...that she lost her short-term memory. And I thought, well, you may have, but you aren't quite aware of what's going on now. And I thought that, and I said, I had that story, and I told that story, I told her that, that she's quite aware of what's going on now. And then I said something like, young people, my experience of young people, I have a story about them, that they have very good short-term memory. They can tell you in minute detail things that happened like two months ago or two weeks ago or a year ago, but they're not very aware of what's going on right now.

[01:02]

If you ask them, they're shocked at the question. What? Nothing. But they're actually, they're registering, actually, partly because they're registering so much, they're kind of like, they're quite unconscious of what's going on. However, later, they have tremendous amount of information about what was going on when they didn't know anything about what was going on. And that led to a discussion of Alzheimer's. And I've mentioned a number of times that I keep thinking, for what kind of practice will I be able to enjoy if I have Alzheimer's? So I'm trying to have a practice now that I would be able to have when I have Alzheimer's. For example, try to practice now not being able to remember anything about my past or being able to give up my stories about my past and be ready to give up the story I have now about what's going on now.

[02:24]

Tune into giving up stories and his stories and her stories. Train in giving them up So that when you can't do that anymore anyway, when you can't remember any of your stories anyway, you can just say, what's the story now? And somebody might say, who are you? And you say, well, tell me a story about me. Or, I'm sitting here with you. How long have you been sitting here with me? I'm only here with you now. That's all I know. Maybe I've been sitting talking to you for ten minutes. I don't know. I mean, I could say I have been, but I don't know. Really. Now, can you say that now, while you still think you know how long you've been talking to me? Can you really say, well, I don't really know how long I've been talking to you.

[03:27]

Or maybe you do have a story that you've been talking to me for a certain amount of time, but you've let go of it. It's almost like you really have let go of it and you're really just here with me and here with me and here with me. And I remember this, I read this story, one of Oliver Sacks' stories about a man who, I guess he was an alcoholic, and at the time of writing the article, the man was 49 years old and the last memory he had was when he was, I think, 19 and he was in the Navy. He was living in a convent, a Catholic convent, like this at the time of the article about him. And if you asked him how old he was, he would tell you he was 19 and that he was in the Navy. And if you asked him where he was now, he would say, I'm in a convent.

[04:37]

If you asked him how come he was in the convent, he would say, I don't know, he might have a story about, well, they gave me a job here as a typist, which they did. And he could type, he could remember the length of a sentence. If you sat down with him and you said... If you sat down with him, you'd say, Hi, my name's Gary. And you'd say, Hi, my name's Reb. And he'd say, Hi, Reb. And then a few minutes later, he might say, Hi, I'm Gary. Hi, Reb. Nice to meet you, Reb. And Oliver Sacks did this thing, which he said he regretted doing, but he did it anyway.

[05:45]

He took a mirror and put it to the guy's face. And the guy looked in the mirror and saw this 49-year-old. And he was really horrified to see a 49-year-old in this mirror. He expected to see a 19-year-old. I don't know if he ran into some mirrors around the convent and had that same experience, but anyway. He might have just looked in the mirror and thought, that's not me, and moved on. But it was right in his face, and he was just really shocked. However, just a few moments later, he forgot the terrible experience of seeing the 49-year-old when he was back at 19. So for 30 years, he had 30 years of no memory. However, he had 30 years of experiences of the present. He was experiencing the present moment by moment. And the nuns said, the sisters said, that when he was in communion, he was remarkably present.

[06:55]

More present than, they didn't say this, but more present than almost any teenager. who's not paying attention to the communion but looking around at the other kids or whatever, and worried about what they're thinking, and not actually being right there with this body in communion. But he was there, and it's the only place he could be. So to some extent, training to be like him and entering into that way of practicing will help us if we ever get to the place where we can't remember what happened a few minutes ago. The one difference between the way I would like to practice, the practice I would like to become in him, is that I would not be holding to the position that I'm 19, or 49, or 65, or 92. If somebody asked me how old I was, and I said, 92, and they said, no, you're not, you're 107, I'd say, hey, thanks for that one.

