I am wanting to talk to you about the practice of enlightenment, how to apply ourselves to enlightenment. And again, what I mean by enlightenment is the source and means of being enlightened. The source and means of becoming enlightened meaning the source and means of becoming free of delusions which make it difficult for us to see the source of enlightenment, the source of being enlightened.

[01:15]

And this source is in a sense it's a state and in our sense it's a cognition. It's actually a bond between us, between all of us. A silent bond between us is the source of being enlightened. It is enlightenment and it is the source of being enlightened. So this silent bond between us, which is also radiant or luminous, it is illuminating. It can illuminate us, enlighten us. And the practice of enlightenment is to practice

[02:21]

this bond between us. To contemplate it, to open to it, to be mindful of it, to let it in and let it out. So, for example, now we have this situation of being in the same building together on a rainy day, having bodies that need to use toilets, and having toilets that are kind of blocked. And we're sharing the situation. And I feel I have an opportunity to practice enlightenment with this situation, to see and to contemplate my silent bond with all of you in relationship to these toilets.

[03:42]

that we're all working together here, helping each other deal with the situation of the toilets. And one might wonder, well, how can we practice this silent bond between us which we can't see with our ordinary eyes or smell. We can think of it, but thinking of it is not the same as being intimate with it, practicing it. But we can think of it. Probably some of you are thinking of it right now. I'm thinking of it. But if I think about these toilets and all of us, how can I be intimate with the situation here of our bodies and our waste products and the water in the plumbing?

[05:06]

Is there any sense of lack of intimacy with you around this issue? Do I feel a mutually supportive reality around this particular practical problem, physical problem? I can look at that and see if I'm really open to being totally immersed in this situation? Or is there some resistance to it? And if there's resistance, then that resistance would be a sense of a lack of faith and practice, which I then can practice with that. As you just recited, by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith

[06:12]

in practice or faith and practice or faith practice, we melt away the root of transgressing from what? From enlightenment, from the source of being enlightened. And I was and am challenged to relate to this particular example in a way where I don't get ahead or behind any of you, or I don't have more responsibility or less responsibility than any of you for this situation.

[07:15]

In a sense, I have the position for this day of being the host. So the host might think that she has more responsibility than the guest. But that way of seeing things is delusion, I would say. Enlightenment is the bond, the silent bond between the host and the guest. And in that silent bond there are discriminations like host and guest, but the bond, the bond, there's no clinging, there's no being caught by that, by the discrimination between host and guest. The host isn't enlightenment.

[08:21]

The guest isn't enlightenment. The teacher isn't enlightenment. The student isn't enlightenment. The Buddha isn't enlightenment. The sentient being isn't enlightenment. It's the bond, the silent bond which no words reach. That's the enlightenment. And in that there's really no more or less responsibility. There's complete responsibility at every point in this infinite bond among all beings. But if I look at the situation of my relationship with you around these toilets, I may notice some imbalance in my attitude of responsibility. And then I can work on that. I can play with that. and see if I can open to that, no, no, we're all responsible in our different ways with our different bodies and different minds to deal with this simple, I shouldn't say simple, this practical problem.

[09:31]

I don't say, it's not my problem. I don't say, it's not your problem. I mean, I don't say that, but I might feel it. That's more my problem than your problem. Again, that I'm more responsible for the plumbing than you are. That's delusion. Enlightenment is that we're all responsible for the plumbing and we're in a close relationship with everybody around this issue. Yeah. Someone said to me, I noticed I had the intention to help someone, but I also noticed that that intention, that will to help them, was also a will to

[10:45]

to impose that will of wanting to help them upon them. And this person thought pretty good about the intention to help the person, but noticed that the will, the intention to control the person into happiness or into being helped, was kind of defiling the intention to help or even defiling the actual helping of the person. And I thought and said based on the intention or I should say I thought, which means I had an intention, I had an intention about this person to say to this person, so then I did say that this, the intention to help, the intention to help somebody, the will to help somebody, has the consequence to obscure

[12:12]

the realization of how you're helping the person. And it also, the will to help somebody has the consequence of obscuring how the person's helping you. The will to help one person or six people obscures the realization of how you're helping everybody. The wanting to help some people and also seeing that there's some defilement or warp or distortion in the way you want to help them. that also has the consequence of obscuring the way you are already helping the person. And it obscures the way the person who you want to help is already helping you.

[13:20]

We are already in the world called the Dharma world of enlightenment. We're already in the world of enlightenment. We're in a relationship which is enlightenment and is a kind of a world called the Dharma world, the true world, the world of where we're close friends with everyone. We're already in that world. We're moving around in it, living in it, helping everybody and being helped by everybody. We're already there. But because we intend anything, and we have been intending many things for a long time, we have trouble realizing this world we live in, this dharma world.

[14:33]

What we don't have so much trouble realizing is the world which appears as a result of our intentions to help people and to sometimes not help people. Sometimes we intend to help people. That has consequences of making it hard for us to see how we're helping people. And sometimes we don't want to help people. And that also has a consequence of making it hard for us to see how we are helping people. Right while we are thinking of not helping people, we are helping people. When we see, when we understand how we're helping people and how they're helping us and how they're helping each other, I could say, when we see this, we are happy.

[15:54]

When we see this, we are at peace. When we see this, we are fearless. Or you could say happiness is understanding this. There is another kind of happiness which is important and lovely, which is a happiness that we can experience even before we see this, even before we see or understand this bond. this actually mind, this cognition. This bond is actually a cognition also. Before we realize this cognition, there's still some happiness. Like my grandson, Maceo, he's been a cheerful person for a good share of quite often in the last seven years. He's been a cheerful person, especially in the morning he's cheerful.

