The question is looking at the differences of us on the planet in terms of our group activity. And it seems to me an interesting area of research. Are you wondering if you're invited to give a discourse? Okay. You had a quizzical look on your face as though you didn't know whether you should continue talking or what. No. What I'm saying is you look like you're about to speak and I wondered if you're going to. Do you want to say something to Hugh to answer his question? I couldn't tell if the next people if you wanted to say something.

[01:11]

You're not sure I answered his question? Is there something you want me to say to him? You can tell me, I'll say whatever you want. Tell me an answer to his question and I'll give it to him. Do you have an answer that I could give him? Pardon? Would you come up here please? There's a microphone you can use. to think of a song that... Now it's on, now it's on. When you asked if anybody knew a song about whether, about addiction to serving others, I started trying to think of one and I think I might have thought of one, but I'm not sure.

[02:20]

Bob Dylan, you gotta serve somebody in his Christian, in his Christian time. You wrote a song called You Gotta Serve Somebody. I'm not sure that's about addiction. So the song I thought of, the difference between pain and suffering, and the certain kind of suffering that comes from being addicted to, it also made me wonder about preference and choice. In terms of addiction. Exercising choice. And whether. We always have. The song is. You load 15 tons. 16. 16 tons. 17. And what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter, because I can't go.

[03:23]

I owe my soul to the company store. Boom, boom. Some people say a man is made out of mud. Poor man's made out of muscle and blood. Muscle and blood, skin and bones. A mind that's weak and a back that's strong. You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day of... Deeper in debt, St. Peter, don't you call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store. I rose up this morning, it was drizzling rain. my shovel and i went to the main i throwed 16 tons a number nine coal and the straw ball said well bless my soul you load 16 tons what do you get another day older

[04:39]

Peter, don't you call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store. If you see me coming, better step aside. A lot of men died, one fist of iron, the other of steel. If the right one don't get you, then the left one will. You load 16 tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Peter, don't you call me cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store. Well, that feels kind of good to sing that. That's why people in those situations sing. Sing, it feels good. Cause it helps them find the middle way. But there is something about feeling a sense of being compelled to do, being trapped into doing.

[05:54]

Being trapped, yeah. Being possessed. Serving. Being possessed into serving. But I don't think that guy thought he was serving the mind, you know, altruistically, like he wanted to be of service. I thought he felt like he had to do that work, otherwise he would be, you know, put in prison or something. So I think the singer was addicted to work and to survival and to food. But I think the singing is the key. That if you sing the song of being trapped... you can find a place the middle way. At least by yourself. So when you're talking about addiction, it implies that there's free will and some choice. No. It's not being trapped. I don't mean, I'm not saying there is or isn't. I'm saying in addiction, you actually, you are... obsessively, compulsively forced into grasping because you think something's external to you.

[07:04]

So when you see things external, you can't help but crave them. Either crave them or crave getting away from them. And then you grasp going towards or away. And then you're addicted to the thing. either have to avoid it or go towards it. And some people are addicted to these things that give them sensual pleasure, but also some people are addicted not too much to the pain, but to the idea that they should be of service. Like some parents are addicted to serving their children. They feel, you know, that there's... not so much that there's no choice, but they feel compulsive compulsion to take care of the children rather than they want to like they cannot stand duty bound they cannot stand to not do their duty and sometimes we can't do our duty but if we don't see our duty as external when we don't do it we can deal with it compassionately and we're at ease with not doing it and then we can do it so the main thing we need the main service we can provide

[08:19]

discover the middle way and share it with them while we're taking care of ourselves and taking care of others. If we really want to help others, we need to find this middle way. Okay, thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, please do. Thank you. Yes, come up. Would you please come up here? Yes, please come up here. Thank you for... This is for you. Thank you. I appreciate it very much. Aloha.

[09:22]

Aloha. Thank you for being upright every day. Well, what I was going to add, being a professional helper or listener, tell me what you would want. Compulsive caretaking was sort of circling my vocabulary as you were talking. Do-gooders. Compulsive do-gooders. People who have the compulsion to do good, rather than just a wish, the addiction to doing good. Yeah. Something I have to be aware of every day. Yeah. I do my stuff. Yeah. And coming from a Catholic background... The idea of doing good was always pretty strong.