[08:10]

I owe you one. And also, if you're that way, and not attached to your old stories as being true, the ones you remember from a long time ago, not attached to the, you know. When I was 19, I joined the Navy. No, you didn't. I didn't. If you can be like that, then young people who can remember stories about a few seconds ago, they'll come and hang around with you. Because they want to learn how to be flexible, because they know that they're overly concerned about all the stories they can remember. And then if you need any stories, they can tell you stories about yourself. They can say, yesterday you came to visit us in the playground. And a few minutes ago you had dinner, so you don't have to have another one. Yeah, come to think of it, I kind of feel like I had dinner. You're right. Or you didn't have dinner. I didn't? I thought I did. No, you didn't. Okay.

[09:12]

So they can tell you stories about recent events. And it's not exactly that their stories are better than yours, they're just more recent. Because you can't remember what happened yesterday. Once again, to enter into the practice of forgetting your story, which means forgetting your intention, you'll be able to do that right in the last moment of your life, no matter what happens.

[10:13]

You'll be able to do that if you get good at that. You always will have a story. But if you are in the habit of holding on to your stories and having a... I don't know what... Yeah, holding on to your stories, then as things move forward, you'll have more and more trouble holding on to them. Which is, again, part of... pressure on us to let go of our stories. And the other thing, this is the big thing, is in order to be able to be happy and awake and fearless when you can't remember what happened a moment ago, you need to be skillful at paying attention to what's happening now.

[11:20]

You and I will not be able to let go of our story and be satisfied with just having the present one and then be happy to let go of it. We won't be able to do that unless we pay attention to present ones. So if you don't pay attention to your stories and then you start losing control of them, you'll just get more and more scared. But if you pay attention to them for the sake of letting go of them, then when they're taken from you, you'll be able to turn them into gifts, rather than feeling like you're robbed of your facilities. Or if people don't agree with you about your stories, that won't be a problem for you. You'll still know what your story is, but you won't be stuck to it. So in order to let go of our stories, our actions, our intentions, our karma, we need to study.

[12:24]

Otherwise we'll keep trying to hold on to them, and then again, when it comes time that they have to be let go of, in other words, when we either let go of them and they get torn from us, we'll get scared, we'll lose them anyway, but we'll be unhappy and frightened. Rather than letting them go, and letting anybody come and tell us our story. And be happy to receive anybody telling us our story as much as we would be able to tell a story ourselves of who we are. And other people can... And we sometimes would have trouble telling our story now without our history. We do have a history, but we let go of it. So now how can we have a story having let go of a history?

[13:28]

We can't. How can we tell a story holding on to a history? We can't. We need to learn how to not hold on to our history as we tell our story. And then other people can tell our story letting go of our history or holding our history. Either way is okay. We feel sorry if they're holding onto our history in any kind of attachment. But if they just use our history without attachment, they can tell us. Or they can not use our history. They can meet us. We can meet someone, and they can tell us a story right now without knowing anything about our history. Of course, they do know our history because they can see our face. And our history is right there. But there's millions of histories in our face. So, do you have any stories you want to tell me now? Do you have any... You want to tell me who I am?

[14:32]

I just crawled through. Crawling is fine. Would it be okay if I ask a question sort of related to this morning's? Sure. What happened this morning? I kind of think it was about, we were talking about intention and stories, both. And I'm interested in, if you might want to share something about, is vow exactly the same thing as intention? You talk about vow in Buddhism? It's a little different. I would say it has a different usage. We usually don't say, I vow to have lunch. Sometimes people say, I vow to go to sleep tonight.

