I forgot to mention this at the beginning of the intensive, but I often mention that I might walk around the zendo and check postures and make suggestions. If you do not want me to check your posture, let me know, or let maybe Grace know, or let the Eno know, and I won't. A couple people told me they did not want that, so I know you too. If anybody else wants that, please let me know. Today I thought... This is the last class in this, this is the last meeting in this format. And then next week there will be the, in the Zendo talks probably.

[01:09]

And so somewhat change and also I might start something a little bit new at that time. or a different approach anyway. So today I thought I might see if you have any feedback for me on this practice period or on these teachings that they're trying to encourage. Yes.

[02:12]

I deeply appreciated what you offered. And at the same time, I found myself quite often to tranquility practice it as a result. And so I find what you've offered quite engaging and at the same time, I'm stapling. And I find that I am very excited by it, but I just want to go back to following my breath. Could you hear what he said? He said something like that he appreciates this teaching about learning about karma, but he finds himself sometimes wanting to go back to practice tranquility, and he finds the study of karma, I don't know what he said, but anyway, he finds it somewhat destabilizing.

[03:27]

And at the same time, really exciting. Exciting? Yeah, exciting can be destabilizing. So that's a good feedback. And I think that that's something I've talked to quite a few of you about, of balancing tranquility practice with this learning practice. I've been emphasizing learning the Buddha way, which is learning about karma. But in the background of learning the Buddha way is being in a state of mind that's conducive to learning. So like if you teach school, little kids come to school without breakfast. you're not in a good state of mind to learn. So a lot of schools like where my daughter teaches, for example, kids come to school sometimes, their parents have not given them breakfast, so the school gives them breakfast.

[04:32]

And then having breakfast, it's a little bit easier for them to, like, sit still and listen for a little bit. But, so, being calm, buoyant, bright, alert, flexible, joyful, even in the context of still basic suffering and fear, which come with lack of, you know, come with obstructions to the mind, still you can be basically in a very good state of mind, even though you're not yet fully understanding the nature of karma. In that state, you're kind of like, want to learn a little bit about karma today? Yep. Want to turn the light around and look inward to see what's going on? Yeah, sounds good. Let's do it. And you look and you say, ooh, wow, that's a nasty situation there.

[05:38]

You know, I can address here. We'll just stay calm here. This is like a mess. Wow! Amazing, you know. Or, this is kind of nice today here. Lots of, you know, mellow intentions towards the world. Cool. You know, so, is that you're interested in both types of study, both types of practice, and I'm emphasizing that this learning process, this insight process, this studying your action in order to see clear that nothing whatever has an abiding independent self, which we need to see as bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas need to see this so that their compassion will be unhindered. Basic principle, Mahayana Buddhism. Bodhisattvas see emptiness.

[06:41]

Seeing emptiness clears the way of compassion. If you don't understand emptiness, your compassion is at least somewhat hindered by substantialistic projections upon the objects of compassion. The objects of compassion, talking to Mimi about that earlier, these suffering people who are afraid, and violent, these are objects of compassion, right? Violent people are objects of compassion. Bodhisattvas feel compassion for frightened, violent people and animals. And because they understand emptiness, they don't get thrown off by substantialistic projections on tigers or It's other kinds of predators. It doesn't mean they don't do a little Tai Chi or a little Aikido with them.

[07:49]

Whoa, there you go, bye-bye. It doesn't mean that they don't practice martial arts with dangerous people. It means they're unhindered in their practice of martial arts in a compassionate way. So we must understand emptiness. Studying your actions is a door to understanding emptiness. Ignoring your actions is the door closed on emptiness. Your wish to be compassionate will be somewhat blocked under some circumstances. Not all circumstances. Sometimes it can come out very nicely even though you don't understand emptiness. But sometimes it really gets blocked because of your projections on beings that really are calling on for your help. And you want to, but you can't do it because you think they're your enemy, your non-supporter.

[08:56]

So studying about karma is learning the Buddha way, but to be successful in this study, it's necessary to be somewhat calm, and being really deeply calm is good. So please do both of these practices, and in one sense one of them is first, although some of you are already studying and learning about your karma even when you're not calm. you're reporting that you're having some... Okay, so then we practice more calm. So is that pattern clear? And that will be, you know, next week. You can work on balancing these two. Maybe you'll mostly spend developing tranquility. Fine.

[09:58]

Tranquil and then study your action at the airport. in the freeway dealing with the roadblocks. Boy, it's taken a long time to get out of here today. I've heard this report that Ron Ryu made from several of you and that's my general repetitive instruction. Yes. By way of feedback, I have a thesis on story, really helpful. And I was reading the Marilynne Robinson article where she says often our interpretations, we ordinarily get things a little wrong, sometimes very wrong, she said. And I've been seeing how I get things wrong with my stories about things. I'm curious, but what is someone else's story about that?

[11:04]

And so I'm finding it really helpful because I remember one time in Doksong with you, I said, I firmly believe, I strongly believe that this caused that. I remember it because you didn't agree with me. And how could I have been so sure? But I was at that time. And I don't think I would be that sure about a belief of mine again. Yeah. So one of the things is that these beliefs should be understood as tentative and provisional, hypothetical beliefs. Like in science, we have a hypothesis about how this causes that. But it's a hypothesis, and it's tentative, and it should be open to... Karl Popper made a great point that it should be expressed in such a way that somebody could falsify it.

[12:07]

So we should welcome feedback on our theories of this causes that. Express them, and then invite feedback. And maybe the theory, you know, confirms the theory. That happens sometimes. But the theory is never the thing. And knowing that it's just a theory is really helpful. Yeah, right. It is really helpful when you're making theories to know the theories. And some scientists actually even forget. Yes? So I thank you for this class. And because of it, I saw somebody, you know, from this class, you know, leaping and bounding. I mean, literally leaping over the buildings and just, you know, this light shining and it made her very hungry. And she didn't quite feel hungry, but I saw her. And, you know, it was just amazing. You know, I wouldn't have seen it. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Yes.

[13:17]

I've been wanting to ask you where love fits in to all this, whether love, just love, I'm not talking about romantic love, but love, what might be some synonyms that sort of relate to Dharma? For me, love is basically... I think at the beginning Ray asked what's compassion, right? Love is, I think, a more general term than compassion. Compassion is included under love. My basic understanding of love is that love is, well, you might say Buddha nature. Love is the light of Viverchana Buddha. Love is the way you help me and I help you.

[14:23]

The way we're helping each other is love. The way we give life to each other, the way mothers make babies and the way fathers make babies and the way babies make mothers and fathers, the way we help each other, you know, underneath our stories, And the way we help each other tell stories. The way we are in our fundamental being, the way we are is that we are created through the interaction in the world. And the world is created through interacting with us. That is what I call love. Or the light of Buddha, or Buddha nature. And that love, that love actually is a light. It gives off light. That activity of... It is brilliant. It shines.

[15:25]

And it illuminates inwardly. It inwardly illuminates itself and it outwardly illuminates others. Your body is love in the way that it's assisting everybody and everybody's assisting it. And then somebody says, well, why don't I see it? And then we say, well, the reason we don't see it is because of... Karmic hindrances. Right. Then the next way we don't see it is because of afflictive hindrances, and the next way we don't see it is because of hindrances to clearly seeing it. Those three levels of hindrance are why we don't see it. It's there, but because of karma and also because of deepening our meditation on karma, we don't see it. That's what love is. And then it has, in some sense, it kind of has sometimes broken up into four parts, this light, this radiance, which you can't see.

[16:38]

You can't really see how you're helping people and how people are helping you because it's like seeing light. But it can illuminate like light can. But you can feel it. And you can see things. Because of it, you can understand things. And still, you know, it's articulated sometimes in four parts. One is loving-kindness. The next is compassion. The next is sympathetic joy. And the next is equanimity. Equanimity is love. Sometimes people think it's indifference. No, it's equanimity in this situation under these four categories, these four divine abodes. Equanimity is love. In this giving and receiving, that's equanimity.

[17:41]

It's equal. And if you give and someone feels pain, there's equanimity. And if you receive and it's pain, there's equanimity. And if you receive and it's pleasure, there's equanimity. Because it's a gift. A gift. And you're giving when you receive it and you're giving when you give it. So, usually people don't think of equanimity as love. Here's some pain. Cool. Here's some pleasure. Cool. Here's a neutral sensation. Cool. Equanimity is thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you very much with no complaint whatsoever. That is equanimity and that is part of love. Not all of love. It's just kind of an unusual part of it. Because people don't usually think of equanimity as love. They think of sometimes the Buddhist monk who is equanimous and cool lover, cool lovey.

[18:44]

Like you love the Buddhist monk and they go, they like tofu. cooking in your love. And also, you can eat it. Good for hormonal balances. Loving-kindness and compassion are translated by two different Chinese characters. Bye-bye, bye-bye, [...]

[19:53]

but it also means, it's a word they use to translate maitri or metta. It means love, but it means loving kindness in the sense of you wish people well. You wish them to be happy and buoyant and you wish them to be in tranquility. You wish them free of fear. You wish that for them, you really wish it for them, and you wish it for yourself. That's a kind of love. Does that make sense, that that's a kind of love? It's a kind of love. It's mostly like just pure positive energy. Okay? That's one kind of love. That's also the same light. Do you see it? The next one, well, let's go to the third one. I did tranquility, I mean equanimity. Now I'm doing the first one, maitri or loving kindness.