[10:25]

And the wounded healer also was another phrase that kept coming up. You know, am I treating my wound? Or am I treating the wounds of the world or the person in the room? The child who's doing therapy with me. You know, who's serving who here? And in these days of managed care and pre-existing illness, there's a, I would call humping, well, I shouldn't say humping, dumping going on. One of my 17-year-old clients used the phrase hump and dump, which was more about her boyfriends, but I often think of managed care that way. That there's a sort of... advantage-taking of the client and then dumping the client. And so I work in a medical school in the East, in a high school where there's a fair amount of suicide and difficulties, and a lot of kids get dumped.

[11:35]

So it's a struggle within, in my compulsion to sort of advocate for the client, where sometimes I get upset and attached to you know, quote-unquote, fighting with my colleagues. I don't know if you could comment on that a little bit. That's one of the hardest parts for me, is when I've... medical systems work better for the sake of children, and that I have to sort of fight with my colleagues... I get caught up in that. When you say fight, what do you mean by fight with your colleagues? Disagree? Argue? Well, I bring up unpopular... If I hold too long, then I get written up. And then I get into a little... And then some people say you shouldn't be spending so much time. Not so much time. And then you say it's really important to do a good job and take good care of them. Yeah. And so what I'm bringing up today is that in situations like that,

[12:38]

the thing we're trying to learn how to do is to have a conversation, which might look like an argument, but anyway, have a conversation with people who we understand are not separate from us. If we get to that place, we can practice and teach the middle way. Find a peaceful way to have a conversation, to have intense conversations, to have dramatic conversations with people in the middle way. where we don't, where we understand they're not external and where nothing's going to be brought in by this conversation. I'm not going to get what I want. I'm not trying to get anything. I'm in this middle way with this person. That's helpful. But to get to that place, I have to be compassionate with what it feels like prior to that realization, which is prior to that realization, if I'm having a dramatic conversation with somebody, I'm stressed if I think they're external.

[13:46]

Before I understand that they're not, I feel suffering in the conversation. And the suffering is showing me that I haven't got to the place of understanding that they're external. I haven't got to the middle way because I'm still stressed. So then I have to be compassionate to the stress and be compassionate to that I think they're external. except that I have this kind of, that's the way it looks to me and I'm caught by it. And I'm stressed by that. I'm stressed. I'm not at peace because I think they're external. But if I can be compassionate towards the externality, to my illusion and belief and craving to get a hold of something and to get something, if I can be compassionate to that, I can come to sit at Buddha. and there, understanding that there's nobody out there separate from me. It's not that there's nobody there, it's that there's nobody existing separate from me.

[14:50]

Then I can continue the conversation, maybe sounding quite similar, but the middle way is unfolding in the conversation, and it's peaceful. They may not yet be appreciating how peaceful it is, but the way has been realized and the peace is being offered, and the conversation goes on. That's helpful. But to get to that place of peace with somebody that you disagree with and that is criticizing you to get to that place, we have to be compassionate towards the pre-realized situation of our own distress with feeling some separation from the world. So to be kind creates the stress. We have to be kind to the delusion which makes us crave and grasp in order to get to the place where there's nothing to grasp. There's no grasping, there's no stress.

[15:52]

Now we're in the middle way to continue the conversation. The non-grasping is really what I'm going to take away. That's the goal, is to get to the non-grasping and the peace. Can I change the subject completely? The subject can change. The spirituality of ants? The spirituality of ants, yeah. Are they just robots? I think they probably can sense positive and negative sensations, I imagine. But I guess that most ants are like, most ants, I think, are suffering because of their robotic relationship to the community. I guess they're suffering because they're robotically serving their queen and serving their sisters. And even the males are robotically serving their queen. So I guess they're stressed because I don't think they're on the right path.