[15:34]

Some people who are really agitated, they say, I vow to go to sleep, or I pray that I will be lost. Anyway, we usually say, I vow to brush my teeth. But at some point, some people who have problems brushing their teeth might have to vow So I think vow means you're really wanting to do something. And it might be something you don't know if you'll be able to do, but you really want to on some level. But vow and intention are basically very closely related. And so is prayer. Prayer is related to vow. Very close. So the world, in some texts it says, some texts in the Buddhist tradition it says, where does the world come from? The world is the consequence of the intentions, actually it says the actions, the actions and vows are the actions and aspirations of all living beings.

[16:40]

That's what creates the world. physical world, and the living world. So it says vows, aspirations, intentions, actions, all those things. They're all the same, but they have slightly different usage. There's one of the vows that's kind of intimidating to me, and I think we've talked about this before, it's the bodhisattva vow, where we say, you know, I vow to save all beings, you know. And... It kind of reminds me, like, we went on this peace march in Washington, D.C., you know, and our intention as the Buddhist peace delegation was to get our government to change the way it relates to... That was your intention. Maybe that was my intention. That wasn't some of the people's intention. And yet I don't feel like I can necessarily accomplish, I mean, make that effect. I don't think magically my intention will make that happen.

[17:43]

Or maybe it will, I don't know. Well, your intention influences the way the world goes. But other people have other intentions, and they do too. Right. So, yeah. But some of the people who went on the beast march were not going there to get the government to change its policies. They were going there to save all sentient beings, some of the people. Some of the people were going there to see Washington, you know. a lot of different intentions. And everybody's intention, my story is, my intention is to tell you that everybody's intention was changing from the time they left their home every moment of the way to Washington and back. Their intentions were constantly changing. I don't know how much they were observing that. But, you know, the person I wrote this statement for today, for the stepping down ceremony, Lynn met that person in Washington. When you met that person and when you saw her, your intention was not to get the government to change its policy.

[18:46]

Your intention was to say hello to her. When you told her about knowing me, your intention was not to get the government to change its policy. However, talking to somebody about knowing me in Washington maybe will change the government's policy. I don't know. Anyway, everything you did on that trip influenced the world. And many things you did, many of your intentions on that trip were not about getting the government to change its policy. Some of them were. Some of them weren't. And some other people had a whole variety, a vast variety, of related and not-so-related intentions during that whole excursion they took to go to Washington. But there's an endless variety of of positive aspirations, each one has consequence. Thank you. Everything you do has consequence, though. You know, everything you do changes the government.

[19:52]

I say, everything you do, everything I do, changes the U.S. government, changes the Chinese government, changes the French government, changes the Iraqi government. That's the implication of enlightenment. Everything you do has consequences on everything. If you pay attention to what you're doing, pay attention to what you're thinking, then what you do will have a more and more positive influence on everything else. Whether you look or not, you're actually influencing and assisting all beings. The more you look, the more you understand that, and the more you understand that, the more other beings come closer to understanding that. Thank you. Not all that. Could you share your statement?

[20:55]

Share it more? The statement for Linda Ruth. Oh, share the statement for Linda Ruth? It occurred to me when you mentioned it. I could, yeah. But it's hard for me to share it with you without reading it. But maybe later. But maybe later, yeah. I would also like to share... So I called my wife because she's a good friend of the abbess's, and I wanted her to hear it before. So she read it, and she thought it was okay. Then she read me hers. which was really amazingly good and wonderful. She says, after she finished, she says, was it okay? I'm not supposed to be telling you this. Was it okay? And I said, well, a little bit more than okay. She says, somewhere between okay and good? And I say, a little bit way, way beyond good. I said, it's just terrific.

[21:56]

She said, it makes me feel like she didn't even read mine after this. But mine is different. Mine is the statement of the teacher, which is, you know, not so cool. But anyway, hers is the statement of a friend and a sister, which in a way is a lot juicier. But I guess somebody speaks from the vertical position of the ancients and looks down upon this wonderful person and says, yes, they're carrying on the way. Another one talks about what it's like really being in there with her. So my wife's thing was, she's such a good writer and such a good person. And so hers is just a stupendous. And you can read about that probably in the Wind Bell or something. We'll probably publish it. Any other, anybody else want to tell me who I am?