[20:58]

Now the third one is, in Sanskrit, equanimity is upeksha. Mudita, it means that when you see someone do something well, something skillful, it makes you happy. You think it's really cool. For them, you're happy it's happening. And even if you don't know how to do it, you're not jealous. You're glad somebody knows how to do it. That's love. Part of love. And then we come to the big one. Second one, compassion. Compassion is a key. It has pain in it. It has pity in it. It has pain, but it is the greatest joy of before. It is the test of love that even when you're with people who are suffering and even though you feel pain because they're suffering, you're so happy.

[22:05]

you're able to know that you can stay with them. And your ability to stay with them is your ability to not be afraid of the pain. So those are ways of talking about love too. But fundamentally love is what we meditate on in the Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi. That situation that's described in the noontime chant. That's the situation of love. The way the grasses and the walls and the tiles and the pebbles and the mountains and the rivers and the animals, all the different beings are interacting and supporting each other and assisting each other and enlightening each other and being enlightened by each other, that's love. And meditating on... So you could say that our basic meditation in Soto Zen is meditation on that love. We're meditating on love. That's what all Buddhas meditate on. But of course they also happen to have wisdom that they can actually see this.

[23:10]

Not through perception, but through understanding, through knowledge. All this does not happen through perception because it is unconstructedness and stillness. So by realizing unconstructedness, you see this, you see this love, you're immersed in it, you're meditating on it, you're absorbed in it. And, in order to see it, constructiveness, we have to study road building. And you study road building, you fall through the road building, you fall through what the road building builds, you plunge into the river with all beings, and then you enjoy this love. That's the central practice of self-receiving and employing samadhi. Does that make sense? Eric?

[24:13]

Yes, when you're studying the karma, is it helpful to look at the afflictions Yes. The afflictions are the field. Karma is the whole field of the moment. And in the field there is often afflictions. So that's part of the field. So in your story of the moment there's some affliction. Some affliction here or over there or over there. There's this kind of affliction, that kind of affliction. That's what you see in a given moment. And then you have this kind of attitude towards affliction. You know, like you're blaming somebody for it or you're taking responsibility too much or too little Anyway, you have a story about the affliction. That's the pattern of relationship that you're imagining the affliction occurring in. You have some story of the cause and effect of the affliction, and you can see that story of cause and effect, or it's blurry. That's also part of the field is relative clarity of the field. But there is often some affliction in the field.

[25:16]

Because when we adhere to our story as being what actually is happening, that's the main condition for the arising of affliction. And there's usually some holding to our story, so there's usually some affliction. And so every intention probably has some affliction in it. When you first see an intention, like, I'm turning the light inwardly and I see that I want to go to the toilet. That's all I see of my intention at the moment. As you look more carefully, you see there's a little bit of affliction there that's actually part of why I want to go. There's a lot of afflictions, why I really want to go, you know, and so on. Or I want to, or I'm afraid. I see that now. That's why I'm going to the toilet. I'm afraid. I didn't notice at first, but I see now there's some affliction and some fear.

[26:19]

And there's even some anger now, I see, actually involved in what I thought was just a simple intention to go to the toilet. The more you look, the more you see, generally. And the more you see contributes to positive evolution of the pattern and better vision. Better vision contributes to Positive evolution contributes to better vision. In this way, the patterns evolve positively and the vision develops until finally you can see. And when you see the obstructions are removed, the compassion is unhindered. Okay? Any other feedback? Yes? In terms of feedback, I would like to say that I would just be very grateful to be able to listen to your teachings. What Toba expressed a few minutes ago resonates.

[27:21]

What I would like to say from what Toba said is that On the one hand, I try to remind myself often that I see things with what is happening in things. At the same time, I have this question, which is within this study, Can we have, let's say, principles about how to tell stories in a way that is conducive for deep interconnectedness? Yes, we can. What would you say about that kind of narration? Well, When you said principles, I thought of the bodhisattva precepts.

[28:29]

So now at the last night of this intensive, we're planning to have a bodhisattva precept initiation. So I'm thinking about the precepts. And when I think about the precepts, the precepts are literally represented on the conscious level in my intention. So they're in there. And then in particular, relating to your question about storytelling, I would suggest that you realize actually that every intention is in a sense a story about what's going on now, and sometimes it includes what's going on, has gone on, and sometimes it includes what might go on. Different stories include different They actually all include past experiences, whether you see it or not. And so you have this story, so I think it's good to try to be mindful to include in every moment, with every story, a sense that this is a provisional truth, or a provisional explanation, a provisional theory, a belief about what's going on now.

[29:42]

So like maybe you have a story that people in this room are, generally speaking right now, pretty peaceful and non-violent with each other. That's a provisional story. And also that should be honored. Provisional stories should be honored and respected as something that arises by causes and conditions and is offering a great opportunity for study. But there should be an openness there that this could be refuted and also that this is not reality but a picture, a sketch of reality. And also remember that we as humans, we have a tendency to be interested in what we can use over and above what is. And so stories we can use. And karma you can use.

[30:48]

You can't really use consciousness in a way. You can't really use the light. You can't really use love, but you can realize it. You can't really use reality. You can't really deal with reality. Not really, but we like to be able to use things, so we make a usable version of reality, or we make reality into something we can deal with. And the way we do that is with, for example, stories. Then you can work on that, and you can play with it, you can exchange it with people, and of course you can rigidly hold on to it and have lots of affliction. So we accept that we We have a tendency to want something we can use rather than... So we can use stories about reality, so we make them, but it's good to remember they're just stories about this person who's being this way or that way, who's me or somebody else.

[31:53]

And also ask other people to help us, give us feedback if we seem to be tensing up around our stories. And then they can kind of remind us of that. Say, oh yeah, thank you for reminding me. I do have a story that I asked you to do that. Thank you. And sometimes we didn't ask someone to do it and they do it and we don't welcome their assistance. So that's a principle that I try to be mindful of concerning my my sense of my relationship with God. That, you know, seeing myself here in relationship to this land and these people, I try to be very tentative about that, try to bring the mindfulness of the tentativeness of this, of my representation of

[33:03]

of my relationship with you. I think I have a non-fictional version of my relationship with you, too. But the non-fictional is just how things are. But I want to realize that. And studying my karma, my story-making about my relationship with you, My theory is that I will come more and more to understand my actual relationship that way. So that's the principle in brief. And like I said, I thought Marilynne Robinson's discussion of storytelling is very compatible with, I think, both science and learning the Buddha way. another perspective, another art, a different art from the art of meditation.

[34:08]

And she also says, which I also mentioned to you, you know, my wife's studying to be a Jungian analyst, and so when she's reading her grandson, she understands she's reading him stories about consciousness. And he's willing to listen to stories which are basically about consciousness, like the story sometimes called Sleeping Beauty, but the original name is Briar Rose. And so fiction is about consciousness. And your stories, which are to some extent fictions, which in some sense are beyond true and untrue, because they're fictions, they're about your mind. So there are ways, every moment your mind has a way of coping, but also it offers you a thing to study.

[35:11]

It's hard to study clear light, but you can study the stories. And learning about them, the realization of it, So those are some principles, OK? Yes, John? I have a question about basic vision, and specifically the other dependent character. I'm trying to have some story in my mind about the role of the central body in any character, but I want to check to see if I got this right. Okay. Is that possible? Sure. So in this river dance with the central body arising with the sensible data, this is the true of the dependent, but it's not pure because my understanding is that the central body has past experiences that are influencing the way it's looking at the sensible data.

[36:14]

There's a karmic overlay of itself. You have it a little different from the way I've been... the way you said it there. You said the body has a different way of looking at the sensible data, okay? The body isn't... This is an ancient teaching in Buddhism. The body or the eye actually doesn't look at the color. Color, of course, it's easy for people to say, color doesn't look at the color. The consciousness doesn't look at the color either. Looking at the color, seeing color, knowing color, is the meeting of sensual body, sensual data, and that meeting of sensual body. And also, it's a meeting of a past cognition, a past consciousness, or it's the, depending on a past consciousness, the interaction of a sensitive body and a sensible data.

[37:15]

That is seeing. And that seeing, you're right, influenced by past seeings. And in some sense the body brings with, the body brings with the effects of past seeings. The past cognitions affect the tissue. So the way the tissue interacts, for example, electromagnetic radiation, carries with it past cognitions, past karma. And that, is that sort of a filter then, in the dance that's going on? When you say... Not really a filter, it makes a dance that's filtered. A filtered dance. Yeah. The dance arises with this body. This body has integrity. And part of this integrity is previous cognitions which have made it. So it has an integrity and it meets with the world which has an integrity and then this consciousness has integrity which is that it carries the past cognitions and past karma.

[38:23]

And this limits... Which has sometimes fogginess or filterness or further interpretations which are more or less adhered to. And then there's that cloudiness and the nature of that cloudiness. You know, on the dance floor, I'm seeing karma off to the side, wanting to cut in. Sort of cue karma to say, you know, this is a cha-cha or this is a tango. And therefore, karma's reaching into the storehouse and grabbing the cha-cha and then trying to cut into the dance. Construction of the cha-cha. It's probably right. I couldn't quite follow it. But that dance, which is basically just knowing itself, body is dancing with the is perception. The perception is just a basic knowing.

