Is it in the Declaration of Independence that it says, all men are created equal? Is that where it says that? The Declaration of Independence from colonial domination by the English Empire. And now this wonderful country has become an empire, it seems. I've heard that in the 18th century, when they said, all men are created equal, that the people who wrote that, what they understood that to mean was that all human beings are created equal. And that what they meant by that furthermore was that we're all created equal in our capacity or in our nature for compassion.

[01:13]

That's one understanding of what they meant at that time when they said, when they were talking about equality. They didn't think that men and women were equal or that free people and slaves were equal. But in the realm of the ability to be kind, they actually had the understanding, was circulating among them, that all human beings have this ability to be kind, to be compassionate, to love. And I think one of them actually, one of the authors, or if not one of the main authors, elaborating on this point said, looking at a slave boy one time, commented on how kind the boy was. You know, how he had this ability to be kind, quite well developed even at a young age.

[02:22]

Someone gave me a DVD of, I think it's called The Women of Tibet. And it's actually about the women of Tibet, but it's particularly focused on the mother of the Dalai Lama. It's mostly about her. She is a mother. She had 16 children. The Dalai Lama was one of her 16. is not well known, but she had two other male offspring who were also Rinpoches, precious reincarnations of previous highly developed practitioners of the Way. And she also lost, I believe, nine of the sixteen. Sometimes people ask me, well, where does the Buddha way start?

[03:45]

And I think it starts, well, it's hard to say where it starts, but basically it starts, the seed of it is compassion. So you can say, well, doesn't it really start with suffering? Say, okay, it starts with suffering, fine. So then there's suffering in the world, and the Buddha Dharma is concerned with teaching people the conditions, the causes and conditions for suffering. But this teaching comes from compassion. So there's suffering, but then there's a feeling of, well, a certain kind of suffering would be good to become free of, if it's possible. It's not about freedom from pain in childbirth. It's not about freedom from pain when you have an infection in your mouth.

[04:48]

These are useful pains. They tell you to go to the dentist, or they tell you the baby's coming. Get ready. Or a pain in your ankle is telling you, stop walking, you sprained it. Or a pain in your finger, which says, don't close the door anymore on my fingers. and so on. Pain is a useful aspect of life. But even when we don't have painful sensations, we sometimes are afraid and miserable, etc. And sometimes we feel like we experience possibility of relieving or becoming free of this suffering. And then we even come to a place of wanting that for ourselves and others.

[05:55]

And then finally even thinking of becoming really skillful so that you could really work full-time on helping suffering beings. And this current Dalai Lama we have has a way of making the Buddha Dharma very simple, saying that it's basically kindness, basically compassion. It's not separable from wisdom completely, you can't separate it, but it's possible without highly developed wisdom to feel lots of compassion. And the practice is basically to let this compassion be fully developed, which includes let all the skills of compassion be fully developed. And in order to do that we need wisdom so that the compassion, which is the seed of our practice, can grow and blossom to its full potential.

[07:12]

So the essence of our tradition, or I would say the essence of a religion that's about happiness is compassion. The heart of a religion about happiness is compassion. I think Buddhism is a religion about happiness, a religion of happiness. The Buddha was talking about happiness 2,500 years ago. Also talking about suffering, but not just suffering, but also happiness. Not all religions talk about happiness, maybe. I don't know. But this one does, from way back.

[08:19]

before happiness was even mentioned or discussed in many cultures. I feel like compassion is basic because it's our nature. The way we are actually is compassion. It's our nature to nurture and be nurtured. That's our nature. That's the kind of thing we are, is something that has the nature to nurture and be nurtured. We are actually the consequence of being nurtured and nurturing. However, we also have the nature that when we don't understand what I just said, we suffer in a very painful, unnecessary way.

[09:28]

It's unnecessary in the sense that when we do understand our nature, we are free of suffering. Even though suffering may still be there, we don't have a problem with it anymore. It's not a problem. It's an opportunity. It's our job, and we love it. It's our nature to nurture and be nurtured. It's our nature to be compassionate towards others. And it's our nature to receive compassion from others. We are here because we do receive the compassion of others. That brings us here into being. And we are compassionate towards others, and that also brings us into being. That's our nature. We need to understand this. This is one of my favorite Chinese characters.

[10:40]

How's that? Japanese is pronounced . I think in Chinese it's pronounced . You could say it means compassion, but literally it means to... It could be translated as compassion. It has lots of different ways, lots of different meanings, but basically it means to embrace and sustain. To embrace and sustain. To embrace and nurture. But it also means, which is very clumsy to translate, to be embraced and be sustained, to be embraced and to be nurtured. It means both those things. It goes in both directions. It means to care for children, to nurture them and help them grow up.

[12:00]

It also means to receive Buddha's teaching and Buddha's compassion and be matured to happiness by receiving the Buddha's compassion. It's giving compassion and receiving compassion. So it isn't usually translated as compassion because it's emphasizing the giving and receiving dimension of compassion. It's telling us that you do embrace other beings and you do sustain other beings and they embrace you and sustain you. And this is the character that's used in the Bodhisattva precepts, the Free Fear precepts. This is the character that's used with regard to the forms of Zen practice and the ceremonies of Zen practice. or the ceremonies of the Buddhist practice. So you embrace and sustain the practice. That's the first one.

[13:03]

And you're embraced and sustained by the practice. Then you embrace and sustain all good, all kinds of other good activities which aren't formally speaking the practice, and you're embraced and sustained by them. All the kindnesses that people do informally, untraditionally, randomly, as we say. And lastly, this is what you do with all sentient beings. You embrace and sustain them. And this is what they do with you. They embrace and sustain you. They mature you. They mature you. And you mature them. The Sanskrit for this is Kriya. Sattva Kriya. Sambhara Shila. Sattva beings. Kriya means to purify or work or develop. And sambar means the discipline. It's actually an exercise program. And then shila is a precept. It's the precept of exercising this mutual maturing between yourself and all beings.