[23:03]

I've been reading about meditation and practicing some form of it for a number of years, but this is the first time that I've spent time with someone talking about meditation and about Zen. And I've been experimenting with what it is I think you are offering to us. And what I find during the meditation is that I am very, very busy. I'm busy paying attention to my story. I'm busy paying attention to the story behind my story. I'm busy paying attention to whole host of other stories that show up and wondering what my intention is with them showing up. And I am now wondering whether that kind of busyness was what you intended.

[24:29]

Would you stay here for a little while? I appreciate you telling that story. I didn't exactly intend the busyness, but now I would say that in order to most effectively contemplate your intentions, it's good to do so calmly. And, yeah, calmly. So I guess I would suggest that you have an unbusy observer of the busy scene of your intention. Now, I would say also that your report to me I hear as a story of someone who is quite calm looking at a busy scene.

[25:35]

Sometimes that's true. And during the meditation, sometimes, now that you say that, that actually was my experience. And other times, especially if I close my eyes, busyness showed up. And sometimes, there is truth to what you're saying. That I calmly attended to my busyness. Or the busyness. The story that I had made up before I came here

[26:57]

was that meditation at its best was all stories going away and simply being in some non-storied place. Yeah, and I think a lot of people think That's what meditation is. It's like all stories and busyness gone. And, see, there is that type of meditation where these stories are eliminated, and where even all discrimination is eliminated. There are such states. But that's not nondiscriminating wisdom. Because in those states, as soon as the discrimination comes back, one can be caught again. However, sometimes those states have great tranquility associated with them.

[28:06]

Now, to bring that tranquility to bear upon discriminations and intentions, then one can realize nondiscrimination through studying the discrimination. So I could have told you at the beginning, which I didn't, the practice of tranquility. I could have talked about that, but I chose to go right into a practice of wisdom, wisdom instruction. To talk about karma and intention is to bring these up and encourage you to look at action, to look at intention, I'm encouraging you to do wisdom practice. I hope and I hoped that there's a good chance that if I'm calm while I tell you about looking at the busyness, you will pick up from my body

[29:19]

that I'm calmly looking at the busyness. And that generally speaking, people who are not calm do not recommend looking at busyness. Or put another way, people who are caught up in the busyness and not being calm are not usually the people who tell you to look at the busyness. Busy people are actually often telling you to look for calm, or to get busier. But I'm not telling you to get more busy or less busy. I'm saying, I'm not busy, and let's look at the busyness. And you did. But you weren't, until you reported me and I accused you of being calm, you didn't notice that you wouldn't have been able to tell me what you told me if you weren't fairly calm. And meditation practice you thought was meditation before, actually you probably have been doing, which helped you be able to look at the busyness and just see it as busyness, rather than perhaps getting upset about seeing busyness.

[30:32]

But the other type of meditation you mentioned is a type of meditation, and a lot of people think that is meditation. So I think it's most common for people in America today, when they hear about meditation, to think that meditation means tranquility meditation, which is an authentic and important dimension. When they hear about insight meditation, they actually might say, oh, that sounds like thinking. Yes. That sounds like busyness. Yes. Storytelling, that sounds busy. Yes. So I'm saying to you, Not every moment are you in touch with your tranquility, but it's there. And not every moment are you in touch with your busyness, but it's there. So I always suggest you get in touch with your tranquility and then get in touch with your busyness.

[31:39]

We can get attached to tranquility and we can get attached to busyness. I would suggest not getting attached to either. Thank you. There's a story about busyness too, a famous Zen story. two monks who were Dharma brothers, one was sweeping the ground, sweeping the ground, sweeping the ground, and the other one comes up to him and says, too busy. And the one, the accused said, you should know that there's one who's not busy. And then the accuser... You are?