[39:26]

It is basically a knowing of the sensible world. And it's limited, yeah, that's right. It's limited because it's limited to the stimulation of this part of the body. So it is limited. it is the manifestation of the whole works too. So although it's limited, it is the universe manifesting at this very limited spot. And now, put that aside and just go back to, it comes with mental activity. It comes with an ability. When consciousness arises it comes with all kinds of other abilities besides just basic awareness of the presence of the object. It comes with all kinds of emotional factors and it comes with the storytelling which is the construction of the whole field or what the whole field constructs.

[40:30]

So it comes with karma. And now I think that we get into whether it's a cha-cha or a tango. A version of basic knowing. So at that point in the other dependent, karma is arising in this, but we're not adhering to it, then we're still in the other dependent. We don't go to the foundational until we adhere to the karma. No, no, no. Every phenomena is an other-dependent character. A sensible material phenomena like electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength But it's not a sensible phenomenon when it's zipping around the cosmos, not affecting a tissue. It's not a sensible phenomenon then.

[41:32]

It's just electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength. It becomes a sensible phenomenon when it gets turned on. And a body that's not getting turned on is not a sensible body. Dead bodies are not sensible bodies. But when they get turned on then that organ is turned on, and what turns it on is sensible. As you know, sometimes living people even turn off, and you can stimulate them, but when they're in shock and so on, they're not. And dying is a process of energy moving away from the sense organs, so that even though there's an interaction between the body and the gross physical world, there's no consciousness arising. So a sensible phenomena means a phenomena that depends on something other than itself to be a sensible phenomena. It doesn't make itself. It depends on being able to, on its ability to turn something on.

[42:34]

And also the, so that's an other, it depends on others for its, on the power. And the organs also depend on the power of others to be an organ. And the consciousness depends on the power of others plus the interaction between others to be consciousness. So each of these are other dependent phenomena. And that whole process is another dependent phenomenon. Well, not the whole process, but because the whole process, all those elements are other dependent phenomena and the basic knowing is another dependent phenomena. Now, the imputational, the story, the karma, the karmic tendency we have to make stories is strong enough for us because when there's a dependent core rising of consciousness, there's a dependent core rising of mental activity. Mental activity comes with basic knowing. Mental activity is karma, is intention, chetana. That then gets projected onto

[43:39]

other-dependent phenomena of knowing. And basically the way we know, in an unenlightened state, the way we know the other-dependent phenomena, all other-dependent phenomena, is through taking it to be the imputational. Taking the way I know my relationship is I know it as my story with you. and strongly adhering, not tentatively, not provisionally using that story to interpret my relationship with you, strongly adhering to it, is the way we usually do it. And that also is the source of affliction. The personal character is the way we... That's one of the astounding things of Chapter 6 of the Samadhi Yama Chana Sutra. It talks about how do you know the other dependent character? You know it, by projecting strongly and holding on to the story as being it. That's how we basically know it. What that means there is that's how you know it in normal parlance of knowing.

[44:47]

So we know it a little bit without the projection. That's the basic other dependent phenomena. But the way we usually know it is by this projection. What's your question? There's a little bit of adjustment there. Did you feel a little adjusted slightly? I felt the adjustment. I feel it now. I heard you talk about cleansing the body. So am I taking it, I mean, the cleansing of the sense organ, in a sense, with that sort of fog that arises with the sensible data? Is that what we're doing? I heard you say through meditation we cleanse the body. And how is that cleansing different from just not adhering to the fog that's arising at the central body? How is it different from just not adhering? Right. Well, it's not that it's different from not adhering, from just not adhering. It's just that not adhering involves lots of other work to be able to put, for the not adhering to occur requires an education process.

[45:58]

a study of the field. So the non-adhering to the field, the non-adhering to the imputational character involves study of the imputational character. So it talks about how do you know the other dependent? You know it through taking it in strong association with the imputational. How do you know the imputational? You know it through words and symbols in association with essences and attributes. So that's how you locate the story. And all these essences and attributes are the same with all the different attributes of the thought construction. So you study the imputational character, and then you know it, and then you come to be able to see the thoroughly established character, which is the emptiness. And the way you know that is by seeing the absence of the impetitional character and the other dependencies.

[47:00]

By seeing, you finally see the absence of your stories about things in the things. You actually see that. You cognize that phenomenon. So loosening up or not adhering strongly comes with something that you usually adhere to strongly as being the other dependent, which is, again, giving close attention to your storytelling, giving close attention to your actions. Which, you know, with these principles of, okay, I'm doing this, it is tentative and provisional and hypothetical as possible. and again, and again, and again. And this opens and deepens and transforms. And then this study then, one of the consequences of this, all these fields, all these stories have consequence.

[48:04]

But studying them has a consequence of contributing to positive evolution and positive evolution means the consequences as they register in the body will make a different body. So the body gets transformed. When the body gets transformed, what the body arises in dependence on gets transformed because, and that's the physical world. So when your body changes, the physical world changes. That's the cleansing of the whole world. Because the world's... The world lets us be deluded. The world loves us enough to give us its only begotten son for us to smash and crush and munch on. That's why the logic of this, it's world transforming, this meditation. not just personal transforming because the person arises through interaction with the physical world and of course also with the physicality of other living beings.

[49:14]

And the physical world is created by conscious beings and it arises with them and from them and they arise with the living beings and from them and also we modify them. Now they modify us too But they modify us as we modify them. It's very mutual. So as the meditation is actually to transform the physical and psychological and spiritual cosmos. And again, people say, well, why didn't we just leave it alone in the first place? Apparently it wanted to know about itself. It wanted to know about itself. It did its best, but it made beings that had problems in performing the service and were trying to recover from it to fulfill our duty to make the universe wake up. Yes? Yes, a story about the Dharma...

[50:17]

The impermanence of the dharma? Yes, the impermanence of this rendition of it. So if it's beginningless and endless, I think what I'd like to hear, I have found that a sadness arose in hearing about the last time. at the time of the collapse of the good doctrine, when the Dharma will not be heard again. I think you said something. Yeah. But then there will be another Buddha that will appear, another world. And as a teaching story, how is that? I'll maybe answer my own question. It's an encouraging teaching story to practice hard during these That's one way that you could see it. But now that when you're bringing it up today, I kind of feel like it isn't that the Dharma is infinite, exactly, but that the stories of how the Buddha teaches and the scriptures and the

[51:35]

and basically the world that's created in which this stuff happens, in which people sometimes come to hear and see the Dharma, that is impermanent. So even the Buddha's words, in some sense, what he was saying to the people was the words, was the Dharma. It's not exactly the Dharma to teach people about impermanence. But when you tell people about impermanence and they really listen to it, they see impermanence. But what the Buddha is saying about impermanence you know, he actually says the word impermanence over and over, you know. He uses that story that, in some sense, magical show to get people's attention who are ready, and by listening to that, they open to actually see the impermanent and see and hear the impermanence.

[52:40]

But it's not actually the words he's saying, because if it was, then he would be able to enlighten everybody, because he would say those words. If they were the Dharma and people heard the words, then everybody in the group would have awoken. But although he said the words to everybody and everybody heard the words, only one... Because the words worked on that person who was in certain conditions, such as that person liked And then I told you that example. It's like walking up to the top of a cliff, I mean, or a mountain, and you see this view and you tell your friends who are down at the bottom, and they say, I don't get it. You're talking to them, you know? So then you talk to them in a different way. You say, come with me. And you walk them up. Now, walking them up isn't exactly the Dharma. But since you've seen it, you sense that if you would walk them up there... See if they could come, if they would be willing.

[53:43]

So then you're saying, we're going to be there soon. Are we there yet? No, we'll be there soon. My knees hurt. Well, we can rest for a while. Okay. Let's rest. Okay, now you're ready to go some more? Yeah, okay. I'm thirsty. And what's the point of this again? This is really... I want to show you that good view. I want you to have this good view. So the Buddha is talking the person up the hill. And then they get there and then they go, oh, wow. It's not the Buddha telling them that, but they need the Buddha to get up there. Otherwise, they have plenty to do down in the valley. So they need the Buddha to take them up there. So the Buddha doesn't exactly say the Dharma. The Buddha, of course, is emanating it. And then the Buddha talks to them. And there's wonderful stories that you've heard over and over about the Buddha talking to somebody who wants to meet Buddha and the person doesn't see Buddha and Buddha's talking to them.

[54:52]

And Buddha's not saying, you're seeing Buddha, but Buddha's just chatting away and the person's listening and the person suddenly sees Buddha the whole time. And he could see that it was Buddha because because the way he was talking to him got him ready to see it. But what he was saying wasn't actually what he saw. Although it was pretty interesting what he saw, what he heard. And we wrote down what he said while this guy was like, Oh! So it's important what he said. In reality, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the manifested, this particular helpful stories and helpful... Yeah, those will go away. And other... Well, maybe that's a story too, but there will be other manifestations, new manifestations and new stories?

[55:54]

Yes, there will be... Then there will be a new Buddha, and the Buddha... love, Maitreya. So Maitreya will come, and it's going to be a while. I mean, it's going to be a long while according to, I don't know how to take these numbers, but it's a while before it's going to disappear. But there was a space before Buddha when it was like people didn't have this material for them, and then they did. And people can realize his teaching, but That's one of the things about this tradition is that we don't get to be the Buddha who made this all up, you know. We stand it and discover it, but somebody already put that out for us. But there will come a time when it will be lost because of changes in geology or whatever, and then Maitreya will come and have a whole new unfoldment which might

[56:59]

basically the same as Shakyamuni's teaching, but it's this way too. It's somewhat different because of you you people I'm talking to are somewhat different, because what takes to massage you into seeing the Dharma is different from what it took to massage people in that time in India when Shakyamuni lived. Just like later in Buddhist history, what massaged people into seeing was different from what... People were more sophisticated in certain ways, so Buddhist teachers who understood what Shakyamuni taught were different ways. But in all those ways are currently impermanent. So the way I'm talking today, I didn't talk about yesterday. And sometimes when you are talking, you sometimes feel embarrassed because you're supposed to be talking about a tradition, right?