[14:08]

Yeah, so it's referring to the actual exercise process of compassion. It also means to collect. Like our word for sashin is this character with mind or heart. Sashin means to collect or gather your heart, gather your mind. But it also means to collect everybody's heart and everybody's mind. And one more detail from the Declaration of Independence is that it says something about that you have an inalienable right.

[15:18]

It's not just people in the United States that have this inalienable right. Everybody has an inalienable right. It's just that we're mentioning that at the time of making this declaration, that it applies to us here. on this continent that we have an inalienable right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness. And I appreciate it being pointed out that it says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It does not say life, liberty, and happiness says the pursuit of it. That's a bit of a problem, this pursuit. And also, as pointed out, that the word pursuit in the 17th and 18th century did not mean what it means today.

[16:26]

It had a dark meaning, as in pursuing with hostile intent, pursuing like a fugitive. And that aggressiveness is in that word which is a problem for our history. But another word you can use which is a no-no in Buddha Dharma is you have the right to seek happiness. And it's a right which I would like to mention today you should pass up on. You do have the right though to seek happiness. and I recommend you do not seek it. From ancient times, it was observed by wise people that those who seek happiness for themselves usually are not very often successful. You are entitled to the right.

[17:27]

You are entitled to seeking, but don't seek it. If you want it, don't seek it. And in ancient times they saw that seeking it was not good for the seeker. It's good for realized people because the people who are seeking it then are the objects of their compassion. The people who are seeking it are job security for those who don't seek it, who have realized it without seeking. so it's not entirely useless for us to seek happiness, it's just doesn't, generally speaking, it's not conducive to achieving it. What's conducive to achieving it is thinking of the happiness of others.

[18:33]

Without seeking it, Did that upset you? Compassion, wanting others to be happy, feeling their suffering and wishing to relieve it, feeling joy at the thought of their happiness, wanting them to be free of suffering without seeking that, that's conducive to happiness. for one and all. And another way to put it is basically what's conducive to happiness is absorption in your activity. Being absorbed in your activity without seeking because seeking again is a slight distraction from being absorbed in your activity. Being absorbed in your activity is basically

[19:41]

Happiness. Concentrating wholeheartedly on what you're doing, on your activity. Now at first, the first level of happiness will be the happiness that comes from, for example, being absorbed in your breathing. That will bring you concentration, absorption, and happiness. However, if you stop concentrating on your breathing, you might flip right back into your usual understanding and be unhappy again. So the concentration which is most highly encouraged by me anyway, because of you, is concentration on your activity as it actually comes to be.

[20:53]

In other words, concentration on how you're embracing and sustaining everybody and how everybody's embracing and sustaining you. Being absorbed in how you're actually functioning, how you're actually acting, that will be the deepest happiness which cannot be disturbed even if you're not focusing on your breathing or something. somebody said that happiness is regarded most usefully as a byproduct of absorption. I don't know.

[21:55]

I could think it can be a byproduct, but also it is a... absorption is the activity which is happiness. Both. It's the byproduct and it's the condition of happiness. absorption in what you're doing. And as we become more and more absorbed in what we're doing, we more and more come to see that what we're doing, we're not doing by ourself. When you first start looking at what you're doing, you probably will think you're doing it. in relationship to the world. As you study more, you get closer to the realization that you and the world are the creation of your activity, that you and the world together are your activity, that you're acting together with the world.

[22:58]

But we start by admitting that we think that we do something towards or in relationship to all things of the world. and then just keep looking at that until you get over it. So paying attention to like the movements of your body or your speech or your breathing can lead to a concentration which is happiness. And then when you are absorbed, then you can start looking at what you've been concentrating on. So you're not only absorbed in what you're doing, but you start then to examine the nature of what you're doing.

[24:06]

And the nature of what you're doing, I would say, is the same nature as what you are. you're made into an active being. And as an active being, you embrace and sustain all beings, and you are embraced and sustained by all beings. So you start by looking at your activity any way you can. Become absorbed in that. Be happy. It should be happy. You haven't become absorbed if you're not yet happy. If you don't feel joy, you're not yet absorbed in what you're doing. Once you're joyful and absorbed, then you can look at what is the nature of what you're doing. And that brings a deeper level of happiness and also unleashes your capacity to help others, which you

[25:08]

which comes with being able to see how you are helping others and how they're helping you. There's an advertisement, not a billboard, but a poster that's often found on bus stops now in San Francisco. and maybe other parts of the United States. It's a sign which says, Find Your Zen. Have you seen it? So one of the, you know, kind of fortunate, I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate, maybe one of the, I should say, one of the characteristics of the of the Zen school as it's evolving in the West is that we have this assistance of people saying, find your Zen.

[26:13]

So people like, you know, looking at a telephone book, find Zen Center, you know. So it does attract people to Zen in a way, all this advertisement. They're not saying, find your Vajrayana. or find your Vipassana, or find your Namo Myoho Renge Kyo. They're saying find your Zen because it's the most compact presentation. You know what it is, right? Huh? You know what it is. Do I know what it is? That's what it's for. Do I know what it's for? We know it's a device called Zen. It's a device called Zen? Pardon? Did you hear what he said?

[27:15]

He said, that's what I think. He's observing himself and noticing that he thinks that rather than that's the truth. Is that correct? That you understand that now? Or do you still think that it's the truth, that it's a device? I don't know what it is, but… Was that a trick question? Hmm? Was that a trick question? What was a trick question? So you still think it's true? No, I didn't mean it as a trick question. I meant it to ask him if he thought that what he said was true rather than that's what he thought. And then if you asked me, is that true? I would say, no, that's just what I thought. That's what I was asking you. Who knows what I was doing? So I was looking at that sign with my wife and she helped me...

