works is the most subtle of all the Buddha's teachings. So you can't understand how karma works direct by direct experience for a long time. However, have great progress in your practice before you attain that level of knowledge. And some things you can verify, but some, the most subtle teachings, we can verify them by checking to see if we understand the scripture correctly.

[75:17]

Just like, again, students of science, they actually oftentimes don't do direct research, but study, you know, documented experimentation with the aid of a teacher to learn how to verify teachings by studying journals. And then, based on that, they do experiments themselves. but I don't know if we skipped over your question. A little bit. So what's the question? The question was more about the past roads that have been built, and if you have any suggestions on how to get past some of the issues, because they seem to be so... Yeah, so I... They crop up along the path. I'm suggesting work on the present ones. I'm not saying the past ones aren't important. I'm just saying the present one is where the, what do you call it, is the life vein. Work on the present one. And working on the present one will transform the past ones.

[76:19]

If the present changes, the past and future change. That's the one that's really available in the most vivid and total way is the present one. But you've got to be there and be right there. The past one you can check into whenever you want to, right? You don't have to be alert to catch the past ones. They're hovering around all the time. They hover with all the Presidents. All the Presidents have those various past ones hovering around them. You can daydream and look at them. The present one, you can't daydream. You've got to be like... Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right. Yes? The rubber meets the road. Yeah, right. I have a question and a concern on the other side, but they're basically about the same thing. The question is, it seems like your understanding of why we conceive of things involves our being motivated by fear.

[77:30]

But it seems to me, and you can see this with kids too, that we sometimes conceive of things out of something like joy. Conception is not just... Because Buddhas conceive not out of fear. Okay, so there's a kind of conceiving that is out of joy. Out of joy and out of compassion. Buddhas conceive out of compassion. Okay. I think you answered my concern. Because my concern is that I can understand how getting up on certain ways we see ourselves or others and not letting experience... create new possibilities for relating to people. I can see how that could be, and not being aware of that could be a hindrance. But it also seems to me like it could be a hindrance of conceptualization once you become aware that, according to what we're saying, that conceptualization blocks out this thing you're calling pure life. So in other words, it seems like my worry is that you could go to the other side where you romanticize

[78:37]

unconceptual experience instead of understanding that there's a great deal of joy in clarity and that there can be joyful conception. Very good. And romanticizing a non-conceptual life is conceptual. That's an example of a type of conceptual activity which would generally speak to this. I think the Buddha actually says some kinds of conceiving is very helpful. So he conceived in order to talk to people. He had this direct non-conceptual understanding of life and realization. but then he brings it up through into conception and initiate people. So Buddhas do enter the realm of conception out of compassion and as a way to draw people into the practice. And there's other reasons to enter into conception too, you know. For medical purposes, in order to do various things.

[79:39]

For house building, and so on. There's lots of good reasons to use concepts, and those... Yeah, but the misconceptions... What is it? To open to helpful conceptions, to open to the possibility of helpful conceptions... you don't just open to the helpful conceptions, you also open to the unhelpful conceptions. If you keep your mind closed and don't try to conceive, you won't do the unhelpful ones, but you can't do the helpful ones. Vice versa, if you open to the helpful ones, you also open to the unhelpful ones. If you open your mind, you can imagine all kinds of things, like exist totally cut off from everything else in the universe. And that particular one, we hold, it's like one of the prime things we use to cope with change is somebody who's cut off from the rest of the universe who happens to be me. Like I say to people, write plus something and people say, yeah.

[80:42]

And they all think it's the same, they all think it's them. There's the universe plus this little thing and it happens to be me. But for you it's not me. For you it's you. We think that. And this is part of... This is the wonderful... We can imagine wonderful things that don't exist. And they can be very powerful. They themselves are wrong, but sometimes something wrong can make you more powerful than somebody who's not wrong. So you can... It's a wise person maybe who will let you dominate them. But then you've got the problem of dominating people, and you're unhappy. But anyway, your concern is a good one. And the Buddha does use conception, and there is valid, there is... The second type of way of validating truth is conceptual cognition.