[58:04]

But what I'm saying today has never been said before. So how is what I'm saying that's never been said before connected to this ancient teaching? There's a little bit of dynamic there. So even now, while we still remember Shakyamuni Buddha, we're still making new dharma all the time. So the old dharma actually is already gone. His teachings are already gone. But they are part of the conditions for us continually orienting towards hearing the true dharma. We haven't completely lost that basic message of hear the true Dharma. It doesn't mean we don't see. The emphasis is on hearing, first of all. You hear the true Dharma and then you see the true Dharma. You hear the true Dharma and you have the Dharma eye and Dharma ear. And from the origin of the tradition, you need to meet the Buddha to hear. And that's a problem for us since our historical Buddha Shakyamuni went away. But we still have to see the Buddha, and I propose to you the way to see the Buddha is what?

[59:16]

Study karma. Study karma. Pay close attention to your karma, and you'll see the Buddha right in front of you. And in that meeting, you'll be very happy to listen to the Dharma, of course. You've always wanted to. But you can't do it by yourself because that's part of the Dharma. What you're going to hear is that you're not doing this by yourself. Doing it by yourself is a story. Doing it with others is just a story. Studying the story of doing it by yourself and doing it with others, you'll realize you're doing it with others. In particular, you're doing it with the Buddhas. But we already know a little bit we're hanging with other sentient beings. And we kind of got that we're working together within limits. But actually we're working in a limited way with an unlimited working. Or the way we're working is the manifestation in a limited form of an unlimited life.

[60:23]

And we understand that through studying the limited, our current little limited story about our life and our relationships. And it's all impermanent, of course. These are all compounded things. So the Dharma really isn't impermanent. It is the truth of impermanence and selflessness and the truth of how karma works. But the forms are changing. And in fact, all those Indian forms are wonderful history now. We don't have them anymore. We have a modern India We have a modern America and we have these forms here. And so again, that's part of our struggle, like tradition and not being attached to it. So why have service or whatever, you know? Well, the reason is there's too much work to change it. Yes? In your metaphor with Buddha taking, you know, showing us the way of the path.

[61:27]

Yes. I was thinking, is it possible to find the path on your own? Is it possible to find the path on your own? Hike up to the Vista without someone leading you, showing you, and then seeing the true Vista. It may be possible. I mean, I don't want to say something is not possible. I want to say that Shakyamuni Buddha himself, he said that he studied with Buddhas in past lives and didn't just study with them. He really studied with them thoroughly and studied with a lot of them. And one of them got so worked up about being a Buddha named Shakyamuni, he told us that. Now what did he mean by that? That's a story, right? What do you mean by that?

[62:29]

That's something for us to try to understand. So I don't want to tell you the story that Shakyamuni Buddha said that he studied with Buddhas, Buddhas helped him wake up, and everybody that woke up in India woke up with him. And therefore I tell you this story and then say that story is true. I want to tell you that's a story for you to understand. I'm not saying it's a true story. I'm saying that is a major story I'm telling you. The story I'm telling you is it's only in meeting a Buddha that you hear the Dharma. Or another way to say it is it's only Buddha together with Buddha, only Buddha together with Buddha do we hear the Dharma thoroughly. That's a story I'm telling you. But I tell that story to you telling you that it's provisional.

[63:30]

That's a provisional teaching. That's not an ultimate truth. That's something for you to understand. It's a story. It's a karma to study and learn about. I find it quite helpful. The story of the Dharma is only understood thoroughly in the meeting between two Buddhas. And then if you look at the history, Shakyamuni Buddha basically said that. Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened before he was born in this world. He was enlightened under other Buddhas, but he wasn't a Buddha. And people were enlightened under Shakyamuni Buddha, but they weren't Buddhas. So Shakyamuni Buddha was born enlightened in this world, but he wasn't a Buddha yet. And he wasn't a Buddha before. And the disciples were enlightened in previous lives too. But they weren't the disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha. Those are stories. These stories are stories, real stories.

[64:32]

And they're karma too. This is verbal karma that's going on right here. This is karma. This is, in a sense, fiction. So it doesn't matter how we find our way, the path is on this path. Doesn't matter who leads us up. Getting up there is the point. Getting up there is the point, right. And who leads you up, doesn't matter who they are. Buddha is what leads you. Buddha is who you're talking with when you go and meet the Dharma. And maybe it's, you know, anything that's contributing to it is basically Buddha. Anything that contributes to Dharma understanding is Buddha. That's what Buddha is. It's the educational way of sharing the truth. And then Buddha can explode into three parts. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So any person who is contributing to you is in the Sangha, which is basically Buddha in the form of some person who is not the Buddha.

[65:36]

Anybody who helps you study is part of your Sangha that's helping you. But that's really part of Buddha. And you finally realize that, and you realize that as part of understanding the Dharma. And that's a story which you might want to understand. And I might want to, too. Yes? Before this class, I remember my understanding of karma based on a very short definition and explanation, just volitional, that it is volitional action. I understand this notion of subject, I usually, for you, but I am doing an action, I do whatever, I sit, I am sitting here, I am speaking now. So in this instruction, can you relate that? That's the dogma of deluded karma, what you just said, which is quite common.

[66:46]

Yeah. You said volitional action. Redundant in this situation because the type of action the Buddha is focusing on is moral action, evolutionary action. He's not so much talking about the action of glaciers, right? Intentional action, of course, is cognitive activity. So basically, karma is cognitive activity. And now you want to relate that to pattern of relationship. The intention is a pattern of relationship. The definition of karma is volition or intention. And the explanation of what intention is, is that it's the entire field of relationships of a moment of consciousness.

[67:57]

In consciousness you have feelings, conceptions, And you have desire or fear or hatred or confusion or pride or self-respect or absence of karma and self-respect. You have samadhi. You have adverting decision. You have faith or absence of it. You have prashrabdhi, which means you have tranquility or a lack of prashrabdhi, which means you're not so tranquil. And so on. And then generally different schools have somewhere between 54 and 64 mental factors, some of which may be present at any moment. And then, of course, the way they're present means it changes them. But that pattern of relationship, which also has a picture of how you, the person, is related to the world. These are my friends, these are my enemies.

[69:02]

That pattern of relationship is your volition. And then, that's a moment. The next moment, you have a different pattern of relationship. That pattern of relationship is your intention of that moment. What was that? Yeah, so that's like a big blow-up or elaboration on what intention is. Yes? Do you think that dreams while sleeping or like dreams while on the cushion or studying the symbol race are strictly subliminal? Are they supraliminal and subliminal? I think when you, in dreams, you're seeing supraliminal. However, does Jung say that dreams are the royal road or is it subliminal? Dreams are the royal road to the subliminal.

[70:05]

So symbols in dreams sometimes help you go down into the river. Yeah. No, no. The dreams in symbols and some parts of the dream are particularly potent. entry points. Like in, what is it, the Shobo Genzo, means the treasury of true Dharma eyes. So there's something about those texts. If you look at those texts, parts of the texts, which are particularly like the eyes of the text, like there are certain images in the text that are very powerful, like one bright pearl, or what is it, the cypress in the garden, or, you know, or Baizhang's fox. These images are condensed places to go down into deeper realms.

[71:09]

So in dreams, some of the images are very powerful roads into communion with the subliminal. Because we want to integrate. The subliminals, I think Freud talks about making more of the unconscious conscious. I think Mahayana Buddhism is more about transforming the entire so-called subconscious. It isn't that we go around being able... We don't necessarily want to be thinking about and be aware of consciously all the different calculations of our blood sugar level and our saline solution concentrations and so on and so forth, which are going on What we'd like to do is have our blood sugar level calculations and modulations be coordinated with compassion so that the whole unconscious process is imbued with the consequence of meditation rather than we know about what a mess it is.

[72:19]

We wouldn't be able to be serene if we actually knew what was going on down there. So it's not that we want to get down there. It's that we want to influence it. And by listening to its messages, it feels recognized. And when it feels recognized, it is transformed. Like I did Jungian therapy for a while. I mostly talked about Zen Center people. Because I couldn't talk about Zen Center people at Zen Center. Because then people think, oh, no, no, no. And a lot of what he said was, it's not so important that you remember your dreams, but that you have them and that you enjoy them. And yeah, it's important to have them too, of course, and write them down.

[73:22]

And I did that somewhat, but the important thing is you having them. that you're actually enjoying this superliminal creative processing of, for example, needing to go to the toilet, or the alarm clock going off, like, oh, class, or I'm not going to be at the party, or I'm, oh, it's Zendo time. Yes? Yes. You said when you die, when there is no more burden, there is no more defense. If there is one party, no threat. Actually, not just one party. The other party doesn't exist either. Sensible means it's not sensible until it works. It's potential sensible. The question, when I understand it, is how is karma transmitted?