[32:46]

Even right now? You would like me to speak up? Well, any time you want me to speak up, go like this. Or maybe like this. And also, if somebody's talking to me up here and you can't hear them, go like this. Awesome. Speak up. OK? What? You're too loud. Yeah, you're too loud. And if I talk too much, you can go like this. If you want more, go like this. If you want me to leave, go like that. So, one's sweeping the ground, and he's accused of being too busy. And he says to the accuser, you should know there's one who's not busy. And the accuser says, does that mean there's two moons? And the one... who the accused raises his broom up and said, which moon is this?

[33:48]

And the other one walked off. So, if you say, I'm busy, I say, you should know there's one who's not busy. If you say, you're not busy, I would say, you should know there's one who's busy. You should know both. Which one is this? Is this the busy one or the not-busy one? And sometimes people, when they hear the teaching of give close attention to all your actions, And it will become clear that nothing at all has an inherent self. And they try to pay close attention to their actions.

[34:59]

Sometimes they come and talk to me and they're agitated in the process of trying to look at their actions. And I sometimes say, I think it's time for you not to... Right now, don't look at your actions anymore. Just don't look at your thinking anymore. Don't look at your thinking anymore. Don't look at your busyness anymore. Just let go of your thinking. Let go of your thinking. Let go of your stories. Let go of your discursive thought. You're not calm enough to look at your thinking right now. And then they do that, come back later and they're calm, and they say, well, can I start looking at my thinking again? I say, yeah, and they do. And then if they start doing it, they become agitators, let go. So there's many stories, many Zen stories of the monk coming to see the teacher, the teacher saying, you know, basically, go back and calm down. You're not ready to deal with this stuff yet.

[36:00]

So there's a danger in me coming to talk to you about this stuff that you might become agitators. But you don't go from calm to awakening, because this stuff's interfering. And we have to study this stuff in order to open to awakening. We have this expression, in stillness, mind and object merge in realization. I thought of that just a few minutes ago when I was in the spiritual direction room. Did you see this spiritual direction move? It's got candy kisses in it. That's a story, but if you come with me, I can give you a candy kiss. And in the room, on the inside of the door of the room, it says, I think, in stillness, I am God, or something like that.

[37:12]

And then I thought, in stillness, mind and object merge in realization. In stillness, you see the story, the intentions of yourself and others. You see yourself in a relationship, in your stories. When you calm down, you see the stories of your relationship the world, you see the relationships in your mind and what you know, you see that. In that stillness, you see the story, the elements of the story lose their independent existence. You see the self and other are inseparable. You see mind and object are inseparable. They kind of merge in realization of that. Any other feedback right now?

[38:39]

You said earlier this morning, and I hope I got this right, that in enlightenment, non-discriminating wisdom comes in and speaks to discriminating consciousness? Is that right? It's not that you got it right, it's just that that's what you said. Okay. Well, if it makes sense, could you speak more about it? I think that makes sense to me, that in enlightenment, when one realizes enlightenment, one enters into enlightenment, that enlightenment can talk using using speech and using discrimination to talk to discriminating consciousnesses, and to encourage discriminating consciousnesses to study, to learn about their discrimination process in order to be not caught by it. Which means also that nondiscriminating wisdom has a voice which can adopt the language of various beings

[39:47]

to indicate to them how to look at their discriminations and notice if they're caught by them. So the non-discriminating wisdom talks to the discriminating consciousness and says, I invite you to tell me a story. And then this consciousness, this discriminating consciousness tells a story, and this consciousness says, do you see where you were caught? And this person may say, No, I don't see where I'm caught. And this one says, You're caught right there. And this one says, No, I'm not. Do you see where you're caught now? Yes. Can you catch another one now? No, you can't. You say you can't, right? Are you caught by that you can't? Yes. Okay, I got one. So now, can you now track them now? And the person says, I think so.