[81:46]

Reasoning is conceptual cognition. Direct experience is not reasoning. But you can, through valid reasoning, you can verify and validly understand the way things are. A bit of distance from them because of the imagery that you're using. That's still valid. And then, when you have direct experience, you can educate others how to use conception properly. You're welcome. Good question. You're supposed to... Yes? Yes, Yuki, and then... Yes? And then Jerry? Yes, Yuki? No, story is the same as karma. I'm using story as mental activity. Story means a story of a relationship. No, it's not true.

[82:48]

It's just, it's not true or false exactly. It's just like Like if you and I have a conversation now, and then later I tell somebody a story about our conversation, that's just a story I tell someone. And if they come to you and tell you the story that I told, you might say, yes, that's right, that's like the story, that's like our conversation. But the story is not the conversation. It does different things, doesn't it? We're having a conversation now, okay? Later I might tell a story about it. But that story won't be this conversation. Yeah, I'm talking about that conversation as a story, right. Like for example, yesterday was Saturday. Right? Somebody said, that's a true story. Well, okay, I wouldn't say it's true or false.

[83:50]

I would just say, to call yesterday Saturday is not really what yesterday was. You can say part if you want to, but anyway, it's a story about yesterday. You know, if you look up in the sky at night when it's clear, you see those little lights up there? And then people have stories about that some of the stories have the shape of a dipper, you know? And some of the stories have the shape of a virgin. You know, we put a story up on the stars. But if you actually go out in the stars, that story's not out there. And a star is not a story of a star. A star is, you know, I don't know what. It's not my story of a star. But I can have stories of stars, and stories help people. Like you say, see, that's a big dipper. In other words, you have a narrative to keep track of those stars and their relationship.

[84:53]

It's a story. But the story is not the actual stars in your relationship to it. ...the true or false ego. Because the star is not what you said, but still... Some stories you could say are, what do you call it, not valid stories. For example, the story that we live independently of each other. Okay? That's not a true story. That's a false story. It's a misconception that we live independently of each other. So in that sense it's not valid to see our relationship as independent. But if I had a story that we weren't independent, that we were interdependent, All right? Someone would say, well, that's... But the story of our relationship is not our relationship. Hmm? Then what is the story? The story is a cognitive, a mental picture of our relationship.

[85:58]

Our relationship is a picture. But... I have a mental picture that you and I both have mental pictures of our relationship. But that's not our relationship. You could say the fact that we're conceiving, imagining beings is part of our relationship because that's the kind of people we are. But our stories about our relationship are not our relationship. Because you have a different story of our relationship than I do. So our actual relationship includes that we both have stories of our relationship. But our relationship also includes the other people's stories about our relationship. Some other people, they're looking at and they say, well, they have this kind of relationship or that kind of relationship. Attitude and opinion of our relationship is part of our relationship. But none of them, none of them actually embrace the totality of our relationship. And also, our relationship is actually changing all the time. our stories about our relationship, we will see how our relationship is changing more.

[87:05]

If we don't study it, we'll think, oh, I have this relationship with you, and then it just seems to be static and doesn't seem to change. But the reason why it doesn't seem to change is because you don't look at it. So now looking at the stories, they tend to get rigidified. Studying them, they open up and we become free of them. We still may make stories of our relationship, but we do not become fooled by our stories so much. My second question is, only the human beings have stories, or other beings have also stories? Yeah, fish have stories, birds have stories, and this is a big topic which I'm not going to be able to get into today, but I'll just parenthetically mention that when we are with beings who make stories in a similar way to us, we create worlds together. And similar stories means we have similar karma.