[74:24]

how karma and how accumulated ones keeps going. And the question of where is there a self that carries something, that carries karma? Yeah, right. There's no more dance. Mm-hm. This is kind of a big and, what do you call it, it's a controversial and upsetting topic for people. They don't want to hear about it, but they can't stop talking about it. So again, in the Buddha Dharma, we don't say there is no self. We have this teaching of no self, but what that means is no independent self. There is a self, you know. Michelle is distinguishable. She has different other dependent character from Linda and Mimi. Your other dependent character, in a sense, is yourself.

[75:30]

all the things that make you, make you unique. And the way you're unique is yourself. So you are, you, you come with the uniqueness. That kind of self we recognize. The kind of self we don't recognize is the independent self. That's, you know, for example, somebody that's in addition to his cognition. Somebody, you know, like somebody, somebody who has knowing or has and somebody who is a person who feels. That self does not, does not exist at all. The independent self. Okay? So at the time of death, if you watch people and also if you watch yourself right now as you get older, organs are withdrawing from their old haunts. For example, as you get older, the muscles in your eye, generally speaking, get a little bit relaxed, and so it's harder for you to focus in the sense of track the lens, right?

[76:43]

So as you have a looser grip on the lens, those muscles, the point of focus becomes, approaches infinity. As you get older, you start looking farther and farther away because you're not squeezing on that lens to look up close. So you're basically, you know, your ears, most people's nose turns off when they get old. Not 80% of humans are blind when they're over 80. 80% of humans have no sense of smell when they're over 80. Because the mucus dries up and then the nerve cells die. Anyway, our ears are turning off. Our ears are turning off.

[77:45]

Our eyes are turning off. Our nose is turning off. Our tongue is turning off. And our skin is turning off. Our skin is the last actually to turn off. It's the most basic, it's the last to turn off. As we approach death more consciously, the consciousness moves away from the sense organs to the center of the body. This is something which people seem to experience. When also young people who are approaching death through shock, same thing happens. You watch, you know, they stop hearing, stop seeing, the temperature starts going towards the core. It's not just old age that causes this, but the dying process is the withdrawal of consciousness arising through the interaction between the sensitive and the sensible. So that's the death process. Then rebirth, I would suggest, is just an extension of rebirth within this body, namely This consciousness I'm experiencing right now, this consciousness you're experiencing right now, depends on having a sensible body that still can be turned on by the world.

[78:54]

So you're conscious. Your consciousness is the way you're interacting with the world, the way your body is interacting with the world. Your knowing is this interaction. You get to be a person who enjoys this interaction. And this depends on a previous cognition. And now this one depends on a previous cognition. And this one depends on a previous cognition. That's why there is a last cognition associated with that body. And that's death, when there's not another cognition. That cognition can be the condition for the arising of another cognition in another body. Same process. in the whole process day by day, in no independent self, but there is a uniqueness of the person that that kind of self is there every moment. But there's no independent self that gets conveyed from moment to moment. And there's no uniqueness that gets conveyed from moment to moment because the uniqueness is how you're made right now.

[79:59]

The way Meg is made right now is not the way she used to be made. This is a new Meg. The old one's gone. This isn't the person I knew a decade or so ago. She's gone. This is a new person. A unique, and now she's gone. And here's another unique person. Moment. But there's no carryover of a self from those past moments that has been brought up to now. No, zero. There never was, it was never there. So when you die, there's a last cognition, last unique person, and that's it. And then this cognition can be the condition for the arising of another cognition. When there's another cognition, a first cognition in another body, that's called a birth. But the birth, at the moment of birth of a baby, depends on a previous cognition, like all the other ones do.

[81:04]

It doesn't come from just the interaction of the sensuous body with the world. It also depends on a previous cognition. So that's the story that I would tell you today. No transfer of self, but there's a new and dependent self that arises with this interaction of body, world, and previous cognition. Just like now. Body, world, previous cognition. Here I am. Gone. body, world, previous cognition, here I am. A dependent, fleeting, living manifestation of the whole works. And now that's gone. And here's another one. And to see this and enjoy it requires training. You have to be on the karma ball. You're missing the show. And not only that, but you're developing blindness.

[82:05]

Not blindness from your eyes focusing on infinity, blindness due to karmic obstruction, a type of blindness. You actually can see, and you are seeing, but you're seeing through the obstructions of lazy meditation habits. But if you meditate intensely, your eyes will open. That's what they say. That's the story. Try it out. Test it. So far during this practice period, everybody's either having an easy time or a hard time. Everybody, to me, looks like this is the way it works. And it does work very nicely when you practice it. What is it? It's good work, and you can get it if you try. Yes? I appreciate all you have told so far.

[83:11]

It's difficult for me to grasp a lot of it. That's a true part of my story. Just to add on to the dying, so when that cognitive thought comes through as birth, can you then have, like some people think, can you position yourself to have a more advantageous birth or a more insightful birth? Yeah. And the way you position yourself is, what do you think? Karma is the main factor that influences the type of birth that we have. I have one other question. Can we discuss anything about collective karma?

[84:16]

Like you just talked earlier about that. Yeah. Yeah. But before I do that, I just want to say, I kind of wish Buddha was born in a manger instead of in a palace. Because, you know... He was born in the genital. Right. I mean, I wish he was born in a poverty-stricken family. I don't think that it's necessarily the case that great sages are born to rich families. So you might have a very good karmic study program here and die and be reborn in a really difficult neighborhood with parents who have problems, it's possible, but still have really good karmic background and then you live in this difficult situation and then you go right to work on your practice from an early age.

[85:21]

Some babies are born into really tough situations and they're obviously bodhisattvas early. And some people are born with loving parents in nice neighborhoods, but they're born with not much skill. So the advantageous birth, I think, is that you're born in such a way that you can study. That's the most important thing. And I remember when I was a kid, my cousin was really pretty affluent. But I felt sorry for him because he didn't know how to work. because he didn't have to, you know. Whereas I was kind of somewhat poor, so like from a young age I like delivered newspapers, not delivered, I didn't do that until I was twelve, but I shoveled walks and mowed gardens and stuff like that. And so by the time I was six or seven years old, you know, I knew how to go out and work.

[86:25]

And my cousin and his friends Because they didn't have to work, they just did all kinds of unwholesome things, and I kind of felt sorry for them. But some other kids are born poor. They feel terrible, and they don't appreciate. So being able to appreciate our circumstances, no matter what they are, as opportunities for practice, that's the main fortunate situation in the moment. And that birth... in a situation where you feel like, oh, it's practice time, it's meditation time, it's time to clear away the obstructions to love and kindness, that's a fortune at birth. And then you practice there. And that way of interpreting exists due to past karma, past interpretations which have been studied.

[87:25]

You can have some bad stories in the background of nasty things that you wanted to do or did do. But if you studied those, then you're going to have good births. Again, the main thing is not whether you're highly developed or lowly developed. Because some people here are pretty highly developed and some people are not so highly developed, like me. I'm not very highly developed. but I'm fairly committed. And some people are highly developed, but they don't practice. What do you mean highly developed? Well, like they're kind, they're honest, they eat like a civilized person, they don't steal. They're, generally speaking, quite nice people. But they aren't meditating on their karma. And they're not practicing.

[88:28]

They're not intimate with what they're doing. Some people like, you know, Tiger Woods, right? When he's two years old, he's like practicing golf, practicing, [...] practicing. And he gets to be very skillful and, you know, like almost superhuman present and relaxed and concentrated. Tiger Woods? Yeah, two years old. I don't know if he was two or three, but he was on some show like that when he was just a kid, you know, and like making these fantastic shots on TV. But he was just a little tiny guy, you know. His father was a professional golfer, and, you know, he's one of those kind of kids that wanted to be like Daddy. So anyway, there's kids like that. And so he concentrated. So now he's like this... We say in various sports, but particularly I think in golf, they say, on the top of your game. So you're there, you know, and you're concentrated, but you've now won all the tournaments.

[89:31]

So you want to keep training and keep paying attention? Maybe you don't want to. And if you don't, you lose it. It carries on for a while, like I often say, you know, If you pumped all kinds of poisons and intoxicants into Tiger Woods, he still could probably play golf better than us. If he barely could walk, he probably could still, you know, beat most of us. Like he'd probably be like 110 or something at least. But most of us would be like 150. But still. If he doesn't practice, his game will deteriorate. That's the causation. So some people are quite developed because in the past, in the past they pay attention. And now they're quite skillful. And when you're skillful, that's nice. It's great. It's beautiful. But some people, because of their past skills, their past training, they're quite skillful, but they're not paying attention now.

[90:37]

Somebody else is not very skillful, but one is paying attention, is studying, practicing, learning the Buddha way. The other one is on sabbatical or off-center, not in the path. And they should confess and repent and get back to work. So again, people are sometimes embarrassed how downtrodden they are. Mind and body. Yeah? Right? Pay attention to that and you're doing the same thing a Buddha would do if a Buddha was in your shoes. Some other people don't feel so bad about themselves, which is fine. Now practice. Doing good things and not practicing. You can be doing bad things and practicing. You can experience the result of unskillful actions and be practicing. You can experience the results of skillfulness and not be practicing, whether you are giving close attention.

[91:46]

to the moment. Right? Very simple. But I just mention this because some people feel like, a little bit, they get a little bit like, geez, it's really bad here. Does that mean something's wrong with me? Well, yes, but it doesn't mean you can't practice. you can do the same practice that the Buddhas do right now. Well, if you can, you can. And if you can, it doesn't matter how low you are, how bad you are. Yes? People who are in jail because they're... One second. I take back... Can you? I take back that it doesn't matter. It matters that you're low. It just said it in comparison to practice. That's all. I'm not saying it doesn't matter that I'm low and lousy. I'm just saying there's nothing compared to practice.