[28:26]

She helped me edit an essay or a talk that's in this book called Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains. And there's an article in there called The Ceremony of Zazen. One of the basic texts of Soto Zen is a text called The Ceremony for the General Encouragement of Zen Meditation or Seated Meditation. Actually, yeah. But the character there is ceremony, and most of the scholars do not translate it as ceremony. But it's boldly just sitting there with the word for ceremony. And they have their reasons, but anyway, they don't say it's the ceremony for the encouragement of Zazen, but it literally says that. And that's the way I understand it. That's what the article was about. There's a difference between the ceremony of Zazen and Zazen.

[29:31]

So, and my wife helped me edit that text, so we see this thing which says, find your Zen, and she says, she says, they mean find your ceremony of Zen. Now I'm not saying this to refute what Max said, that Zen is a device. But rather that you can't find Zen. And that's why we have a ceremony of Zen. It's because you can't find it. You cannot find Zen, and you can't find actually anything. The only way you're going to ever find anything is by not looking very carefully. then you'll find something. But if you look carefully, you will never find anything. That's also called everything is empty.

[30:49]

Everything is empty of findability. Everything is vacant of graspability. any way you could find something, it's not in the thing. So it isn't that we say there's no Zen, it's just that you can't find it. However, you can find the ceremony of Zen if you don't look very carefully. And you can practice that ceremony, and by practicing that ceremony you can realize what you can't find. You can realize Zen, you can realize Zen meditation, you just can't find it. So you use something that's not it to practice so that you can gradually settle into realizing what you can't find.

[31:56]

and this unfindability of all things, which you can realize, you can realize that things cannot be found. That unfindability, that emptiness of all things, has an essence, which is compassion. And that is what requires a lot of training. So we already have compassion, now we need to find the Zen of everything or the fact of everything. The fact of things is, the ultimate fact is, the ultimate fact is that they can't be found. However, that ungraspability has an essence of compassion in this tradition. It's not just realizing emptiness. It's realizing emptiness which has compassion at its center.

[33:01]

So we use these forms as ways for us to bring our attention to our activity and to see if we happen to view our activity, for example, as I'm doing this and it's not doing me. Or I'm embracing this and it's not embracing me. Or it's embracing me but I'm not embracing it. Or I'm embracing this but I'm not embracing everything. You get to see your view of what you're doing and by studying it you will realize emptiness of your activity, the selflessness, the selflessness of every action of your life, and the selflessness of everybody else's action.

[34:07]

It will become clear that nothing has independent self. And at the center of that light of clarity is compassion. Now unhindered, by your ideas of what it is and everybody else's ideas of what it is. Unhindered means also not any of your ideas and yet nurtured by all your ideas and nurtured by everybody else's ideas. Everybody's weird ideas about what emptiness is and about what Zen is and about what compassion is, none of them can be found any place and they all contribute to everything. And what I'm saying is a ceremony to help us find Zen or to find Zen meditation, to find happiness

[35:21]

by passing up on seeking it. And you can pass up on seeking it when you realize that you can't find it. So again I would take back, find emptiness is to realize happiness by realizing that you can't find it. To want happiness for all beings and to realize that without seeking and to realize it without seeking because you know that it cannot be found and then it's realized and you want everybody to realize it and you don't seek that because it's already here We are entitled to the pursuit of happiness.

[36:30]

We're entitled to something strenuous. So again, I would like to see us be strenuous without seeking. And it's hard to learn how to exercise strenuously without seeking, but this we need to learn. A lot of people can be not strenuous when they're not seeking. A lot of people can be like, I'm relaxed, I'm not pursuing anything. But to be strenuous and exercise your energy completely with no gaining idea, this is what we're challenged to learn. Yes? Now is okay. Yeah.

[37:40]

You have a question? Lynn has a question and Martha has a question. Is that right, Martha? Okay, so first is Lynn. When you say the self, which is I'm doing this, it's being done by me, but just the self, and all that thought about the self. You study without seeking, and then this other vision comes. And at the beginning you said, purify. Kriya sets it with the pure faith. Yeah, the third pure precept could be translated from Sanskrit as precept of developing, purifying, maturing all beings? Does that have to do with the study of the Self? Does it have to do with the study of the Self?

[38:42]

Yeah. Can you say something more about the study of the Self that's not seeking Can I say something about studying the self where there's not seeking? So if now we're studying the self, we're learning about the self, let's say I'm doing that now, I'm studying the self. How? Yeah, I'm saying non-studying self, the basic way is to pay attention, give close attention to all activities of mind, which I'm aware of. And most people are not actually aware of other people's minds.

[39:44]

You can get into that later, but right now, start basically, before you start giving close attention to what other people's minds are doing, the activity of other people's minds, pay attention to the mind which you can now observe. That's the first step. Now again, you're saying about studying the self, okay? Study of the self is a wisdom practice. Learning about the self is wisdom practice. Learning about the Buddha way, in a sense, is wisdom practice. Buddha way is how to realize compassion, but learning is a kind of wisdom practice. And again, Just want to say, once again, the basic happiness is being absorbed. Basic happiness is a byproduct and the activity of absorption.

[40:47]

So first of all, you're absorbed. Lynn is asking about how to study the self. Okay? Right? That study should be based on absorption. So I'm talking now about studying the self, but remember that it's recommended that you already be absorbed before you start studying. Now let's say you're absorbed, which means you're happy. So in some sense, I would say, if you want to learn the Buddha way, you have to be happy before you can learn it. If you're not happy, you can try to learn it, but I actually recommend that before you try to learn the Buddha way, before you start trying to learn about yourself, first of all, be happy. And how do you be happy? Be absorbed. Be concentrated. Which means to be tranquil, relaxed, and happy.