[88:08]

So human beings have similar karma to human beings because we speak. We have language. We do this language thing, and because we do this language thing, in which we sort of have agreement about what the world is. Because we do the same kind of things, we make a world which we can agree on. And people who have sub-languages within our basic human speaking thing, have sub-languages, they make sub-worlds where they live in. And fish don't have language, but they have karma that they do. And because they have the same kind of karma, they live in the same world. But we don't live in the fish's world because we don't do their kind of karma. However, we and the fish and the birds all together create a world together which each of us different beings with different kind of karma create sub-worlds that are very similar and where we can communicate. But that needs more discussion, I know.

[89:13]

But anyway. Okay? Yes. I think Jerry was next. I don't know. I noticed in looking at some of my own stories that, first of all, I think as you said, you don't get rid of stories. I mean, you don't... Stories are part of human nature. You don't get rid of... I'm suggesting to you every moment of consciousness has a story-making happening. In other words, every moment of knowing has activity, too. There's not just knowing... I don't just know you. I'm not just aware of your presence. My mind creates a story about you or a picture of our relationship. And that happens in every moment. So every moment has this kind of karma. What do you call it? Intention. That's also called intention or thinking. Every moment there's thinking along with the knowing. Knowing itself is not thinking, but knowing arises with thinking and thinking arises with knowing.

[90:14]

So every moment has, and knowing, we're also calling, I think, storytelling. Okay. I notice, when I notice my stories, I notice that there's feelings connected to them. I also notice that there's muscle stuff attached to them. My jaw is tight. Yeah, right. There's a sensuous body There's a sensuous bond, it's all together. I also noticed that it's connected to the things in the past that happened and how I reacted to it. Yes, yeah, good. It's also connected to everything in the universe. So the purpose isn't to get rid of it. I noticed when I study it... The purpose isn't to get rid of what? The story. But I noticed when I do that, I get more handles into it. I can breathe more deeply. I can change my posture. And it seems that that sort of changes, it makes the story more malleable. Is that the point? That as we study the story, we get access to the handles to that story so we can consciously guide it?

[91:19]

It's kind of a fantasy, but not trying to get rid of it, but simply to make better use of it and to modify it, to subdue it or to replace parts of it with another story. The part that I'd like to point to is you said make better use of it. Make better use of it is another story. That's fine. It's another story which is a story of making better use of it. So as you study the stories and you say, as you say, get handles on it, that may be part of the process by which your stories positively evolve. They become more skillful relationships. That's part of what's good. However, that's not the whole story of the study of stories because as they become more skillful, that sets up the possibility of basically... You said we don't get rid of the stories, but in a sense it sets up the possibility of being completely free of the story.

[92:27]

So even though stories become skillful, they're still cognitive enclosures of our relationship. they're still somewhat hindering our true relationship. More skillful under study. But you can be free of it and still there. You can be free of it and still there, right. But it isn't just that they get better and you get more at ease with them. You become unhindered by them. Because a good story can hold you back from knowing your actual relationship with someone. But as you study the stories, they do get, in some sense, more skillful, and your vision improves. But the ultimate is that you actually, in some sense, not get rid of the story, but you actually see that there really isn't a story. It's not really there. In other words, you realize that story doesn't have a substantial existence.

[93:31]

then you can see the actual relationship you have with the world. Then it's a direct experience of your relationship. And a direct experience of these teachings. Not any longer a story of these teachings, a direct experience of the truth. And once that happens, does that now become a habit that's stronger than the habit of living the stories without examining them? It's not a habit. It's a liberation. It's a release. It's not a habit. It's a new life called nirvana, or peace. It's being unhindered, it's being free. It's not a habit. It's being willing to live in the river because you're not afraid anymore. It's not a habit. However, you can use habits if you want to. If people need habits, hey, we've got habits here. You know? The Buddha can give all kinds of habits.