[92:51]

Yes? Yes. People who are felons, whatever they're called. People who are felons, yeah. People who have done felonies. I've heard that sometimes some of those people may be Yes. I think that's true that a person who's on the verge of some kind of like great opening might get distracted at that very moment because of the brightness of the opportunity and actually want to bring themselves down from the intensity of the spiritual opportunity or something. And one of the ways to bring yourself down, for example, would be to take drugs to sedate yourself or distract yourself.

[93:58]

And then in a state of intoxication, commit a crime. When I went to San Quentin, I talked to a number of people, and they just seemed so reasonable and, generally speaking, like good guys. And when I inquired, I didn't really inquire, when they told me the crimes they committed to come to be in prison, almost all of them were intoxicating crimes. And I would see them, I think, mostly, and they weren't very intoxicating when I saw them, so... And so, yeah, I think there's, oftentimes, right when you're in a very good position, you can't stay in that position and then get distracted. And we can slip. Like, is it a felony to, are certain forms of violence felonies? Yes. Is that right? Yes. Yeah. So you can go, like, be standing here and somebody can come up to you and, like, go boo.

[94:59]

and you can just instantly slip into rage and if there's weapons nearby you can easily then slip into a violent use of a weapon and then you've committed a felony just like that even though the moment before you were like you know there's a great opportunity right there and you stay with it, get distracted. So there's danger of doing something violent if we're not enlightened. So if we're afraid, facing our fear and turning with it, and we get stimulated in a certain way, Instead of like turning with it, we can tense up and fight back and commit a felony, commit a crime. So what you're saying is that they may be close to the possibility of an opening because, precisely, they have whatever, for whatever reasons, but that most likely or very likely that opportunity is not available to them because

[96:18]

It's available, but because they don't have the skill to face it, they miss it. And sometimes they don't just miss it, but they actually try to turn away from it. And in the process of turning away from it, they sometimes do something which makes them even more vulnerable to harm or harming others. Yes, it can happen. Okay. I'm still asking for feedback. Am I getting feedback? Do you have feedback? What is this? I think I might have missed it. Did you answer? I believe it might have been Joe behind me. I heard his voice ask about... I didn't. I didn't. Sorry. And how we've co-created the world we are currently in, and if that is a collective karmic event, I'd like to know a little bit of your point of view about that. Okay, so the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Abhidharma Kosha, and the Abhidharma Samucaya, these are major treatises, and also the Buddha in the scriptures says the world is the consequence of intentions and vows, aspirations.

[97:47]

That's what makes the world. How that happens? I can talk to you a little bit about, and I have actually, because if you look at the way consciousness is said to arise, it arises in relationship to the physical world. But when the physical world starts to perform a function which it didn't have before, when the physical world goes from not functioning sensibly to functioning sensibly, the physical world just changes. because someone heard it, or someone smelled it. It changes. It becomes a new manifestation. It develops a new function, and it becomes a new type of materiality. So that's one. Just when the world interacts with us, it changes, just like we do. Interaction between conscious beings and the world causes the world to change. And this is the origins of our consciousness, but it also shows the reciprocity

[98:50]

and the responsiveness of the world. We are a response to the world. The world is responding to us. We are calling on to the world. The world is calling on to us. This responsiveness is the of our relationship. Then, as we become conscious beings and we imagine stories, these stories then affect the world. Now they affect it. Peter was asking me about this. They affect it at the supra-liminal level in that when we have certain stories about the world, we make bridges and and build buildings and towns. We excavate big holes in the ground to get iron. Living beings fall into pits and make petroleum. Then we take the petroleum and burn it. This kind of stuff is how conscious beings cause the world to be. Iron deposits are actually due to the activity of bacteria. The reason why iron is concentrated in certain places is because of bacteria.

[99:53]

Iron-fixing bacteria make it concentrated. So the iron deposits are affected by living beings. How this actually works in terms of forming and shaping worlds, this is rather difficult to understand, but the proposal is that the world formation is due to karma. due to vows, general vows, intentions of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and unenlightened beings. All of us are contributing to it, and not just unenlightened humans, but unenlightened flies, ants, and there's a lot more ants than us, about a million times more ants here. They all have intentions. They live in these little worlds, all these, you know, they're fabulous creatures. They also are, they're moving, they move as much earth around as we do. You know, they move as much earth and are comparable amount of earth and vegetable matter.

[100:56]

They move around the planet like we do. So living beings are consciously moving the environment, affecting the environment for better or worse. And that depends on their awareness of their karma. As you study your karma, you will develop more appreciation for your relationship with the world, and that will make you contribute to it differently. That's at the conscious level. How the thing and all its stuff forms and so on requires considerable meditation, but that is the proposal. which we could go into and meditate on more, but that's basically what's being said here. Shakyamuni Buddha said this, but also the latest treatises, both early treatises and Mahayana treatises say this. And also I think Zen is one of the schools that is very much into the environment because Zen has temples and gardens

[101:58]

forms of spiritual discipline that aren't into real estate. And that's a different recognition of the relationship between the practice and the real estate, between the practice and the buildings and the land. But Zen has, in China, has really been into the grounds and the relationship with the trees and the buildings and so on. So it's part of the way we're It's part of our story. It's part of our karma. But the land. Yes? I have a question. When you talk about our intention to the way we see ourselves in regard to the world. Yes. And our actions, our intentions. I do say that. Building the world. I have trouble not It's a dualistic thinking here, like here's me and there's the rest of the world.

[103:06]

And I know that's, you know, I'd rather think of a piece of tomato in a vegetable soup or something. And what is my relationship to the soup? Well, and there's this, but when I think of this thing as intention affecting the world, and when you talk about I have to remember that it's not me and the world when you say that. I don't know if there's any other way to say it. No, it's fine. You can say it many other ways, but that was nice the way you said it. Very nice. And it's recorded, so you can listen to it again. I don't know. I'm not trying to say something. You're not aware maybe that you're trying to say something, but you did try to say something and you succeeded. I didn't hear a question until just recently.

[104:06]

That was the question. But before that, you were describing a situation and very nicely. That was good. I guess it was a hypothesis. It was a hypothesis, it was a story, and it was karma. And vocal karma, you just expressed vocal and mental karma. I still have a question. What? You still do have a question, did you say? What is it? What do I do with this dualism that arises? Oh, okay. Now there's your question. I hear you use the word interact with the world. Me or my karma, whatever it is that we're talking about. That's your question? What to do with it? Okay. Well, you said when you hear about... You hear the story that one of the consequences of our karma is the formation of worlds.

[105:10]

When you hear that, you said it's difficult for you not to think dualistically about that. When you said that, I thought, is that the same as having to think dualistically about that? Well, yeah, that's what happens automatically. Yeah. So to say it's difficult not to is related perhaps to that it's easy to do. So I'm not so much talking to you about what's difficult not to do. I'm more talking to you about what's difficult to do. What's difficult to do is what's easy to do. What's easy to do is that it's easy to think dualistically. And I'm saying to you, first of all, most of all, Most of all I'm saying, and what's most important to me, is that you study your dualistic thinking. If you study your dualistic thinking, you will come to be clear that there's no self in the duality, that there's no substance to the duality, that you cannot find the duality.

[106:17]

You will come to see that if you learn about duality. So it's easy to think dualistically, and therefore you do, so that's what you have to study. You have dualistic thinking to study. So I'm saying study that and you will become free of it. That's basically it. Yes? to say that being a person who's never been here before, I really couldn't have done it with the help of the Sangha, the many mistakes I've made, and the patience that people have shown to me. And also, with the help of the Sangha, I understand some of your teachings. I appreciate it. Thanks for being patient with him. He appreciates it. Yes.

[107:19]

When Jean asked her question, and it's a story of what Jean's question was. It's a little different. It may not be what her question was. But the way I heard the question, and this is paraphrasing, how are we making the world we're in? Excuse me, Jean? Jean Robinson. Oh, OK. I imagined that the world we're in that she was referring to was the world that's running out of resources and the world that's going to war for oil and justice and like that. And that the we that she was referring to was this nice, settled, comfortable, relatively, in world terms, affluent people who are kind and kind of don't go to war for oil and don't want to waste. So I kind of thought there was something really concrete in her question and whether or not there was.

[108:26]

I mean, I don't know, maybe this is a question that everybody feels pretty clear that we understand our, you know, interconnection to those problems. But I have something sort of, more tangible in the question that if Jean's not asking it, maybe I'll ask it if there are other people who want to hear some more kind of tangible response to that question. After kind of drawing some relationship between our electric lights are on and we drive our cars and how those actions that we engage in just to carry forth our business, sometimes which really we don't have alternatives to often because of the way things are functioning, how those are connected to these catastrophes.

[109:27]

I felt like there was some sense of, I'm different from the catastrophe. And the question was, well, how are we actually making the catastrophe, even though we don't want to? You felt a sense of difference, I'm different from the catastrophe? That was kind of the feeling I had in the question, whether it was Jane's intent or not. The feeling was, I feel... Like, I'm not contributing to this catastrophe, so please show me I believe the story that I'm contributing, but show me how. Oh, you mean if someone felt... You would like me to talk to them about it? I don't know. I just felt that was an unanswered aura of that question. It may not have been, but maybe everybody knows the answers. I understand, but what I don't understand where you want to go with it. Well, let's find out. If anybody would like you to answer that, then I would like you to answer that. And if not, it's fine with me.