[17:00]

He wakes up cheerful most mornings. Even in the case of, for example, in the night vomiting on himself and waking up with dried, crusted vomit all over his clothes and face, he wakes up cheerful. But oftentimes at night he goes to bed uncheerful and frightened and in a state which is called a meltdown. But not always. Sometimes it's possible to catch him before the fear of the collapse of the world dawns upon him. and to, you know, before that catastrophe, to lull him into letting go and going to sleep.

[18:02]

But if you don't catch the right time, this tremendous fear in him comes crashing through, and he just, you know, he has a meltdown. So he is actually blessed and those around him are blessed by cheerfulness. His mother was not. She didn't wake up cheerful in this lifetime. But he, for whatever reasons, has this kind of cheerfulness in the morning. And oftentimes throughout the day it comes upon him. But it's very fragile and it can easily slip into terror and violence, his state. Because he does not see, he does not see how he's helping everyone and everyone's helping him

[19:14]

Occasionally he has a glimmer of how somebody, like one person or two people, are helping him and how he wants to help them, and then he's quite happy again. That's where his cheerfulness actually, I think, comes from this limited realization of that. So one way to practice enlightenment is to contemplate the limits of your realization of enlightenment, to be aware of the edges where you feel some lack of thorough mutuality, where you feel like, like I said to you when I was a little bit unbalanced in my attitude about this plumbing.

[20:31]

a little bit of sense of not everybody here is in some sense equally responsible for the plumbing. Equally but different. There's some actual public plumbers in this group who have a different type of response than the non-plumbers. But that sense of inequality comes from our past intentions of doing, to do good and to not do good. That creates a sense, an imbalance in our relationship with all things, with people and with toilets and with water and with air and so on. So one way to practice enlightenment is just to look and see the extent to which you're caught by the seeing the world as not the way, as not enlightenment.

[21:49]

Or, if this is enlightenment, to see how you don't quite get it, how it is. And a slightly different way is to see what you're doing, your own particular action, as the coming of this silent bond between you and all beings and all beings in you. So one way is to go from kind of like not seeing how it is and trying to balance that And the other way is not seeing it at all, but only seeing what you're doing and seeing what you're doing as the coming of this. So this is once again what I mentioned before of this is going to suchness or coming from suchness.

[22:55]

Two different kind of ways of practicing enlightenment. If you have a story that you're trying to help people and in your story of how you're trying to help people you see some defilement, accept that that story will have the consequence of obstructing your view of how you're helping people. and I said obstructing your view of how you're helping people, but another way to put it is obstructing the realization of how you're helping people, obstructing the realization of helping people, and obstructing the realization of being helped by people, and obstructing the realization of how you help the physical world and how the physical world helps you.

[24:01]

But if you had a story that you wanted to help people and that there was no defilement and no self-centeredness in your attempts to help people, that story also would have the consequence to obstruct the realization of what you want. Knowing this, Contemplating this is the practice of realizing enlightenment. Knowing how the way you think about what's happening obstructs the realization of what you want to realize or what you want realized is the path to realization, if what you want is the realization of enlightenment.

[25:06]

So if you have a story that you're helping people, fine. If you have a story that you're not helping people, fine. If you have a story that people are helping you, okay. If you have a story that they're not helping you, all right. Contemplate these stories with the understanding, with the teaching I should say, that these stories obstruct the actuality of enlightenment. learning how to contemplate these stories, learning how to contemplate them, learning how to be at ease with them, knowing that they're blocking you from being with what will make you most at ease, you enter into intimacy with what

[26:13]

is the greatest ease, namely enlightenment, namely your intimate relationship with all beings. What I'm saying to you right now is an example of practicing. I'm talking to you now and I'm practicing enlightenment while I'm talking to you. I'm contemplating, thinking, I'm contemplating thinking. I'm contemplating, I'm looking at thinking, knowing that the thinking is obscuring what I want to have realized among all beings. But this is also the practice of what I want realized among all beings. And what I want realized among all beings is the way we are together, which is called enlightenment. We are also together in an illusory way.

[27:17]

There's a reality to that because that's the way it is for us, namely that we're not helping everybody. We're just helping somebody and just some people are helping us. that somewhat has some reality because that's how we feel and it hurts and we're scared in that world and we're making that world together and we're all helping each other have these worlds where we're afraid of each other, where we're afraid of water and waste products and we're afraid of being all by ourselves to blame for defective plumbing.

[28:22]

And if we are all by ourselves and responsible, all by ourselves, for repairing the plumbing, we're afraid of what that will feel like. So the thing about delusion is that it's not exactly that it's very important and it has a reality in the sense that it hurts. So that's its reality, is that it hurts and it's frightening when we're caught by it. So it's an important manifestation. of unreality. But the manifestation, in a sense, is a reality. And that suffering and fear that comes with delusion is actually helping everybody and being helped by everybody. Suffering and delusion are as real as your teeth

[29:35]

or your fingernails or your heart. However, once you're free of delusion, you'll still have teeth and a heart, but you won't have any delusion anymore. However, you will continue to be supported by all those who are deluded, and you will continue to support the deluded. It's just that you'll understand that you're supporting them and they're supporting you. And you won't be afraid of them anymore. And you can teach them how to not be afraid by contemplating what they have quite available to them, delusion. The story that they're not close friends with everyone. Once again, contemplating the story that you're not close friends with somebody, anybody, leads to realizing that this person is your close friend and you theirs.

[30:51]

And contemplating that probably with the background of a tradition which tells you that contemplating how you don't think somebody is your close friend is the path to realizing that they are. So not only do you do this, but you've heard that doing this is the path leading to the realization of enlightenment and the greatest happiness. You probably would be cheerful occasionally in this state of enlightenment, or having been enlightened, you still probably would be cheerful, just like certain grandsons are. But different from them is that you wouldn't be afraid You could have meltdowns if that would be helpful.