[94:33]

You know, sets of categories and systems of habits for people if it helps. So he offers various kinds of habits for people to learn. five aggregates of existence, twelve sense bases, eightfold path, all this stuff, twelve chain causation habits, ways of training your thinking which will lead you to become free of it. So we got the thinking going on and the Buddha offers patterns for you to engage in so you can become free of it. Without some assistance, without some offerings, we, generally speaking, cannot become free of our thinking habits. But those who are free can offer ways to engage our thinking in such a way as to liberate our thinking. I think Miriam and then, what's your name again? Yes, yes, Miriam? Is that the lyric, I just can't help being on the road again?

[95:38]

That's his confession. Yes, your question? Or whatever? Okay. When one's starting in practice? Yes? When one is starting to realize that you're getting to be on the other side and you know it, okay? But just starting? Yeah. I mean, really starting? Yeah. Ram Dass says, and I'm just wondering what the difference is with you, okay, that... Like that. Am I loud enough? When you're just starting like that, you shouldn't plant yourself in the path, because you're going to get trampled upon, and you're going to be broken, and you're going to have no legs anyway.

[96:51]

So that's my, put that back. But you should plant yourself in the forest, trees around you that are going to protect you, and put a little fence around you and stuff like that. And what you're saying is, you know, If you're there and you know you're there, you should go to those people who might trample on you. I say you should go to the people who might trample on you? Is that what I'm saying? I guess I would say... You should go to the people who are the worst, you know, so that you could, you know, to me, transmit, right? So, but... That sounds good, to go to the people who are worst. But actually, what I really think to do is not so much go to the people who are worst or go to the people who are best, but rather try to be aware of what you're doing right now.

[97:55]

And if anybody can help you with that, with being aware, those are good people to hang out with. And if there are some people who seem to be making it harder for you to pay attention to what you're doing and be aware of what you're thinking and being aware of how you're seeing yourself in a relationship, if some people are making it harder, they seem to be making it harder, I would say, well, that's hard. but still the same instruction, go back and be aware of what you're up to. Then you're better off to be able to have people who don't seem to be supporting your awareness and who don't seem to be themselves being aware. They seem to be not aware of what they're doing and blaming everybody else for all their problems and blaming you for their problems. Those people make it... Those are sometimes harder people to be with.

[98:59]

and still be aware of yourself, because they're yelling at you and spitting on you and stuff. And so those are harder people. So I do think it would be great to be able to stay on board, aware of myself, even when that's happening. But I don't go look for those people. I just try to see what's happening. If I had trouble, I would go to see someone, maybe search out someone who would help me be aware. And then once I'm being aware, then if I start to meet people who are more challenging, then I would feel like, maybe I'm ready for this challenge and see how it goes, but maybe I feel like, no, this is too advanced. I've got to go back and hang out with people who are supporting me more. Yeah, and then I feel, now I feel stronger, but I'm still not going to go look for the most difficult person. But when the more difficult person comes, I'll try to meet them That's the great challenge.

[100:02]

But it's also important not to take on practices that are too advanced and get some assistance from people who you think have experience in the practice you're doing to see if you're taking on too advanced a practice. They might feel like, I think that person's too hard to be with. Just keep working on what you're already working on before you take that one on. But generally speaking, people that are very calm and present, people tend to want to bring them their problems, including their problems with that person. But people who are barely able to function, bringing them our problems with them. Usually we say, they can barely function. Well, I'm not going to dump my problems on them, too. If they're doing pretty well, now you can say, now I think it's time for me to tell you some problems I have with you. And a person might say, I'm ready. Let's hear it. So I say to you, I'm ready. I welcome your feedback. Come and get me. I have to stop because of lunch.

[101:08]

Right? I'm being forced to stop. Yeah. But I had to let the people who were going to have lunch reorganize his end already. Isn't it? Actually, what we need to do, let's take out all of the chairs, please. And we'll leave these first two rows as Zaba can go back. And we're going to be doing some cleaning later, so we'll just stop with that. Thank you.

[101:45]

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