[40:48]

And then they try that, and then they talk again. And the person reports that they noticed all these times that they're caught. And the more they notice they're caught and experience what that's like, the closer they get to not be caught. So in that way, non-discriminating wisdom uses discriminations back to discriminating Consciousness to help discriminating consciousness become released from itself. So, yeah. Yes? Yesterday you said something about sickness And a very good friend of mine is very sick and has a long road ahead of her

[42:10]

And clearly in my discriminating mind there are many intentions that arise. Flight. I wish this person wasn't my friend. I wish this person would get better tomorrow. I wish this person would get better tomorrow. Can you hear now? Can you hear me? No. And you said something else. So all these intentions have arisen in your mind? They all arise. And then you said something that resonated with me yesterday. It said that the sickness is a way in which this person helps you. And I understand that. And there is a part, I think, you don't intend that, but where compassion arises. and dispersing sickness opens you up to that.

[43:13]

But it does not replace that discriminating mind. It just sits with it. So I don't know where I can put that in terms of awareness, that I have my friend who I love who is sick, who I wish wasn't sick, That's one place. They're sick. She's sick and you wish she wasn't. Rather than she's sick, you accept that she's sick and you want her to be well. It's slightly different. Right. I accept that she's sick. I mean, the least you owe somebody is to respect that. Exactly. You're respecting her sickness and you accept that and you show her that if you can respect it and you can accept it, then maybe she can. Yes. So you can show her that. You can also make it harder for her by not accepting it and show another person who's not accepting it because she's having trouble probably.

[44:24]

Yes. So you can help her that. And you can still definitely wish that she would become free of this illness and healthy even. Yes. No problem with that. People have trouble with that. They can't understand how you could want something for someone without seeking something. Right. Compassion does not seek, it just wants welfare of people. It doesn't seek anything other than this. Because sometimes they don't get well. Exactly. And then you want to stop visiting them. Then you want to fly away. The person you love most you want to get away from. Because you're seeking there would be something different. So it's necessary that you give up the seeking in order that you can hang in there with her no matter what. That I understand. In fact, one thing I became aware of that the intentional aspect was really my emotional and discursive mind interacting.

[45:29]

But the understanding has sickness and and how compassion arises in it, and even it provides a great opportunity for her too. That arises spontaneously, and that's really what my question is about. Is there any intentionality at all, or is it the antithesis of it, spontaneity? What is spontaneously? Spontaneously does not mean without conditions. So we would say, when you're free of discursive thought, you will spontaneously become calm. When you are free of discrimination, in other words, when you're not caught by your discrimination, avoiding evil will spontaneously arise.

[46:33]

In other words, the conditions for avoiding evil are not being caught by discrimination. So it seems to be natural or spontaneous, but it's not that it doesn't have a cause. It depends on this nondiscrimination. It will spontaneously arise. Now, if you don't have nondiscriminating wisdom, you can still avoid evil sometimes, but it's not spontaneous. It requires something in addition. If you don't have nondiscriminating wisdom, you have to have a bunch of other conditions in order to avoid evil, like instructions. and good intentions of certain type have to come together. And if you don't have these ingredients, or I should say, if you do have all these ingredients, then avoiding evil will spontaneously arise with all these ingredients satisfied. It's just that with nondiscriminating wisdom, that's the only thing you need for avoiding evil to arise. So, yeah, and sometimes you've got the ingredients there and some compassion spontaneously arises.

[47:38]

You can't see anything you did other than the way you were that made it happen. So it seems like a gift or it just seems an avatar is coming into the room. And you didn't feel like you did, but there were conditions for it, which you didn't necessarily... You don't have to notice the conditions necessarily. So then it's the practice of nondiscrimination that allows that condition for spontaneity to arise in helpful ways. It allows helpfulness to be spontaneous. Right, right. Otherwise we're trying to put together the conditions for goodness, so then it doesn't seem so spontaneous. But actually, once all the conditions are there, then it's spontaneous. Like spontaneous combustion, when you get this, this, and this together, it just goes poof! But when you're putting, when you're marshalling the conditions for something and then it happens, you don't feel like it's spontaneous. I think that's part of what we mean by spontaneous, is that no additional causation to the setup occurs for this thing to happen.