[41:50]

Well, if I'm happy, why would I want to learn the Buddha way? because you're not completely happy and you notice other people need help, you see they're suffering. And because of compassion, your happiness is not enough. The happiness which comes to you because you're absorbed is not enough. You're happy, but you're also, there's a dent in your happiness. Compassion, the etymology of the word karuna means dented happiness. So you're happy You're compassionate. You're compassionate. Compassionate people are happy. Uncompassionate people are not happy. You're compassionate. You practice absorption. You're happy. Okay? Now, the absorbed, concentrated, happy person is going to start learning about the self. And how do you learn about the self? Now, look at what you're doing.

[42:59]

Pay attention to your activity. Study it. Learn about it. Learn about the mental activity. Learn about how you see yourself in relationship to the world. Now you're studying the self. Learn it out and just watch it and then say, oh. Yeah, that could be it. You watch it and go, oh, I get it. Fabulous. No self here. Yeah. No, no. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yes, yes. That's the way it goes. That's a short version, but that's how it goes. You look at your action and you go, oh, there's no self here. That's the short version. The longer version is you look and you can't, you know, you're concentrated, but you don't see very clearly what's going on. But then you start to notice, oh, yes, there's a mental construction going on here. I see the activity of the consciousness. There's a consciousness here.

[44:01]

There's awareness of a consciousness here that has an activity, and the activity is to construct a kind of representation of a relationship between this body and other bodies. That's the activity that's going on. that I see myself in relationship to other bodies. I see this person in relationship to other persons. That's a mental activity which I'm aware of. learning about the mental activity that we have moment by moment of this body is related to these bodies in certain ways and now in another way and now in another way and now in another way. Every moment there is the activity of creating a picture, a story of my relationship with you and you all are doing that right along with me in your way. Learning about that is studying the self, because the self is in that picture.

[45:05]

And at first when you look, it looks like the self is separate, and then that continues for a while, that you see the self is separate from the other people, or your body is separate from other bodies. My body, other bodies, two. And you practice for a long time, and finally you see my body's other body's not two. So you practice and you notice, oh, I think I'm separate from other people. I think I'm helping some people but not all people. I think some people are helping me but not all people. And as you know, some people look and say, I'm not helping anybody and nobody's helping me. This, of course, is the most horrible situation for human beings. This is hell. And then we want to commit suicide because we see that way and we believe it because we haven't learned about it. Now most of us have not such a terrible picture, so we see that we're helping some people and some people are helping us. It's not totally horrible. The human realm is kind of like that.

[46:08]

Some people are helping me and others aren't. Some people are my friends and others are enemies. That's the human world. Learning about that pattern of consciousness is learning about the self. The more that you study the content, the more the dynamic will be clear. You won't be lost in content. Actually, that's right. You said, the more you study the content, then I was going to say, but it's an activity. The content that we're studying is an activity. But then she said, the more you study the content, the more you see it's dynamic. Did you? That's what I mean. Yeah, that's right. And when you first look at your mental activity, it doesn't look very dynamic. It looks like, as a matter of fact, you may think I'm doing the same thing over and over. When you look at your activity and you see you're doing the same thing over and over and you keep watching, you'll see you're not doing the same thing over and over. You'll see actually your activity is constantly changing. So by giving close attention to studying this in a concentrated state, you get to see that yourself and your activity are not

[47:16]

and not graspable. So you realize the impermanent, selfless nature of all your mental activity, which is basically, that is the type of activity that we're attending to in the process of learning about the self. But you had a short version of it. You look and you say, oh, that's a short version. Just look and you wake up. Some people actually are that fast, but, you know, most people take a little longer. Most people have to have quite a few moments of noticing that they don't get that the Self is not separate. There's a story about the guy, what's his name, Bahiya. Buddha gave him this instruction and like in one minute he got it. and he's the fastest on record of Buddhist disciples. Even his first great disciples, after he gave his first Dharma talk, only one of them got it by the end of the Dharma talk, and the Dharma talk took two sides of one piece of paper rather than just like a paragraph.

[48:32]

And then some of them, it took weeks for them to get it, still that's very fast, as you may have noticed. But anyway, we live, you know, take care of your health and keep studying and you may actually get it before it's too late. You may actually see, oh, oh, there's no separate self in my activity. My activity doesn't really have a separate self. That's the kind of activity I've got here. I think that's enough, I think, from you. Is that okay? No, you don't have to finish. You can stop. Hey, really, you can. I'll help you. Stop. Let's move on to somebody else, shall we? Are you ready? Yeah, that's it. Martha? Okie dokie. Comment first, please. Comment. Yeah.

[49:35]

Strenuous, upright, and sincere. Yeah. Right. Let one be that way. About what? Not seeking. About what? About paying attention to what you're doing. Yeah. Okay. Thank you for the comment. The question is, the word Kriya, is that the same as when it's involuntary movements? I think it's the word for like... Some people use it that way, yes. Yes? I have two cobwebs of misunderstanding that I'd like to do. Also in the Medusita, when we start by saying, may all beings be happy, when we chant that, we are... We are thinking of all beings, not ourself specifically. But with the understanding that our chanting that reciprocates by all beings having us be held.

[50:46]

Okay, very clumsy question. Let me step aside for a minute. I'm thinking about kind of the new age psychology where in the 60s or 70s we were taught, you know, take care of yourself. You know, fine to have everyone else be happy, but make sure you don't step over yourself. And it seems to me this teaching is contrary to that. It's saying that isn't our focus. walk out for yourself, and then you'll have the energy and the space and everything to make sure everyone else is healthy. Okay. It isn't exactly that you have a misunderstanding. It's that you have a question. You have a question there. I see a question. It's a question which seems to come from the confrontation of some different stories about practice. So what I'm saying now I hope doesn't turn into an answer. But just for your information, for example, in the Path of Purification, the Visuddhimagga, when they teach loving-kindness meditation, usually you start with yourself.