[32:05]

And if you did have a meltdown you would see that it was helpful. And you would see that everyone was helping you. So your meltdown would be totally brilliant. And you would enjoy it. And you would be fearless of meltdowns. As time offers itself to me, I realize little by little that the meltdown is coming for me. So I want to practice to do in the middle of meltdown. practice of enlightenment is the practice for such situations. You can also practice it in, what do you call it, what's the opposite of meltdown?

[33:09]

Huh? The opposite of meltdown is serenity? I thought the opposite of meltdown was hardening up, you know, coming together and being like a diamond. like being a very particular person. And then there's melting that person. Meltdown has these two meanings. becoming afraid when you melt down. So my grandson becomes afraid at night when he starts to fall apart. If he goes to sleep before he becomes afraid, then we don't call it a meltdown. Then he melts down into sleep before he gets afraid. So we don't call that meltdown.

[34:12]

But actually he still melts down, but he melts down during a story or having his hair hair-stroked or something, rather than melting down in the middle of terror. But he actually does melt down every night. Well, it's like, you know, like, have you ever heard of a patty melt? You know, like a cheeseburger? put the cheese on top and heat it up and the cheese melts down. So sometimes kids, or adults too, they melt down, they kind of fall apart. Particularly they tend to fall apart almost every night they fall apart. But sometimes they fall apart while they're still awake. You know, and they are walking around but they have fallen apart. And then so at that time they're like... They're falling over.

[35:14]

Their muscle tone also starts to melt. They have trouble walking, and they become terrified often in that meltdown. So they're melting down, but then they have this fear reaction to the meltdown. And in that fear reaction, they also become violent, like striking out to hit people who are trying to help them stand up and soothe them. Do you understand? Does that make sense? The thing that causes meltdown is that whatever comes together, like a person or a plant or a rock, it's impermanent because it depends on conditions. So the conditions change and then the thing falls apart. It disintegrates. It changes. And towards the end of the day, or even during the day, children experience that. Adults do too, but they oftentimes have learned how to manage it, like how to eat something or take a nap or whatever before they're melting down, experiencing the impermanence whilst trying to continue to do something else.

[36:30]

When my grandson was quite young, like just barely able to walk, sometimes I'd be taking care of him and he would be in a sort of not meltdown situation. He'd sort of like have his integrity, like standing before me and feeling pretty good and being up for an adventure, like walking away from me, like we'd be in some grassy situation. He would walk away from me on the grass, maybe 10 feet, 20 feet, 30 feet, 40 feet, and then out there 40, 50 feet away from me, he would have a meltdown. In other words, he'd be standing out there, but he would have lost his sense of who he was and where he was and how to walk and how his muscle tone related to his standing or walking. He would have a catastrophe out there. And then he would somehow manage to get back to me in his tumbled-down state

[37:34]

and just come close and touch my body just for a very short time. I would not necessarily even hug him. He'd just come back and touch me or hug me just for a few seconds, and then he comes back together into another little person. And then he goes off on another adventure. And so that would happen repeatedly through the day. But then at a certain time of day, It's like the fatigue, the disorganization of the various rhythms of the body and so on are such that it's not going to be enough just to touch base with a certain adult body and then continue your adventure. The situation is such that you actually have to go to sleep for a while in order to re-coordinate. And so then the person starts to fall apart. But they don't just fall apart if unless they're lying down with sufficient support so that they can let that deterioration occur with not much fear.

[38:46]

If they're standing up and walking around or playing a game and this occurs, they usually become frightened and then again, as I said, can slip into violence. Does that make sense? So the meltdown, in some sense, is an incomplete story. If the child just melts down, just collapsed on the floor, my daughter would not call that a meltdown. She would just call it, he just fell asleep standing up, or he just fell down and fell asleep. But it's the continuation of some kind of social activity, usually, while actually going into this collapse that leads to fear and anger and violence. So the plumbing situation is a state of impermanence of the working of the plumbing.

[39:49]

And so, but we didn't, you know, people have not gotten that frightened or, you know, violent about it. But a little child could get very frightened by a, you know, plumbing system not working and they could start, you know, getting really angry and violent about it and, you know, feeling guilty or blaming someone else for the problem and, you know, this kind of thing could happen. and literally, and again, oftentimes later in the day for the kids, 7 or 8 o'clock at night if they're on that kind of schedule, that the plumbing not working could just be like the greatest tragedy that could be imaginable at that moment in time. Or it could also be like you know, not winning a game, or someone asking for a banana and someone cutting it for you, something like that.

[40:51]

Some little thing like that could open the realization of impermanence. And because we don't understand how there's an ongoing enlightenment through these changes, we're vulnerable to fear and violence. Yes, Steven? The way we melt down in sleep is similar to the way we melt down in the process of death? Yeah, I think that's right. And the skills we have for going to sleep make it so that we get through that oftentimes fairly well. But the skills we need for dying are somewhat different.

[41:54]

We don't have so much familiarity with that, but it's a very similar situation of basically things are falling apart. It's just in one case, it's going to be followed by a sleep from which we will wake up in a body fairly soon. And the other one might take longer before we wake up in a body. Yeah, I think it's quite similar. And, yeah. Oh, by the way, I... the other night when you said that you got this fortune cookie which said, what did it say? It said, love is the affinity which binds and draws together the elements of the world. Will you say it louder please? Love is the affinity which binds and draws together the elements of the world. Yeah, love is the affinity which binds and draws together the elements of the world.

[42:55]

And Stephen said, is that like what you mean by enlightenment? And I would say, yeah. So love, by that fortune cookie, is what I call enlightenment. And I didn't say it at the time, but I got another fortune cookie, which I got it at my daughter's birthday party last fall. And when I got it, it was at a Chinese restaurant, and when I got it, I said to my daughter and my wife and the grandson, Maceo, I said, usually when I get a fortune cookie, it seems somewhat relevant to me. Like it says, you are blah, blah. You're a good friend to people, or you're going to be really rich, something like that. But usually I see some kind of relevance, although I don't usually get the one of, you're going to be really rich.