[110:30]

Everybody here. Let me get the question. So I didn't really get the question either, but I think in terms of meditating on karma, there is a story which is vocally expressed and which is written down and which exists in the minds of people. that there's some relationship between using electricity, for example, and using internal combustion gasoline engines. There's some relationship between that and the health and welfare of the beings, the vegetable and animal and geological beings on this planet.

[111:39]

Right? Everybody's got a story about that. Some people think the relationship's like this, some people think the relationship's like that. And a lot of scientists are looking at this and concerned about, they have a story of concern about the relationship between the use of these energy sources and the welfare of the planet, the welfare of this very beautiful planet. Right? There are a lot of stories out there, and all the scientists have their own story, their own individual unique story, and find a lot of agreement with each other. But the scientists are supposed to remember that these are stories. If they forget, according to certain scientific principles, they're not really scientists anymore. They're more, I don't know what, dogmatists, you know. They're not really exploring, they're holding on.

[112:43]

But a lot of scientists do remember this, and they offer their hypothesis to be tested, and they make suggestions from their hypothesis to be tested and see if that brings welfare and so on and so forth. So in terms of studying karma, our stories like this are to be studied. And so if we feel like we have the hypothesis now that it might be good to use as little natural resources as possible, that idea, that story, we can play according to that story. And it's good to keep studying that we have the story and be tentative about it. But also, another nice thing about these things is that turning the lights off can also be simultaneously a meditation of compassion. Like I'm sure that turning the lights off is really a kindness to the world.

[113:47]

I don't know for sure. But nobody's in the room now. I'm going to leave the room and nobody's in here. Like sometimes I turn the lights off in the house and Razi's in the house. Leave one light on in the house, even though I kind of think Rozzy can see in the dark. You know? Huh? Yeah, Rozzy can smell in the dark, and that's the big light in her mind. You know? If there's a dark room and a lit room, and the other one doesn't, Rozzy will go into the dark, smelly room, and she will be turned on. And you can't get her out. into the light room. So anyway, I have this idea that she doesn't need the light, but my wife likes to leave a little light on for her, just because she feels for the dog in the house. So then out of kindness for my wife's feelings, supporting my wife's heart, can I leave a light on?

[114:47]

Okay. When nobody's in my room, the Buddhas are like glowing on the altar, I turn all the lights off when I go, because I don't think it's necessary. So I don't use it if I don't think it's necessary, generally. And when I turn it off, I feel I'm intending this to be a kindness to the world. Is it really? I don't know. Nobody seems to, even what he called the power companies don't say, that's evil to turn the lights off. Nobody seems to mind. So for me, it's intended as a kindness, and so far I haven't got, I'm open to feedback, but I haven't gotten any feedback yet that people think it's cruel to turn the lights off in my room when I'm not in there and nobody else is there. But I feel kind of kind, like it takes a little time to go around It takes a little time to go around and turn them off, but I feel that most important, I feel, I think it encourages me and others to meditate on karma to turn the lights off.

[115:53]

My main thing that I think is going to help the world, my main theory is study, through study of karma. That's what's going to make everybody happy. So taking care of recycling and so on is another means to meditate on karma. And for me to do that, and people see me doing that, and me see me doing that, is a practice which seems to go with the main practice. So in that way I feel confidence. The theories about global warming and so on and so forth, I'm open to them. and I'm kind of impressed by them and I kind of agree with them. And that's another thing. Generally speaking, from ancient times, from ancient times, in our tradition, frugality is, generally speaking, something that requires mindfulness and is therefore encouraged. Frugality for frugality itself is not the whole story.

[116:57]

It's that it takes attention to be frugal. In Stingy, It means being attentive to not using too much, actually, or too little. Just using the right amount is frugal. That's what I understand. So frugality is very much part of our Zen tradition. And so Suzuki Roshi, you know, fortunately, unfortunately, was poor when he was young. He needed to be very frugal, you know. He was a very frugal guy. When I went out to dinner with him and his wife, I never ordered anything because I would be eating their food. I always knew that they would give me their leftovers. He might have been different if he grew up in a rich temple. But anyway, he was a frugal guy, and that encouraged me. Now, if I grew up in a rich house, maybe his frugality wouldn't have much impact on me. But I also learned to be frugal, partly by having some poverty.

[117:58]

But again, that's good. It makes it easier for me to practice Zen, I think, because I have the habit already. So frugality, mindfulness, and so on, that seems to go with this. And education and study and scientific inquiry is also part of it. The other thing about I'm not responsible or anything like that, that, of course, I think maybe you can tell I don't go for it at all. I feel responsible for the war in Iraq. I have contributed to it. I am contributing to it. And so I feel pretty much terrible about it. I'm not blaming somebody else for it. I want everybody to wake up and be more kind and and so on. And if there's any way, you know, I was just recently talking to somebody who's going to go have dinner with the vice president and help people wake up who are in powerful positions, let's do it.

[119:05]

But in the meantime, we're still responsible for their actions. Their actions are not our actions, but we support each other. So if you do something unskillful, you're responsible. If you do something skillful, I'm responsible. If I do something skillful, you're responsible. And if I do something unskillful, you're responsible. I'm responsible that you're contributing to my behavior. You support me. You make me possible. You make everything I do possible. So you're responsible for everything I do. in a contributory sense, and you're also responsible in the sense that you can respond to everything I do. You're invited to respond to what I do. And I can respond to your response to me. And you do respond to me. You respond to me all the time. You're always responding to me and I'm responding to you. But that doesn't mean I'm conscious of my response to you or you're conscious of your response to me.

[120:10]

That requires training. And that's what I would encourage, is that we become aware that we are responding to each other, that everybody you meet you respond to. You look at them and you feel this way or you feel that way. And the way you feel is totally tied into the way you see yourself in relationship to them. And they contribute to the way you see yourself in relationship. Everybody you meet supports you to have a karmic response to them. which has consequence, which you're responsible for, and they are responsible for, both in terms of they make it possible and they will respond to it. This is the world that I would like to tune into. This is the world where we will be happy if we're in this world of meditation. That's what I would say. I don't think so. You think so? That would sound fine to me. Success comes to Green Gulch, yes?

[121:16]

I feel like there's no oxygen in the room. It's a story built on a feeling. Hello? Want to come over here? It's very oxygenated over here. Well, it's 11.05 or something. Is that enough for this one? The one... That was an uh-uh. Not an uh-uh. Not an uh-uh. It was an uh-uh. I think I can hear you there. Did you say uh-uh? I thank you very much for your teaching. It helped me relax a little bit. Great. Anyway... I have this question that seems you have been talking a lot about this, but I think something for you.

[122:22]

Something for you what? I feel something missing. Missing, okay. All negative things are life, and you just feel the life in harmful things. Could you speak more about this, please? Harmful things is the way we're all creating the harmful thing and the way the harmful thing is creating all of us. That interdependence, that mutuality is the light of a harmful thing. But it doesn't mean it's not a harmful thing. But I would say if you see the light in the harmful thing, your skill to address and respond to the harmful thing is unleashed. released. So you see some people being unskillful, like often children. They're often cruel to each other and either harmful to each other or on the verge of being harmful most of the time, or a lot of the time.

[123:28]

You see that. If you can see the light in there, you're more able to help the children, not, well I shouldn't say not, I should say to find a way more kind to each other, and to realize that kindness is as much fun as cruelty. Because children seem to like to sometimes do things like watch how their thumb can squash a bug. It's kind of like a very tangible thrill to see yourself be able to crush another. You feel your power of your thumb breaking the back of a beetle. Some kids like to do that. But sometimes you can educate them to be more sensitive to the animal. But if you don't see the light, if you see, oh, evil child, then you're kind of doing the same thing. But if you see, oh, beautiful child being cruel, let me find a way to show you something more interesting.

[124:33]

And actually they might find it more interesting to be kind to Or like my grandson finds animals in various places like here in the Tassajara and he wants to take them back to L.A. And we try to explain to him, you know, that the animal will die if you take it back to L.A., especially like Tassajara lizards. You know, they need to eat living animals. You know, you can't feed them grass in L.A. So if you take them with you, you'll die. And he says, well, He loves me and I love him. And that's it. If I don't see the light in this little guy wanting to do this harmful thing to this lizard, then maybe I'm not so skillful to help. So ignorant beings are living all over the place, interacting unskillfully and harmfully and violently

[125:40]

If you can see the light, you can go and help them. If you can't see the light, you might not be able to help them. I'm not saying you can't, but the light is to see that they're inviting you to come and help and to see how you can. That's what I'm saying. Any more feedback? But it went back to my, you know, about helping a woman beating her children. If I couldn't see the beauty in her, there was no way I could help her. And I, yes, that's it. So, good, thank you. Seeing beauty is very helpful, but it's not easy to stand it. Rilke says, you know, beauty is the beginning of a terror we can just barely stand.

[126:46]

You know, it's like, it's hard to face it, you know. But when you see it, you're in good shape, actually. You know, it's just hard. We have to train ourselves to be able to tolerate beauty, which is flashing all the time. Would you say more about that, Astrid? You know, if I've had a long text story of not-beauty and then finding beauty, it is hard sometimes to just stay with it. Like, you know, here we are together on the terrace outside the cocktail party, and I see how beautiful you are, and then I say, now what should we do? Should we go to my place? Well, I have something else. That's what it is. It's having something else in mind. It's like we can't just face the light because you can't use the light.