[52:03]

May I be happy. May I be free of fear and anxiety. May I be buoyant in body and mind. It starts with the self. in that text. And some Mahayana practitioners, when they hear about, not that text so much, but when they hear about people wishing themselves well for this, that's not Buddhism. Buddhism is about wishing other people's welfare. But I think that partly comes from a culture where the people just naturally wish themselves well. It's like they grow up wishing themselves well. And then Buddhism comes and says, let go of that and now start wishing. They know how to wish themselves well. They grow up in a simple society where it's very clear their mothers love them and they love their mother. They're not so evolved as we are here in America where people say, I hate my mother. My mother is a monster. I don't want to be like my mother. They don't talk like that in some cultures. They're a different place.

[53:06]

So then they teach the people who love themselves because their mother showed them how. They teach them how to love others. But in the Visuddhimagga, It says start with loving yourself. And then it says if you can't love yourself, then pick somebody that you just already kind of love or respect, actually. So start with your teacher, maybe, a teacher that you respect. And then when you can wish your teacher well, then move to yourself. Then when you can do it with yourself, then pick somebody neutral. Then with somebody neutral, pick somebody that you have a kind of affection for. Because if you start wishing people you have affection for, it can turn easily into lust. So you sort of warm up to the people that you just find very attractive by working with yourself and neutral people first. And then start dealing with the people who you feel have hurt you and betrayed you and abandoned you and attacked you and mutilated you.

[54:09]

Then move on to those. And that's, of course, the hardest, generally. But even working with people you're attracted to, it's hard to stay on the loving-kindness and not veer off into something which is not really focused on their welfare. It's focused on you being more with them and having more of them and stuff like that, which is not what loving-kindness is. And then also I think it's pretty clear that thing about the airplane, right? if you're traveling with people who need your assistance, put your own oxygen mask on first. And also the example of the Buddha giving the example of the acrobats, where the father acrobat says to the daughter acrobat, now you take care of me and I'll take care of you. And she says, no teacher, no father, you take care of yourself and then you'll be able to take care of me.

[55:13]

I'll take care of myself. and I'll take care of you." And the Buddha says, the apprentice is right. First, practice four foundations of mindfulness, which means pay attention to your own posture, your own breathing, your own feelings. And when you tune into your body and your feelings now, pay attention to your karma, your action, your intentions. Then you will be able to help others. Now, how do you help others? Then the Buddha goes on to say, how do you help? So if you take care of yourself this way, this is the way of caring for yourself so that you can care for others. Now, how do you take care of others in such a way that it takes care of yourself? It's not the same. It's a little different. Take care of others with nonviolence, loving kindness, and patience. When you relate to others that way, That's the way you take care of others.

[56:16]

And that takes care of yourself. But if you don't take care of yourself, if you don't keep track of your own stories, your own mental activity, then you see others doing various things, like hurting themselves or hurting each other. You see that. But you don't realize that this is your version of what's going on there. If you're not taking care of yourself, say, oh, I have this story that these people are blah, blah. So then you become impatient because you believe this story. Because you're not aware that you're angry at them because of the way you're thinking about them. But when you know, oh, I'm angry with her because of the way I'm thinking about her, hmm, okay, all right, okay, all right. I should be like, you know, restrained here. I'm like somebody who is on the verge of impatience.

[57:21]

It's hard for me to practice loving kindness now because of the way I think about what this person is doing. But this is mindfulness of my own state. This is my awareness of my mental activity. And as I... If I'm absorbed and I... Oh, okay, all right. Yeah. This is the story I have. But here's another story. You know? This is the story I have. Here's another story. The story is that what I'm saying is not really true. What I think about you is not what you are. That's in our story. That's not true either. That's in our story. But it makes me kind of like more in a questioning mode now. So then when I see you, I can say, what are you doing, Tracy? And I say that, you know, not violently, but lovingly and patiently because I actually have confronted my own story with study and other stories. So now I'm more of a question about you. I don't see you as my story.

[58:26]

I see you as... a question and I'm interested because I take care of myself and I'm basically happy. So this early Buddhist teaching is take care of yourself in such a way that you can take care of others and take care of others in such a way that it takes care of you. It goes in both ways. Embrace and sustain others and see how they embrace and sustain you. If you don't see it yet, become calm, concentrated, and joyful, and then study. And learning this is learning the Buddha way. It's not just learning concentration, which is basically part of our job as happy beings is to be absorbed. Then when we're absorbed, then we can go to work and try to practice these precepts. Welcome.

[59:34]

Yes, yes, yes, yes? Just checking in about the use of the word absorbed. You're using it equivalent to concentrated? Yeah, concentrated, tranquil. There are ways that we use it, at least that I'm familiar with, both in ordinary speech and in critical language, literary language, that seems to have a somewhat different meaning. Where, for example, you're so absorbed in thought as you walk down the street that you're not aware of anything around you. Or you're so absorbed in reading a book that you completely go into the book and you're not... aware of your own response to the book or the people in the book. Could you hear her? Your body or anything. Yeah. And that seems contrary to the concentration that you're talking about. No, not really. Not? No. That part of concentration is an abstract exercise, an exercise of abstraction.