[44:01]

So anyway, I get these fortune cookies, fortunes in the fortune cookie, and usually it's still like, oh yeah. But this one, I said to them, this one, this is very unusual. This really doesn't seem like me. And it was something like, you're a very interesting conversationalist, or something like that. And they laughed at that because they all agreed that that was not like me. Yes? Would you talk a bit about the dissolution or the meltdown of the illusory self? It seems that the meltdown of the illusory self kind of is like the lifting of the curtain that enables us to see and realize the connections, the silent bond. And then I'm also wondering whether or not oftentimes there's another illusory self that comes along and that possibly the goal isn't to totally eliminate all illusory selves, but just not to hang on to any one of them.

[45:13]

Yeah. Yeah. Right. The goal is not to eliminate illusory selves, but just not to hang on to any of them. That's right. And so by studying the illusory selves, we get more and more ready to realize the letting go of all illusory selves and also any other kind of self. Like not all selves are illusory selves, you could say. the way the universe makes you, in some sense is not an illusory self, it's just a, it's a self. You may not see it or know anything about it, but the way you are is not really an illusory self. It's who you are. But that should be let go of too. And actually that would be, yeah, that type of self is not a self we grasp onto because

[46:15]

it's not imagined to be graspable. The self we imagine to be graspable is totally illusory. But who we are is not illusory, it's just who we are. But that's not what we're holding on to, because we can't. And that self is the self which is helping everybody and which everybody's helping. But to hold on, the illusory selves are the selves we think we can hold on to. We make them up so that we can hold on to them because part of our nature is we like something to hold on to. And so we make up things that could be held on to. And then we feel like, okay, that can be held on to, so I'm holding on to that. And at the times of dissolution, like at Like when a child walks fifty feet away from his caregiver or when you sleep at night or at death, at those times it's hard to keep up holding on to anything.

[47:24]

So we have some problem there of how to adjust to this dissolution of something that you can hold on to. And we keep trying to find something else to hold on to. But sometimes it's just really hard to do it. So it would be good now to go to sleep soon. Or actually, if you have to live with somebody who's going through this, it would be good to get them to go to sleep before they even get into that much. Because as soon as they start seeing the dissolution, if they're still trying to hold on to something, they start to freak out. But if you can get them to go to sleep before they start intensely trying to get a hold of something when they can't see much to get a hold on, then it'll be an easier transition. When you actually can see how everything is helping you.

[48:32]

you will not be afraid anymore. And you will see yourself dissolving and being every moment, but you won't be afraid. Yes? What are the other forms of sleep that what? So she said, in addition to going to sleep, are there other forms of adjustment to dissolution? Yeah, the normal waking adjustment to dissolution is to imagine that you've got something that doesn't dissolve. Most people are walking around all day long holding on to something which is not dissolving. That's the way they adjust to dissolution.

[49:39]

What? Is there a more beneficial way? Yeah. The more beneficial way is to open to the dissolution and realize that everybody's helping you do that and supporting you and you're also supporting everybody while you're dissolving. That's the... What was the word you used? Beneficial? Yeah, that's a more beneficial way to do it. In that state you are happy, fearless, radiant, fully alive. Did you say sitting Zazen is basically that practice? And walking Zazen and what else kind of Zazen? Driving Zazen, yes. Sleeping Zazen. Yeah, that's right. That's what we mean by the Zazen of the Buddha is like that.

[50:44]

In other words, they realize enlightenment. Realizing enlightenment is a more beneficial way of adjusting to change than going to sleep or dying. Or trying to get something to hold on to. But mostly, during most people's waking hours, and even after they fall asleep, even after they make the transition, the dissolution into sleep, then in sleep people are grasping too. They've got something to grasp there. But it's a different state, but they're basically then back to grasping again. But there's a period in sleep when you're not grasping. It's called dreamless sleep. And there you're not grasping. However, your proclivity towards dealing with change by finding something that doesn't change, your proclivity to dealing with ungraspability by finding something to grasp, it doesn't deteriorate usually while you're sleeping unless you're a person who, before they went to sleep, was already practicing opening to this enlightenment.

[51:54]

Then you also, when you go into your sleep, you do the same thing. Even while images are appearing, So Zazen of the Buddha is the same as the practice of enlightenment. It's the practice of realizing how everybody's your close friend and you're everybody's close friend through the dissolutions, through the falling apart. because we are falling apart and we're going to fall apart again and again. So you need a practice that doesn't depend on holding ourselves together. But we don't hold ourselves together. We don't. Everybody else does. And other people don't hold themselves together. We do. And when we fall apart, we're being helped to fall apart by everybody.

[52:57]

And our falling apart helps everybody else fall apart. It helps everybody else having some integrity, which then falls apart. We're doing that already. We're just talking about practicing it. Was there a hand raised? Yes? So on a relative level, what if there's conflict about what is the best way to help? What if there's a conflict about the best way to help? And so if... Like within yourself or between you and some other person? Between me and some other person. Okay. If I were to let go of, let dissolve my idea of what help was in this particular form that appears to me, then the other person's idea of help is going to predominate. But that's another, you said that, okay, so now that's another...