[16:59]

Because they're not choosing to serve out of compassion and love and joy and non-grasping. I think they're kind of like just going with their programming. So I guess they're suffering in a way that's hard for me to say I really can see it. Like this E.O. Wilson, he's looked at ants for a long time and he doesn't think they're playful. He thinks dogs can play and cats can play. But this guy really looks at animals all the time. He doesn't think ants can play. And I think that if they can't play, I think they suffer. And if they can't play, I think we're suffering too. And sometimes when we're serving, we're not playful. And sometimes when we're feeding ourselves, we're not playful. We're not relaxed and playful when we're serving ourselves and others sometimes. And at that time we're stressed. So I think ants are just serving, doing their job, and I think they're kind of stressed beings.

[18:06]

But there's a reason for that because the service of the community makes that group very successful. So their altruism is actually quite successful. But it's robotic altruism. Our altruism, when it's not robotic, and theirs, if it could be not robotic, that's the middle way, is non-robotic altruism. The service which comes from the way things really are. Which is that we're serving nobody external to ourself. Because there isn't anybody like that. Paul Watzlawick wrote a book called The Invented Reality in which he studied army ants. Their communication happens in the air, smelling things with their antennae. Pheromones. And they follow each other robotically.

[19:09]

And his example was if one accidentally goes on a curve so they start going in a circle, they will march until they die. Continue to smell their... their brother or sister in front of them until the robotic mandate, you know, kills the entire colony. On the other hand, if you've ever seen an ant cut a leaf to make a little boat to go across the troubled waters, there does seem to be a teens of creativity there. A teens. I think that some people's understanding of evolution is that ants will become Buddhas. that they're going to understand the way to serve the community that's not robotic. Some ant, by genetic mutation, when they smell that pheromone, will not follow and will step aside and look and say, look what's happening to my friends.

[20:16]

And non-robotics, you know, move the thing that they're smelling so that they go in a better direction or something. So genetic mutation will perhaps help ants to be compassionate towards each other. Not according to addiction, but according to reality. Now somebody say, prove that, and I'll try. I'll have to be a scientist many lifetimes, but I'll try. Here's my mudra for that. Hands could like bend their antenna in a circle. Or bend their antenna so that they're forced to sit down. I asked, you know, earlier, you know, a lot of people moved, and I wonder when everybody was sitting still before, I guess.

[21:25]

And I wondered what happened. And somebody said that just before that, I had said, you're sitting on Buddha's seat. I don't know if that's true, but so everybody's sitting on Buddha's seat. Nobody wanted to move. Unless there's an excuse. He talked. We can move. Yeah. Yes? I don't know if this is worth... And it was curious. When you started the vows with the tune of Amazing Grace, what I found was that I have a really robotic program for how to do both of those things, and I couldn't put them together. And it was charming and funny, but it was also kind of... I wondered if he could say something about that. Yeah, I think when we have a robotic way of doing things...

[22:30]

that sometimes when an alternative to our robotic pattern is offered, we may feel stress, like we should hold... Because we do it robotically, it may be hard for us to adjust to another way. It seemed impossible. I mean, I know that there should be a potential to do it, but it felt like it was a physical impossibility, like my brain just wouldn't... Well, I guess when you do it in the moment, it's impossible to do it other than can't do it. Can't do it is the way it's happening. So in fact, in a sense, you could say it's impossible to do it any other way than you did it. But the next moment, you might find yourself doing it in a way that you couldn't do the moment before. I think I'd have to practice. So, yeah. Would that be all right with you? Yeah. Okay. Yes.

[23:31]

I was just listening to the ants or robotic way of doing it and then with joy and what came to and I don't know, I'm just kind of trying to understand it or see what's there, is if the joy is really coming from a true observation and being robotic does not have that, just following some pattern, is that true or not? Where is that joy coming from? Are you asking me where joy comes from? Yeah, I'm really curious about it. I am too. I'm curious about where joy comes from, but I don't really know where joy comes from.

[24:51]

I also don't know where you come from. I will keep my curiosity. But I hear that you're curious and I know a lot of people really value curiosity and I'm trying to develop some. Because it's highly recommended. by some excellent people. I'll let you know when I find it. Okay. Yesterday, there was this short little commercial about this movie that's been around called Ants.