[60:34]

Actually, you abstract yourself in some ways. That's the first level of concentration. You actually become centripetal rather than centrifugal. Is there still an awareness of your own body? No? You can get quite concentrated and still be aware, for example, of your own body. You can still be aware that the birds are in the trees. You can still be aware when the bell rings to end the period. You can still hear those things, okay? But there's also, along this, on the continuum of this kind of absorption, is to get to a place where you do not hear the birds anymore. You know, the deepest concentration, you actually are actually... And is that the kind of absorption that you're talking about? Being, you know, not necessarily. You don't have to go that far. But that's the direction you're going. You're going in a direction where you're actually abstracting yourself.

[61:35]

You're becoming centripetal. And you do it long enough so that you feel concentrated, joyful, flexible, and like really totally upbeat about studying what you're up to. I think my puzzlement is that this, what I'm thinking of as a different sense of absorption is kind of not in the present moment. I mean, it's in the mind. Mindless. Well, it might be very mentally active, but it's not physically concentrated. I don't know exactly how to... For example, if you were like... I'm writing this forward for a book about the work of Paul Disko, my drummer brother who is a carpenter and a builder, right? And his training in Japan was for a long time, he spent a long time just sharpening tools.

[62:41]

Months and months just sharpening tools. And also like months and months just planing boards, planing boards, planing boards. And you're planing them in such a way that you... I remember he wrote me a letter one time talking about these silky little curls that come off the plane, you know? These like cloud-like shavings flying through the air. totally concentrated, in touch with the body, and totally absorbed, and very happy carpenter. Okay? Totally in touch with the physicality and, you know, so that the different halves of the shaving are equal thickness, that kind of thing. And you do that for months and months until you can make these of a certain thickness. Even beautiful shavings will show in the shavings, show in the tool, show in the board.

[63:44]

Okay? However, you can go further in this where you put down your shaving equipment and just do it inwardly and where you would actually eventually be entirely cut off to the physical world. There is a concentration which is called formless absorption where actually the physical world is turned off. It's a deeper concentration. And you could say it's mindless if you want to. It's actually like mindless. The human beings have the potential to get that concentrated, where the mind almost gets turned off. The Buddha actually did that exercise. However, I'm not saying you have to go that far. I'm just saying that is the direction of becoming completely attending to what's happening. You are completely in the present, so much so that you wouldn't be able to drive a car or plane aboard or hear the bell. These are special states and there's a tradition for how to take care of people who are in those states and we don't have them driving chariots or even hybrid vehicles.

[64:54]

No heavy equipment or sharp objects being handled by these people at that time. and people are watching out for them in that state, they're fine, just they're not walking around in that state. The Buddha could do that. However, insight is usually done in not such a concentrated state. But if you can be in that concentrated state and come back to, in some sense, less abstracted, because insight work is not abstract meditation, it's engaging meditation. You're actually going towards the world and meeting it and trying to meet it in an upright and strenuous way. Is that clear enough? Yeah, I'm still somewhat uneasy with the ordinary usage of absorption because I understand it thoroughly as you speak of it as long as we call it concentration. But as soon as we call it absorption, this static comes in from somewhere. Well, when you're feeling more concentrated, you can maybe deal with the word absorption. Well, it's all right. I'll live with it.

[65:58]

I know you'll live with it, but I mean happily. Oh, happily. Yes, Roberta, you're next. If you still want to say something. Comments, fine, yeah. Okay. Okay. to put together this recommendation about taking care of oneself with this idea of pursuing happiness, which does seem to... Do you say, taking care of yourself without pursuing happiness? Is that what you said? Yeah, I think often they get confused. And then, you know, often I think in my life or people I know, people actually... Yeah, they get confused. They're trying to make themselves happy. Right. Yeah, and so I guess just what struck me when you make this is that the reason you're trying to make yourselves happy doesn't work is because we're not open to everything that's available in the moment.

[67:10]

When we take care of ourselves moment by moment, we're more available to what is arising in the moment. We have an idea about what makes us happy. It kind of shuts out the universe, actually. if we have an idea and hold on to it as something other than an idea, then that causes us stress. It's okay to have ideas just if you don't cling to them as what, you know, what they're about. Thank you. Anyway, I just wanted to bring out this, I don't know what distinction between taking the world outside and trying to do what we think Right. Well, again, I'm suggesting that what makes us happy is basically not to be thinking about what makes us happy very much, but actually thinking about what you're doing right now.

[68:12]

And start by doing it in just a concentrated way, and then when you're concentrated and buoyant and happy, then start looking at the nature of what you're doing. In other words, study it, learn about it, after you're undistracted. When you're in an undistracted state, then check out the nature of your activity, the way your activity... learn about what your activity really is. And the prediction is that you will eventually learn that your activity is not something you're doing by yourself, but something you're doing in concert with all enlightened and unenlightened beings. Yes? Something you said to Tracy to think about impatience coming from the stories that we tell ourselves. To me, that was like you threw me a lifeline. A lifeline? Yeah. OK, so you threw me a lifeline, and I want to grab it. And I think that's maybe not the best way to do it.

[69:17]

Yeah, I agree. Well, generally speaking, when somebody throws you a lifeline, rather than grabbing it, you might just say, thank you. Yeah, that's enough. Thank you. And then use it without any grasping. You want to engrave it? Yeah, well, then engrave it without seeking to engrave it. Remember some teachings. recite certain teachings and watch to see if there's any seeking. And if there's any seeking, confess the seeking and see if you feel bad about the seeking. And you might start to feel bad about the seeking because you might notice the seeking is undermining the teaching which is a life-promoting teaching, you might notice the seeking is antithetical. And the more you see the antithesis operating, the closer your body and mind get ready to let go of the seeking part of working with something that's beneficial.