[54:01]

Did you say idea of what's helpful? That's another idea of what's happening. Which you could be, then your idea. So first you had an idea of what's most helpful. And then you had an idea of the other person, what they thought was most helpful. Then you thought of letting go of what you think is most helpful. Now you have a story that's what's happening is that their idea is going to happen. So that's a new story. So then let go of that one too. So you said, in that story you said there were two ideas of what's more helpful. I let go of mine. But then you said, now here's another story, but now this other story I'm not letting go of. The other story is, which I'm not letting go of, is that their way is going to happen. Which is not as helpful, but I, wait a second, I just let go of that it wasn't most helpful, but now I'm back to it isn't most helpful. It's quite a difficult situation. It's letting go is quite difficult? Yeah, it's quite difficult. Because of what? Because of our habit of holding on. But so in this example, we have these two views, my view of what's best and your view of what's best.

[55:11]

So I let go of my view of what's best, and then I flip over to another view of what's best. So I did sort of let go. In fact, you do let go, but then you just flip over to something else to hold on to, namely, okay, now you're going to win. That's what I think is happening now. Or you're not going to win. Whatever. Or even that letting go is the best. Or even that letting go is the best, yeah. So that situation you can study. And you can study with the understanding that all of these stories have the consequence of obscuring my ability to see how I'm helping this person and this person's helping me. And I do not see how they're helping me. And I do not see how what they're saying would be helpful would be helpful. But it's not somewhat, yeah, I don't see how what they're saying would be helpful.

[56:13]

I don't see how them saying it would be helpful. I don't see how they're being helpful. I don't see how they're my close friend. I don't see that. But I do see that I don't see it. I do see that I'm deluded by definition. And I have heard that studying this pattern of process of delusion is basically the field in which you verify and practice enlightenment. You practice enlightenment in the field of darkness. You can also practice it in the light. But most people don't know how to do that until they first of all find the light. So it is difficult, yes. But it might not be so difficult to understand that this difficulty is what should be contemplated. You might be able to understand that. And then it still would be difficult, but you have this teaching to aid you in continuing to remember this.

[57:20]

have something to remember, almost to hold on to, but not quite. Yes? I just wondered whether, in Susan's example, there isn't a way to continue to offer and support the idea while they're letting go. To support your idea while you're letting go of it? Yeah, there is. So letting go of the idea wouldn't necessarily mean abandoning the field. You might still be completely participating with your idea. Yes, right. As a matter of fact, letting go of your idea will maybe help you champion your idea, promote your idea, give your idea the best chance it can have because you've let go of it. That probably would help. But in the story of your idea and you're championing it and promoting it, I'll also understand that this story does have the consequence of making it harder to see what I really want to see, harder to realize what I really want to realize.

[58:28]

But it doesn't mean you stop doing what will make it harder to see. You continue to do what makes it hard to see while you simultaneously know this makes it hard to see. And that combination opens you to see. I mean, you cannot avoid having some story which is causing you difficulties in seeing what you want to see. You have to. But you can remember, this is making it harder. But to continue to do what you have to do and to know that it's making it harder to see what it's intended to do. Now, if you're intending to blind yourself, then in fact that, in some sense, is no conflict. Intending to blind yourself does blind you. Intending to open your eyes tends to blind you. Knowing that trying to open your eyes to intending to open your eyes, knowing that and studying that together while you're trying to open your eyes, opens your eyes, is eye-opening.

[59:41]

The pain of the situation of trying to control it is very instructive. And the pain of trying to control it is very instructive, yes. And everyone's helping you have that pain, and that pain's helping everyone. Yes, Bernard? I was thinking of the interest. Yeah, interest seems to be a key word, taking interest in the process, which is one of the ten wholesome dharmas. It's a really important one. I notice when I'm falling asleep or melting down or whatever is happening in my life, I notice when I start taking interest in that process, it really kind of stabilizes me. Yes. You said that's one of... You meant interest in the sense of a wholesome dharma. Yeah. Right. Okay. So that's another...

[60:44]

obstructing element. However, the advantage of that is that that will be conducive to you realizing that is an obstructing element. Whereas there are other elements which are conducive to you not even being aware of the obstruction. So, I can go more into detail on this this afternoon, but basically The thing that's good about good karma is that good karma helps us to become free of good karma. Whereas unskillful karma does not help us become free of unskillful karma or good karma. So skillfulness is something to become free of because we turn skillfulness, as I said the other night, stiffens and we become attached to it. Of course, unskillfulness stiffens too, and we get pushed around by it.

[61:49]

So skillfulness, we stiffen around, get attached to the good results. Unskillfulness, we stiffen around and get demolished by the unfortunate results. But the best thing about skillfulness is that it lets us be aware that we're stiffening around it. It lets us be aware, because awareness is part of it, aware that we're attached to the good results, to the happiness, to the worldly happiness that comes from being skillful. So we're encouraged to be skillful, and then when we get good at it, we're fairly good at being good, and skillful at being skillful, and virtuous at being virtuous, then we're told, yeah, This is worldly happiness. It is happiness. But this happiness, still, unless you realize that you're tightening around it and attached to it, when it deteriorates, you're still subject to fear and violence.

[62:54]

However, the nice thing about good is that it has a chance of you hearing this instruction and noticing that you're doing good and you're tightening around it, you're grasping it, you're attached to it and its results. That's what's good about good, is that good sets up the possibility of going beyond good. Yes? I wish I understood what you were talking about. Could you speak up, please? I wish I understood what you were talking about. Yes. That's an intention you have? I wish you understood what I'm talking about too. I wish everybody would understand what I'm talking about. And that wish, as it says something in my mind, obscures to some extent you and me realizing what I'm talking about.

[63:57]

But me knowing that sets up the possibility of the obscuration dropping away and the realization of how you and I are close friends with everybody. In the meantime, it's virtuous, it's good, it's skillful to be aware that you do not understand this And to notice that you can wish that you would understand that or you could also wish to destroy everybody that's talking about this. And notice the difference between those wishes. Because there's a difference. They work differently. And to study that would be good. And I hope to encourage us all to study how these wishes work. Yes, from up on high. It's okay, I'm a crane.