[48:45]

Here's what it says in the dictionary, it says, something that arises from a situation with no external element coming in. Does that make sense? So you've got a person and then they do something good without somebody telling them to, or paying them to. So it seems spontaneous. But it isn't that there aren't conditions, which sometimes people can view spontaneous with that it's not conditioned or it's not caused. It's caused, but not by an external force or external causation to the person or to the action. The action flows naturally from the situation. I understand that. And so the keystone of having a way of being so you don't have to ever think of bringing any rules and regulations in, or any instructions in, or any reminders in, is that you have actually freed yourself from all discriminations about rules and regulations.

[49:47]

So you meditate on good and evil and the discriminations among them until you're not caught by the distinction anymore. And then you're in this field where life is so full that only goodness and life happen. There's no harm anymore. But you don't have to look at good and evil anymore. They're not necessary at that time in order to avoid one and do the other. If you believe that, you could get stuck in. If you stick to that. Then you fall again. If you stick, you get stuck. So this is more like something to use as an indication to practice a certain way. And don't... Yeah, and then keep checking to see if you've arrived at non-discriminating wisdom. Don't stop looking at good and evil before you're free of attachment to the discrimination between them. And when you first hear of this possibility, if you get stuck on that, then you shouldn't stop looking at your being stuck there and think that you're going to spontaneously do good just by hearing of this possibility.

[51:01]

And if you did and got stuck in that, then you say, oh no, I'm just stuck now. This is not time to stop looking at good and evil. This is time to notice that I'm stuck on... I'm stuck not just on good and evil, but I'm stuck on the possibility of being free of them. Okay. By the way, you don't have to get permission to come up here. You just come up. That's my feeling. That's okay with you. And also, you can move around the room and go to the toilet and stuff, too, if you want to. You don't have to... Don't feel trapped in here. This is a voluntary incarceration.

[52:07]

Sure. I should have practiced this before I came up and sat. I can probably speak, so you can hear me. OK. So if you are living out of nondiscriminating Wisdom. Wisdom. That's the word. You are awake in the garden of good and evil. Is there a possibility you can fall out of that place? Or out of that living, out of that nondiscriminating wisdom? Mostly. So being awake is something you can lose. Yeah.

[53:11]

Okay. In banding around the term enlightenment... Or realizing in awakening, realizing enlightenment, it's possible to realize enlightenment and then lose it. It's generally speaking impermanent also. Enlightenment itself is not exactly impermanent, but it's sort of impermanent because it's the way impermanent things are with each other. So it's kind of impermanent, but it's also the way impermanent things always are. So it's kind of permanent, too. But awakening to it, getting some entry into it, you can enter into it and then exile yourself again. It's possible. There's a certain stage of evolution where you kind of lock in, but it's so advanced, it's not really worth talking about. Interesting. So even in a state of, because we said it wasn't a state yesterday, even being awakened, what I'm hearing is that there is a need for vigilance and work.

[54:26]

Well, yeah, and when you're awake you're not lazy anymore. You like to work, this kind of work. You're happy to. You're not saving yourself for the weekend or anything. You're just always giving yourself completely, which is, of course, what's happening anyway. But you're with what's really happening. And you have vigilance equipment, so you use it. Use it all, and use it skillfully for all the people who are helping you. I'll keep you on your toes. Thank you. I'm going to be better at this because it's my second time.

[55:41]

Well, I was thinking about the ways in which getting caught is both cognitive and emotional or psychological. And one of the reasons I was thinking about it is that there's a lot of the language about getting out of it that we often think of as just cognitive. Like, you know, you're going to see that you're in a story. You're going to, you know... And then there are places where, you know, I can tell that you're very alert to there being something... Well, I think especially when you were talking, I think, last night about not... wanting to, when you find something in yourself that you wish were different, not having sort of anger toward it or wanting to kill it or wanting to get rid of it, but something else.