[70:23]

In the meantime, you have what we call confession and repentance to do with that. So it's a practice for us when we're when we're not using the teachings in an upright way, is that we notice, this isn't quite upright the way I'm working with this teaching. I like this teaching and I'm kind of like keeping it for me, rather than, oh, there's a teaching like that in the world? This copy could help a lot of people. That's fabulous. And then someone would say, well, Karen, aren't you overlooking somebody? You might lose this thing if you don't remember to keep it for yourself. You go, oh, yeah, that's right. Well, actually, I don't care. I just feel great that there's this teaching in the world. And I'm thinking about it all the time, but I'm not thinking about it for my happiness. However, when I think about it, I'm happy. And I am thinking about it and I am happy and I'm not doing it to get happy. I'm just a kind of a girl. When you're meditating on this, on your nature, when you actually see it and are meditating on it, you will be happy and when you understand it,

[71:48]

it will be natural not to seek, and before you understand, there probably will be some, we will be at risk of seeking. But not always seeking. Sometimes, even before you understand it, you somehow take a break. The world makes you a person who, for some reason or other, is not trying to get anything out of life for a moment. It's kind of like, wow, what a nice relief to actually experience something without trying to get anything. It happened just now. How great! It can happen. When you understand, it will be that way all the time. You'll be doing good things without trying to get anything out of them. Before that, you will be doing things sometimes without trying to get anything out of them. And sometimes, and so you can just feel happy that you're doing something that's good and also you're not even trying to get anything. is doing it because it's good, you're doing good to do good, period.

[72:53]

That can happen because everybody's helping you and wants that to be realized by each of us. But sometimes we're doing something perfectly good and we're doing it to try to get something, so we ruin it. Not completely, but just a little bit at least. We put this little pollution in there of seeking which is antithetical to the happiness. Now if you want to be unhappy, then seeking really goes well with it. It totally helps it a lot. So then if we notice that we have this element of seeking and grasping, then we confess that and repent that. And we evolve out of it more and more over the years, which is kind of a timing thing we do. on our life, you know, years, weeks, days, stuff like that, hours, lunchtime, that kind of thing. So we could stop now and have lunch or we can go on till indefinitely.

[73:55]

Some people have their hands raised, but should we hear from some people now? One more, two more, three more, four more, how many more questions? Two? Four? Opportunity after lunch? Oh, there'll be another session this afternoon. It'll be a little bit more about, it'll be more on the kind of like the wisdom side. It'll be good, but then there'll be questions about that too. So these questions might not be apropos. But anyway, how many people want to allow two more questions? Okay, how many people want four more questions? How many people want three more questions? How many people want two more questions? Two is most popular. How many people want one more question? How many people want no more questions?

[75:01]

I think two is actually most popular. So two questions, two more questions, and who are the two? That's the tricky part. There's two. Well, how many people want to have a question? One, two? Is it just two? Okay, let's have two. You don't have to tell us the question. Just ask it. Thank you. A sense I get is that the problem with seeking is that it's based on an illusion. First of all, it's the illusion that you don't already have it, which is an illusion. And secondly, that there's something there to seek, which is an illusion. Is that true? Is it true? It's an illusion that there's something there to seek? In other words, if I'm seeking something, it assumes I don't already have it. Well, the second part, you said you're assuming something's there.

[76:04]

Yeah, in other words, if I'm seeking something, it means that there's something here to seek it, and that's not true. Well, now you're adding that onto it. So there's an illusion that there's somebody there to seek it, and there's an illusion that there's something there to seek. You're saying that? The illusion is that I don't already have it. There's something that I don't have that I need to seek. Well, that's a separate thing, though, that you don't already have it. So one is that there's something to be... You could seek something that you already have. People can do that. But anyway, the thing about that it's there to seek, that's an illusion, but also it would be an illusion that it's not there to seek. That would also be an illusion. Both of those are illusions. So those are illusions, and that's an illusion that can be the basis of seeking. Also that you don't have something could be the basis of seeking it too. That's what you said before. That's what you said. Right? That's right. Those could be illusions that would lead you to seek something that you already have.

[77:10]

And without them, you could want something without seeking it. You could want to be what you are without seeking it. You could desire that you would realize it without seeking it. You could desire that other people realize it without seeking it. And it could be a natural expression of that nature which you are. So desire is different than seeking. Yeah, we can say that, that Buddhists have desire. But what do they desire? They desire that people will have wisdom. That's what they desire. But they don't seek it because people already have it. It's just that they don't understand it. And they desire that they understand it without seeking. Yes? That last little bit might be helpful.

[78:16]

Mm-hmm. It might be. I've been working with a lot of fear. And when I work with loving-kindness, with this fear, may I be happy, may I be free from fear, there's a bit of seeking to not be fearful. And so I'm in this seeking. And what I just Wherever I go, there's fear. Excuse me, I think you got a little distracted there. You were saying there's some seeking in the desire to be... Free from fear.

[79:23]

I thought you were going to say, but you didn't. I thought you were going to say, but when I just desire to be free of fear, when I just do that, wholeheartedly, I get a break from seeking it. So part of learning this meditation is an absorption. It's an absorption in the wish to be happy. Absorbs mean you're just in the wishing to be happy. You're so into it, there's no seeking. So that's absorption or concentration practice. It gives you a break from seeking. If you seek, in concentration practice, the seeking is antithetical to the resting where you are. So in the resting, may I be free from fear? And is it possible to be free from fear? Actually, yes, it is possible to be free of fear. Yes.

[80:24]

And also it is possible to learn to wish to be free of fear with no seeking. And becoming absorbed or concentrated is when you can wish for something Period. Just do the wish. Wish, wish, wish, wish, wish. Without thinking about, you know, when's it going to happen, or what if it will happen? You're actually in the thing of wishing that you will be happy. You're in that right there, I wish I would be happy. And that's it. In other words, you're concentrating there. And I'm also feeling fear while I'm doing that. You might be feeling fear. However, As you get more and more concentrated, you feel more and more relaxed being afraid. You feel more flexible. So it's possible to be actually somewhat relaxed while you're afraid, and to be able to move around and jump up and down while you're afraid, and also be aware that you're afraid.