[65:02]

I'm a heron. You talked about realizing that everybody's a good friend. I really like that. I also want to know about how we realize that and still maintain it. Actually, I don't know if I would say everybody's my good friend. I would say everybody's my close friend. Because some people, in a sense, are not my good friends. But they're my close friends. I wouldn't call somebody who wants me to stop practicing my good friend necessarily. But definitely my close friend. Everybody's definitely my close friend. And I don't know about the good part. Oh, good. I did answer it? Your question got answered?

[66:02]

I didn't hear a question. Was there a question? Can you hear her? She didn't get to her question, but she might any minute. Yeah, I'm just working with maintaining healthy boundaries. I just realized that everybody is on a, how do you put it, close friend. Yeah. I still didn't hear her question. You're working on, did you say maintaining? Healthy boundaries. Yeah. Right. Well, thank you. Healthy boundaries help us realize everybody is our close friend.

[67:04]

Or I would say the boundaries that help you realize that people are your close friend, I would call those healthy boundaries. Healthful, healthful actually, boundaries. Promoting health, and the root of the word health is whole. Right? That's the root of the word. Etymology of the word health means whole. And holy, yeah. Holy means whole. And so holy and healthy are related to realizing that. Realizing that uses meditation, contemplation of boundaries. That's what we were talking about before, right? There's a boundary between my idea of what's good and your idea of what's good. And being aware of that boundary and working with that boundary is a way to realize the closeness, the friendship between these different views of what's helpful.

[68:10]

Boundaries are helpful. Trying to eliminate them is not very friendly. Yes, Sonia? How can you be a good friend to... How can you what? What should you do to be my good friend? I think that that question... is a good question. But that question also has, I think, does that question have with it the question, how can I be a good friend? Does that have with it the wish to be my good friend? So I wish to be a good friend. I wish to be your close friend. How can I be your close friend? So I say, you already are my close friend.

[69:16]

You don't have to work at that. you need to work at realizing that you're my close friend. You don't have to do anything to be any closer to me. Matter of fact, if you do things to be closer to me, I will set up a boundary, probably, to help us realize that we're close. If you try to get closer to me, I think that sounds like you don't think we're close enough. We're already close enough. This is enough. We are close, period. We don't need to get closer. We're completely close, perfectly close. If you want to realize that, then I would say watch the boundaries. Watch where you don't feel close. Study that. Contemplate that in the spirit of realizing that you're close. And if you don't see some boundary between you and somebody, are you trying to mess with the boundary?

[70:19]

Study that, that you don't see a boundary. Set up a boundary. Find a boundary and see if you can be peaceful with it and contemplate it. Be peaceful with it, similar to contemplate it. Be aware of it. Be generous towards it. Being generous towards your boundaries between you and other people does not make you closer, but it makes you closer to realizing that you're close. Generous towards the boundaries. And if there's no boundaries, generously give a boundary. Hey, we're close, but we don't know it. We need a boundary. Let's find a boundary between us. Then we can start to exercise our intimacy. Realize it. So these people who have different ideas, it's nice, you've got a nice boundary there between their idea and your idea. Now work that.

[71:20]

Work that boundary to realize your closeness. Not to make yourself closer. Not to make yourself more intimate. To realize the intimacy of each moment. which is the whole universe is exercising that with each of us and between each of us and everybody. So thanks for your whatever it was that you did bringing the issue of boundary in here. And there was a boundary thing in this thing about the toilets. Toilets are very much boundary things. You go in there not over here. And it's supposed to work like this, not like that. And this is your toilet, not mine. Okay, fine. I agree. But let's use this boundary as a way to realize closeness. And healthy boundaries, I would say, are boundaries for contemplation, not boundaries for, you know,

[72:32]

to push people away. Those are not healthy boundaries, boundaries which are set up to meditate on. When you said to Susan, we have this boundary, now work it, what would that sound like or look like? Or it could look like, it could work like, you know, you think this is best, I think something different is best. And so that's where we're at, you know? And then what more can we do besides that? Should we just, like, have lunch? Or do you want to, like, push your boundary a little bit over towards me so that what's good for you will now become what's good for me? Do you want to do that? And you might say, well, actually, no. Actually, can I appreciate that? What I think is best, you don't. Actually, I like that. I appreciate that. And when I hear that, I think, oh, you're not really trying to overwhelm me with your idea of what's good? No. Or you might say, well, yes, I am.

[73:36]

I say, okay, well, I don't want to do that. You say, you know, maybe you don't respect that, okay? Or maybe you do. Let's play with that. Let's find out, how do we feel about these boundaries, about our different views, about our, in some sense, our different dogmas? Because dogma means, you know, opinion. The root of the word dogma is an opinion or a belief. I believe this is best. You believe that's best. We have different dogmas. How can we work with our dogmas, exercise our dogmas, to avoid becoming dogmatic? Well, using boundaries is good. This is my view, and that's your view, and there's a boundary between them. How can we exercise that so that neither one of us become dogmatic? So that both of us are really actually open to that we have different views and we're working together with our different views. And it isn't that we switch to each other's views or give up our views and don't have a view. It's we give up our views so we can be intimate, so we realize that we're intimate, and then we still have our views and they're even stronger and clearer and more brilliant and different.

[74:44]

We are different. Something like that. Yeah, and then something like that. Yes. Jerry, but this Jerry. Yeah. I appreciated your use of the word life. And I think there's a certain spontaneity and give and take in life. which I don't experience in a situation that I'm involved in where someone's basically telling me how to play. And when I say, well, why would I do that? Or what might I learn from that? How is that something? Oh, somebody's telling you how you should play. And then you're saying, well, how can I work with that? Is somebody telling me how to play? Yeah. Right. And his response is, don't ask me.