[56:47]

So I guess I'm just wanting to hear a little more about when you're not stuck cognitively, or at least when you feel at some level, I can see I'm in this story. And I can see that, say, someone threatens me. I'm afraid. I feel anger. And I can see that really, you know, I'm connected to this person, you know, we're part of what, something larger, there's no good reason that I kind of intellectually sign onto why I should be stuck. So when, I don't know, do you have any ways to offer help for when the stuckness seems mainly to be about how you're gonna wear an understanding or live it or kind of have the affective part that you're not having. You know, like one way I understand this person shouldn't be threatening to me at all, but when I see this person, you know, my feeling is threat, flight, you know, and the difficulty of kind of mapping that felt response onto what I believe is true.

[58:03]

Well, this may be a cognitive therapy again, but to see everybody as a question. Could you say more? Well, you said, I look at this person and I know that, in some sense, I should... Maybe you could say, I know I should question my story about them. That's similar to just saying they're a question. Not to discount the story at all, but just to see it as a question. What about how you feel toward a question? And I mean that, you know, I mean, I think that often thinking and feeling are so interwoven that our words kind of artificially separate them, even though in practice, you know, when we talk even about things like postures, you know, that they have, they're partly in the realm of feeling and they're partly in the realm of intellect.

[59:12]

So how, what would be some ways to live that, towards someone as a question, to feel about the fact that they're a question. I feel like I'm digging myself in here because I know you're not going to prescribe feel this way, but I'm looking for what are the resources for living with someone being a question and trying to combat the fear that's generated by that. Combat the fear. Okay, how do you not think about it as combat? Maybe that's a good question. Well, when you said fear, that one I felt like, well, how about I start by telling, I'm afraid, I feel fear.

[60:13]

I'm feeling fear now. And I'm not saying you should always say this to the person, but maybe give them a gift of telling them you'd like to give them a gift. And ask them if you could give them a gift of letting them know something about yourself. And if they say, okay, you might say, I want to tell you I'm feeling afraid right now. And see if you can have that be a gift from you to them. And you could also give them a question of, do they want to know something about the fear? If they say, yes, you could tell them, I'm afraid of such and such between us.

[61:18]

And then also, do you enjoy giving that? If you don't enjoy giving it, try to find a way to give it until you feel joy at giving it. And also, there would be nothing about getting anything back in this. So in a way, you have to check in with yourself about whether you can do it in that spirit. I mean, there's a difficult process that maybe there's no good formula for how you decide that you could do that. Yeah, I would look inside and see, I'm afraid of this person, and in my fear, do I wish to give a gift? And I might look inside and say, I see it. In a way, I would like to give a gift, even though I know that in the gift-giving process that will assuage my fear.

[62:24]

And so I know that practicing giving probably will make me more comfortable. But I'm going to try to actually give without trying to have that be a way of getting rid of my fear. And also, as I start to contemplate giving, I may notice that my fear does not go away right away, which is fine with me, because I'm not just giving to get rid of my fear, even though I know it will. Even though I know that when I'm afraid, giving is really appropriate medicine. But when I give, I forget about me getting medically treated by this practice. And I really focus on it, because I have to really want to give this without getting that. And you can't actually want to give something without getting the good results of giving. You can actually enjoy that. And sometimes you do give, and you do get the joy, and you don't get other things which you could get.

[63:33]

You don't get it, and you feel fine. But eventually you will get this other thing that you want that you didn't get right away, called fearlessness. But you don't have to stop being afraid as you're doing the practice which leads to fearlessness. And also, before the fearlessness comes, you're already feeling more and more joy as you're moving along in the giving practice. That's one thing that comes up here. No, that helps because I'm realizing I sort of had a double bind where I wanted to be through my fear before I would do anything that would get me to my fear. So, you know, get rid of my fear. So that helps. Thank you.

[64:18]

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