[81:26]

Now this is something that I'm talking about myself, wishing myself to be free from fear. Yeah. And if you have trouble doing it, then again, it sometimes takes somebody easier then. Like, wish it for somebody who's kind of really well off. Like, wish it for the Buddha. You say, well, the Buddha's already that way. Okay, go ahead and wish it anyway. Wish it for a kind of fairly well-developed teacher. You have trouble doing it for yourself. When I do it for myself, I get all into seeking and stuff. Well, wish it for somebody who's already got it. Just to get into the mode. I wish she would be happy. I wish she would be buoyant. Well, she already is. I still go ahead. I wish she would be buoyant. I wish she'd be free of anxiety. Well, she already is. Stay on track here. And pretty soon you get into wishing it without arguing with yourself. You know, like, well, you know, there's some corruption here. Just go back to, you know, no. And then finally you can turn on yourself. A straightforward, unadulterated good wish for yourself.

[82:30]

Some goodwill towards yourself. Period. With no kind of like frills or distractions. Just, I wish, I actually do wish I was happy. My God, I do. One hundred percent. I wish, yeah, I do wish I would be buoyant and relaxed. Yeah, I do. I'm still afraid, but I wish this. I do wish this, even though I'm still afraid. No question about it. One can learn that. That's ceremony. That's a ceremony of loving-kindness. You say those words over and over until finally there's loving-kindness for yourself or for somebody that's easy to do it with. in the right way. And then you move to somebody who's neutral. Okay, may she be happy. Well, what do I care about this? I don't really... May she be happy, this person who I don't really care about. May she be happy, this person I don't... Why her?

[83:32]

May she be happy. May she be... Why should she get my... Oh yeah, because I'm trying to create loving-kindness in this world by this exercise program. This is not the loving kindness. This is the exercise program. And pretty soon you actually feel loving kindness for this person who you don't really care about. And suddenly you care about somebody you didn't care about. And then you go to move it to somebody that you can easily care about, but you can care about in a selfish, greedy way. And you can do it and wish them well without getting anything back. You just wish them well, even if you never see them again. Never see them again? Wait a minute. I want to see him again. That's not the issue right now. The issue right now is wish them well. Anyway, move back and find some place where you could finally just wish somebody well, period. And just do it until you learn how to do it. That's all. And it's not easy.

[84:33]

to simply be concentrated and just wish somebody well. Wish somebody to be buoyant and joyful and free of anxiety. Free means it's not bothering them that much. They're not completely enlightened yet, but you wish them well. And if you're in the wishing to wish somebody well, you're kind of in the seeking. No. You could also say, I wish that I would learn how to do this without seeking. Is seeking just concern for the outcome? Seeking is basically being distracted and deluded. That's what it is. It's a delusion to seek anything, basically. How are you meaning that it's different from wish or desire? How are you defining that? Well, you can say seek outcome, but that's a distraction, you know? Yeah. What would be another distraction? Is that the basic distraction, seeking the outcome? Well, seeking an outcome or wishing things would be different, you know, and being attached to them, not, you know, being different from this, rather than concentrating on this.

[85:37]

I wish this person would be happy, okay, rather than wish this person would not be this person. Because that turns into, like, I stop appreciating the person I'm wishing well to. And then after a while, I feel, you know, again, I lose my patience with you because I'm wishing you well and you're not getting well. So the seeking, you can tell the difference between seeking and wishing somebody well because if you wish them well without the seeking, you can wish them well and do it again because it's joyful to wish them well when you wish them well in a concentrated, unseeking way. You love to do it. It's good for you and eventually will be good for them when they learn how to do it too. In the meantime, they're not learning how, they're suffering, they're not learning this meditation. You're wishing them well. But you're not seeking anything, so you can do it again. If you start seeking things, you stop, would like to move on to a better student. Or, you know, somebody who's more likely to be well.

[86:39]

Then you trash this person, because you lose your patience with them. With acceptance, then. You can wish with acceptance of the current situation. Yeah, it would be with acceptance, yeah. Simon Weil defined acceptance as wishing what is. Simone Weil defined acceptance as wishing for what is. Desiring what is. Desiring what is, yeah. And that's very similar to desiring that beings will enter Buddha's wisdom. Buddha's wisdom is what is. We desire that. But we don't seek anything there. Buddha's wished that for everybody, that everybody will wake up and enter Buddha's wisdom, but no seeking. Therefore, they never get impatient with people in their realized state. Before realization, you might get impatient with people who have not realized Buddha's wisdom. I've done this a thousand times.

[87:41]

Don't you get this yet? This is a sign that you've been seeking a little bit. A person would get this. Little do you know that they've been assigned to you specially by Buddha. Really? Really? This is like my special assignment? This person refuses after all these years to learn this point? Really? Really? To be with people who are wondering who I'm talking about right now? I wonder if he's talking about me. I think there's one guy who was being a big challenge for the community, and the community finally got rid of him. And Gurdjieff ran after him and said, I'll pay you to stay. Okay, well now it's 12.45.

[88:50]

Would you like a bog? How long do you want for lunch? An hour? Ten minutes? What? Huh? Hour? Okay. Hour? What? What did you say? You said 45? Anybody who wants to come back and start sitting in less than an hour is welcome to do so. But I probably won't ring any bells or invite people back until 1.45. Okay? And because there's so many people, I feel like we probably won't have a work period unless I hear a major rebellion about that. It's just hard to find work for all of you today. But things are in pretty good shape, so maybe it's okay if we don't have a work period. Then if you want to do any work, though, on your lunch break, let me know. There aren't any work to do. Just not enough for 40 people. Okay? Okay? May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[90:00]

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