[75:48]

His answer is, don't ask me questions. Okay, and then how do you be playful with that? This sounds like, again, this sounds like my grandson. People who, people who, the children are, actually the children are oftentimes flexible, but oftentimes world-class inflexible. You know? They want hamburgers every day and no change, you know. Don't cut the banana. They're very inflexible sometimes, but still we can love them. And we can be flexible even if they're not. We can play with them even though they're not ready to play. And then suddenly they are ready to play. That's the agenda. Yeah. How do I play with this? How do you play in such a way that doesn't... I have this thing of, you know, trust, relax, play,

[76:57]

Understand and liberate. So if you're playing and you start to notice that you don't feel you have a playmate and you feel frustrated, you need to take a step backwards to relaxation. And if you can't relax, you need to take a step back to trust, which means trust that it's okay to relax with somebody who doesn't want to play with you. that you can trust yourself to relax with this person. And if you can relax, then you can start playing again. But if you're playing and then somebody starts playing with you in such a way that you start tensing up, then you're not playing anymore. I'm beginning to question the trust. And I'm beginning to question the trust. Again, this isn't trusting the person. I'm talking about trusting that you can relax with this person. Good reminder. Yeah, yeah. It's okay. Trust that it would be okay if I relax with this person who's tense and aggressive towards me.

[78:10]

That relaxation would be okay. It would be not exactly safe, but that with this person I'm not safe tensing up either. This is a dangerous person. This is an aggressive grandson. You know, this is a lovely, aggressive person who I'm close friends with, but I don't realize it right now. So now how can I play with this person? Well, I have to be relaxed with them, I think, first. Even though they're tense and aggressive and dangerous. If I'm tense, I don't know which is most dangerous, to be tense or relaxed. I really don't. Sometimes if you're tense, you get hurt. Sometimes if you're relaxed, you get hurt. But the thing is, if you're relaxed, you can play with your dangerous partner. And if you can play with your dangerous partner, you can realize that you're close friends with your dangerous partner. And if you can realize that you're close friends, that you're creating this thing together, then you can understand and be free, even though the person is still a dangerous partner.

[79:14]

We're still living with dangerous people in a dangerous world where things are falling apart all the time, and not without danger. But we can understand and be free in this dangerous world. So this relaxing and playing is part of warming up to being with this impermanent world, this dangerous world, without getting hold of something to hold on to. Warming up to being here without clinging even while we're still making up mental versions of what's going on that we can cling to. Even while we're continually making up versions of who our partner is, of who our playmates are, which we can grasp. We know, oh, I had this idea of this person. I had this sense of our boundaries and I'm grasping it. But I'm playing with that grasping. And I can play with that because I'm relaxed. So you have to go maybe back to relaxing with this story of who this person is and who you are, both of which you can hold on to, still.

[80:19]

You're still not ready to be here with somebody without holding on to anything. Okay, I accept that. I relax with me not being ready for that. So now I can play with the person even while I'm still thinking, you know, like, that's your little doggy and this is my steamboat. It's a monopoly thing, which... Monopoly is happening, right? And he was amazingly ethical during the first round. Anyway, there's a dangerous situation. I have a dangerous, beautiful grandchildren. Trust, relax, create, understand, and liberate. Oh, did I misplay? Trust, relax, play, create. It's hard to enter into this creative way we're together.

[81:22]

The closeness is how we're mutually creating each other. We are mutually creating each other. See, it couldn't be closer, couldn't be farther. It's just the way we're making each other. We need to be playing to realize that, and we need to be able to relax to play. And we need to trust that it would be hard to relax. Some people just don't, they don't trust they can relax with certain people or with themselves. They think if I relax I'll do something unskillful. So usually in order to relax you have to really have a strong commitment to virtue in order to relax with your virtue. Doesn't mean you don't practice virtue, you practice it. but you trust that you can relax with it. Then you can play with virtue. Virtue is good, but you have to play with it in order to realize how you're in a creative relationship with everybody. Everybody's helping you be virtuous, and you're helping everybody with your attempts to be virtuous. But then you can understand virtue, and then you can become free of virtue. In other words, virtue, yeah, but not like, ìHey, it's my virtue!î

[82:27]

That's my good result. I'm the, you know. No, free of that. But by working with it. First of all, commit to virtue. Then relax with it. Commit to it until you feel like, okay, I could relax with this. I'm practicing virtue, but I'm relaxed with it. Now I can play with it. Doesn't that sound a little bit more dangerous? First of all, practicing virtue is a little dangerous, but you feel pretty solid there. Okay, practicing virtue, that's good. Yes, right. Now relax with that. A lot of people say, wait a minute, no, no, no. Like relax with not killing people? Yeah. No. You have to be committed enough not to kill people so you can say, okay, I'm committed. I don't have to be tense about this. I can relax with this because I'm totally committed to this. Even while you're playing, are you still committed? Not committed. We're not playing yet. But when you start playing... And then you start playing and you're still committed. Still committed. And that helps you actually be able to play, you know, because you can say, I can always switch back to my old view because of my commitment.

[83:34]

Wait a minute, what was my commitment again? I'm playing so much I can't remember who's good and who's not, or what is good and what's not. But remembering what's good and what's not is not the same as practicing virtue. Yeah, the commitment continues all the way to the end when you're free of virtue, you're still committed to it. At the end, you're committed to it. All the way. But now you're free. We're talking about a freedom that you can have with what you're committed to. A lot of people are free with what they're not committed to. We're talking about top-of-line freedom. Freedom in relationship to what's most important to you means you're free of what's most important. you know, I'm committed to enlightenment. I understand enlightenment, and I understand enlightenment because I see the creativity of enlightenment, and I understand the creativity of enlightenment because I can play with enlightenment, and I can play with enlightenment because I'm relaxed with enlightenment, and I can relax with enlightenment because I trust it's okay to relax, and I trust it's okay to relax because I'm committed to good.