[127:49]

We're not used to being with it without converting it into something we can use. So we feel scared because we can't get a hold of it. Is it all right to be here and be totally helpless? Not helpless, but grasping-less. Is it possible to be here and not grasp this light? And we're not used to that, so we feel like maybe something will, you know, maybe I'll wet my pants, or who knows what will happen. All my control things are like dropped for the moment, and I'm just open. What might happen now? I don't know. I can't stand this. Let's make it into something I can get a hold of. But that actually, so far, I haven't been successful. To voice how we are in awe is one way to stay in the presence of it. To express how we're in awe of something is one way to keep ourselves from grasping.

[128:53]

Like when I said, I don't believe what I think of you, I don't believe what I think of you, is a way for me to stop myself from although I wasn't exactly seeing beauty, I was. But did I address your question by any chance? We're not used to just being with the light of the beauty of the person we're looking at. We want to, like, use it. That's what we feel. Suffer, but at least it's familiar. But to be in the presence of someone without any foothold It's very unfamiliar to us. And so some part of our body says, are you sure this is all right? I don't think so. Let's make it into some more familiar story. And we've got a lot of them available, so just get one out here as soon as possible. I remember one time when you came to San Luis and I had a talk with you. I've been looking forward to it for months, actually, for you to come down to us. And when I actually sat in front of you, I just wanted out.

[129:55]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I have a story about, you know, I traveled across the country to practice with Zen Center and practice with Suzuki Roshi. And then I did get to practice with him. But at first, you know, I could stand him pretty much because I had my defenses, you know, or whatever. But then sometimes I would get in situations where just him and me, you know, and where he was just totally there for me. and this is what I came for, and this is what I was going to get away from. So I would say to him, well, I don't want to take any more of your time. You've got a lot of people to see. I'll see you later. And he'd say, no, you can stay. No, no, I'll see you later. He had to really encourage me to stay, even though that's what I came for. I wanted to get away. It's funny. It's funny how we have trouble being with what we most want to be with. Funny creatures we are. Exactly.

[130:59]

And that opens the door to meeting Buddha. Because meeting Buddha is kind of difficult for us because now if you imagine meeting Buddha, you could imagine that you might not try to get something off Buddha. You know, that might be disrespectful to use Buddha. So we want to be with who we just want to be with without getting anything. I said, well, maybe I'll give something then. And that's actually a good way to tolerate the light, is to be generous towards it, to give it, to let it be, and to give yourself to it, rather than try to get a hold of it. So that's a good coping mechanism. Practice with the beauty. Don't try to move it around or get a hold of it, but just keep, I give myself to it, I give myself to it. That's a good... But again, you may forget because you're kind of awestruck. you freeze. And then you want to get up, and then you want to get away where nobody's... You're embarrassed to freeze.

[132:01]

So you want to go someplace where nobody sees you freezing. Even though you want this person to see you freezing, you want to get... Right? Yeah, so that's common. So you should know this is a common phenomenon in practice. Going, going, going, going on this long trip of finally getting there and saying, I can't stand the opportunity. I've got to do something to bring myself down, back to normal. Yeah, so this is normal. The more you go around that, the more you'll be able to tolerate the happiness. But it takes training. It takes training. Yes? Well, the potential stories are hovering, but sometimes there's a moment there when they hardly get applied.

[133:15]

And that's when you're just sort of, I guess you could say, just overwhelmed by the illumination. so much so that you just can't bring yourself to tell a story about it. You know you could, and you know you could say, it's the light, but somehow you feel it's an insult to make a story about this. This is too wonderful to make a story about. Almost like there's a pause there. This is similar to seeing emptiness, that you see the absence of the story in the thing. That's what it's like to see beauty. Your story about it isn't there yet. It's a brick. If you're in this meeting of overwhelm, if you're in this meeting of... Overwhelm what? If you're in this meeting. Yes. Like right now. Yeah. Like right now, yeah. How to not freeze it. How to not freeze it? It's happening.

[134:17]

It's out of former cognition. It's just like that. it's the beginning of a terror which you can barely stand. It's not the terror yet, because the terror is another story. It's just like, just before you put anything on it, that's kind of what it's like. Now, I would say that by repeated exposure you get more comfortable with it. But It isn't that we try to stop the storyteller, I would say. It isn't that we try to not tell the story on the light. Rather, sometimes you actually look and don't find the story for a moment. For a moment, you can't, you see. It's not that I'm stopping the story. I know how to tell stories. It's that this story cannot be found here in this light. You cannot find the story.

[135:18]

Now, I can bring the story in, but Without looking away, I can't find it here. That vision is a temporary break, not in storytelling, but in projecting the story onto the situation. And that's closely related to seeing beauty. The first time you see that can only be for a very short time. And some people have told me about these visions of those moments and how they, and the various, like somebody said to me just recently that he saw this thing and then he was like looking for some way to deal with it. He said, well, how do you deal with this? I said, it's not it. Because you can't deal with it, you're in it. When you deal with it, then you're reverting to a story, some construction. But there's a moment there sometimes when you're with this thing before you deal with it. A moment of seeing karma is the approach to seeing, forgetting the self.

[136:25]

At the moment of forgetting the self, all these enlightenments come flooding in. But if you want to find a way to deal with them, then you're going back to self coming forward to deal with them. You remember the self again. At that moment, that's the only thing to do. However, that changes you. So then when you go back to dealing with things again, it has an effect on how you feel about it. It makes you more... It causes the way... It changes the way you do it and it improves your vision. So you can come back into the realm of illusion. You can leap beyond that vision back into it. But you're not leaping back in to get a hold You're leaping back in to interact. It's not out of compulsion. So maybe, is that enough now? Kind of?

[137:27]

Yeah? Okay, so now we move into a different kind of situation in a couple of days where we're in the sesheen environment. I just wanted to say that in this session, what I'd like to do is what I did at Tassajara, and that is I'll do this, I'll sit on a seat, you know, in the zendo with you, and I'll talk to you, and tell some stories, sing some songs, and then if you want to give me feedback or if you want to interact with me, I'd like you to get up and come up and talk to me. Not stay at your seat, but come up and stand right in front of me. Stand upright. Express yourself. It can be a question, a dance, a song, a duet, a solo, a chorus, you know, a speech, and...

[138:34]

And then I will be responding when you come up. So that's what I like. Otherwise, I don't want you to be raising your hands from around the room. I don't want to play that game. Is that all right? So if you want to interact verbally or physically, other than just sitting in the seat and listening, then come up. After I talk for a little while, or maybe more than a little while, I will say, you're welcome, and you can come up as you wish. And you don't have to come up, but you may, if you come up. So that's what I'd like to do during this session. Is that all right? Yes? I don't want to play that game. I have a painful feeling, and I'm not sure exactly why, but that's Well, thank you for saying that. But actually, I don't want to play that game. I don't want to play the game of you interacting with me far away, where I actually have trouble hearing.

[139:38]

It's too far away. This room is small enough I feel okay. And also the chairs make it hard to come up here. But Zendo is more spacious and also people get really far away there and raise their hands. And it's hard for me to hear and hard for other people to hear. But if you come up and talk to me, I've got this microphone in there. So people will be able to hear you. And also I'd like to now just... That's the game I want to play. I don't want to play the other one. But I'm willing to talk to you more about my not wanting to do it. Do you want to say more? Just the word game, I think. The other one's a game, too. I do want to play it that way. I want to play the game of if you want to interact with me, come up close. That's the game I want to play. I don't want to play this more distant game. In this situation, I haven't felt it's too distant, but the room's smaller, and so I think it's been okay.

[140:41]

This is sort of a warm-up. So I'm just saying I really do not, I don't like that thing and I don't like this question and answer from long distance. I've come to not feel so good about it. I tolerate it, but since there's an option here and it has various advantages, I request to tell you that I actually do not like that other one very much. And, or maybe I should say in comparison, I much prefer this other way. It puts more, it makes it more, what do you call it, It makes it more participatory and you can make more of a contribution to the body. You can also come up and you don't have to say anything verbal either. You can just come up and stand there. And you can talk to me, you know, like this. But you can also turn around and talk to the group. I welcome that too. So that's what I'd like to do during Sesshin.

[141:42]

But only if you want to. It's an offering. But if you raise your hands, I'll just make a gesture like this to come up. Is that understood? And then the other thing about if you don't want me to adjust posture during Sesshin, let me... Anything else you want to say at this time? Yes, Arlene? In the sauna, please turn the handles. Don't try to pull them out. It's almost 1230. Should we have a hundred? It's 1130. Oh, yeah, 11.30. Did you think it was 12.30? No, I didn't. Was that your story? Should we have a Han or just have people go back?

[142:46]

Should we just go back instead of having a Han? Take a short break. Take a short break and go back to Zendo. Is that okay? And I just want to tell you something, share with you one of my minor accomplishments. It's minor. I mean, it's minor. I got the... pilot light lit on the stove for the hot tub at my house. And it took quite a bit of effort. And I had to enlist Yuki to help me read the Japanese instructions. And I tried and I tried and I tried, and finally I got to work. And it was really kind of fun that sometimes things like that happen. Thank you for your sympathetic joy.

[143:36]

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