[84:42]

And enlightenment is the highest good. And finally, because I understand enlightenment, I'm free of enlightenment even. I'm even free of how I'm helping people and how they're helping me. Of course, it's the same thing. Does that commitment block the view, even so, all the way along? When I think the commitment, the consequence of thinking the commitment is an obstruction. But knowing that and seeing that, you're not fooled anymore. But even when the mind imagines to be committed to enlightenment, that thought... creates a little bit of obscuration of what it wants to realize. But you have to do it. It's the price of admission to enlightenment is to think a thought which obscures it. But for most people, that obscuration that's created by the thought of enlightenment is like the tiniest little bit, a few molecules on top of a ten-foot thick wall that's already been established there by other kinds of intentions like, you know, I want to win Monopoly game or something.

[85:50]

there's already tremendous obscuration. A little bit more due to I wish to enlighten all beings and live for the welfare of all beings. That thought creates a little bit of obscuration of how you already are. But now you know that even when you think of helping people, it obscures how you are helping people. Now you know that. You say, okay, I'll paint another layer over the wall. No problem. No problem. I mean, no problem, because I'm just obscuring what's already happening anyway. And that thought also has consequences. It's an obscuration that helps us see. It's an obscuration which helps me be aware that I'm obscuring, and therefore it's conducive to becoming free of karmic obscuration and realizing our actual relationship. What do you call karmic obscuration in the sense of you just said in the beginning that there is enlightenment at the state of... He said, what do I call karmic obscuration in the sense of... That you said in the beginning enlightenment is a state or cognition and there are two cognitions at the same time.

[87:05]

There are no two cognitions at the same time? Well, what do you mean? Like you're having a cognition, I'm having cognition, they're at the same time. We have innumerable cognitions which exist at the same time. So what do you mean there's not two cognitions at the same time? Oh yeah, you do. You do have more than one cognition at one time. You have many cognitions at one time. Yeah, it is. Yeah, and me too. What do you mean, like... Yeah, a conscious cognition or a... There is something. You can only put your attention in one place. Yeah, each cognition is just that cognition.

[88:06]

So that cognition itself is just one cognition. But there's many other cognitions coexisting with it. But only one that... there's only one cognition knows, for example, an object in a moment. Other cognitions, however, bear on that object, but they don't know it the same way the basic knowing knows it. So, for example, feeling, in a sense, is a cognition. It's like if you're aware of the color blue, that cognition is the cognition of blue. But you can also be aware of that cognition as painful, or as that object as painful. That's a different cognition. And it coexists with the basic awareness of the presence of the color. So that can be another cognition. The cognition of enlightenment can exist at the same time while cognizing blue.

[89:15]

Yes, but the cognition of enlightenment, when you say of enlightenment, you know, there's two ways to read that. One is the cognition which is enlightenment. Yeah. That coexists with awareness of blue. Yeah. And the cognition of enlightenment illuminates the cognition of blue. But the cognition of blue doesn't reach the cognition of enlightenment. But the cognition of enlightenment illuminates the cognition of blue. Our closeness is illuminating all of our individual relationships. Like my awareness of you as a friend, my thinking of you as my friend, my awareness of your presence here and my thinking of you as a friend. That cognition can be illuminated by the way we're helping each other, which I'm not cognizing with the cognition of your presence as a person. But that cognition is the cognition we live in every moment.

[90:20]

It's actually the way we are living together beyond any ideas of the way we're living together, including all the ideas of how we're living together. Yes. It seems that the concept of boundaries, a dead boundary is vines, bounds, it fixes, it separates, it's non-porous. Living boundaries do too. A living boundary is an interface. the point of a cell membrane which connects. It's a medium for things going back and forth. It's a medium of exchange. So it seems that a healthy boundary is something that connects things to each other rather than separates and walls off. Do you think that's a healthy boundary? Yes, because I think that an unhealthy boundary is this iron fixed solid thing whose

[91:23]

purpose is to protect and separate, whereas a living, healthy boundary, its purpose is to connect and permit interchange, like a border, a border between two countries that are friends. Do you want what you just said to be true? It's a hypothesis. Do you want it to be true? Yes. A river more than a wall. A river more than a wall. Yeah. A river more than a wall. You want a river boundary? A boundary that's a river? I think you need boundaries that are like walls, too. Yeah, real heavy-duty ones, you know, that have all those bad qualities that you said. I think you need those to fully exercise and realize intimacy. You can have the other ones you're talking about. Those are fine. The river ones, the porous ones, those are fine too. They're not excluded. No problem.

[92:24]

But you need the iron curtains to realize to realize what? To realize what? You're making a comment on my preference of one for the other. No, I could do that too, but... I had not yet established that you had a preference for one over the other. You can add that to your disclosure. But I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about you're proposing a certain kind of healthy boundary, and then I thought you're proposing perhaps an unhealthy boundary. Yes. But I was saying I think you need the unhealthy boundaries. Whatever you say is unhealthy, I think you need that in order to realize... how you're close to everybody. I don't understand. You don't? So now I think you need a boundary.

[93:28]

And you're not understanding, I think you need a boundary. You need to find a boundary there. But you're having trouble finding one? Are you? You look like you're having trouble finding a boundary. Are you? I don't understand. Okay. So, actually, maybe you don't need to find a boundary anymore. You can just not understand. How's that? How are you doing not understanding? Can you just be that way now from now on? Okay, yeah. So now you're... Now that you don't understand, have you realized that you're close friends with everybody? Yes. Hey, did you see that?

[94:30]

Huh? I enlightened him. Okay, we have a lunch break now. And I hope you enjoy it. And we'll have interesting plumbing experiences. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's Way.

[95:08]

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