[25:56]

And they had a short little... And I guess they were all following one another, doing their work. But the ant, that's the Woody Allen ant, said, I don't want to do that. And they went, whoops. He was one of those mutants. And they're going, whoops, well then what do we do? And then that was that I went, oh, it's just Woody Allen. But now after your talk, I'm saying, oh, okay. He's not robotic. Yeah. In a sense, you know, when we're artists, at the moment that we're artists, we're like, in a sense, we're We're robotic mutants. We're mutants of robotic activity and we're artists. We're breaking out of our robotic pattern.

[27:04]

The ant that was played by Woody Allen is like an ant artist, artistic ant, right? Woody Allen's also kind of, you know, a mutant too, right? Wonderful mutant. Yes. Please come. You can queue up with it. You can do an ad queue. A song that is about addiction to serving others. It's a song about what? Addiction to serving others. Addiction to serving others. Oh, thank you. Looking for those. Okay, it goes like this. If you leave me, I'll go crazy. And if you ever forget me, I'll go crazy.

[28:08]

Because I love you, I love you. Oh, I love you too much. So you've got to live for yourself. and nobody else. You've got to live for yourself, for yourself and nobody else. Did you write that just now? Um, no. Okay. I think it was Chuck Brown. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. So this nothing is external, what does that actually mean? The meaning of it is peace. That's the meaning of it. And freedom.

[29:08]

That's what it means. Can you explain? Can I explain? Yes, I can explain. Would you please? Sure. If you think things are external... stressed in relationship to whatever you think is external because, in fact, everything you're aware of is your mind. Like you're looking at me now. I'm over here, but what you see is your mental version of me. However, your mental version of me looks like it's external, but actually it's not. So there's a stress in your mind because your mind is deceiving you Huh? In the mind, the mind, it appears that the mind tells the mind, I'm external to you. And there's a belief that that's true. Why is that painful?

[30:10]

Because it's not true. Because your mind is not external to itself. It's not. It's a... is tricking itself. And also because of that trickery, fear arises in the mind quite frequently. And also, the mind thinks it can grasp itself, and it can't. So all kinds of stresses occur, and these stresses are not the main point of this, like byproducts of this somewhat useful illusion system. Have you noticed that people are afraid? Yeah. Without externality, you can't be afraid. Have you noticed that people are violent? Yeah. And one of the main reasons they're violent, one of the ways to get people to be violent is to frighten them.

[31:13]

Like, you know, get your population frightened and then you can get them to go to war. Things like that. A lot of the pain and suffering of the world comes from the delusion that we're separate from each other, but we're not. I'm not you, but I'm not separate from you. But your mind and my mind arise in such a way that we think we're separate from each other. But that's just a thought construction. And our feeling of separateness from each other creates stress. You could say it creates stress between us, but really the stress is in my own mind. And then it affects our relationship. Like, for example, I think you're whatever I think you are. And I think that's you. But my idea of you is not you. It's just my idea of you. But I don't know you. I know my idea of you. But I think my idea is you. And if you tell me that it's different, I might possibly not believe you. Like I might think you're my friend and you might say, no, I'm your enemy.

[32:23]

Or I might think I own you. And you might say, no, you don't. And I might think, no, it's true, I do own you. You know? And I might think that's really true, and that might be really a problem in our relationship. And I might not be able to let go of it. I mean, that actually happens between people. There was a time when people thought they owned other people. Remember that time? In this country, people thought they owned other human beings. And they had wars over them, you know, had violent... They thought they owned other people. Isn't that amazing that a human being could think they own another person? They can't do that without thinking the person's external. But thinking someone's external, you think you can own them. I mean, you might think that. You might have a delusion to think you'd own somebody. Just like you think that you need that delusion to think you own your car or your cameras.

[33:27]

And if you think you own your car and own your camera, that's going to be the basis for fear, if somebody's going to take your cameras or your car, and even violence if they try to take your camera, your car, your girlfriend, your house, your country. But if you don't think that way, you can have peace with people who mess around with your stuff. You know? You can say, what are you doing with that camera? which you understand is not external, therefore there it is and you're interested in it and you want to play with it. And they do too. They want to take a walk with it. But the person who's taking a walk is your dearly beloved, non-separate friend. Because you understand that. So as long as we think we're separate, we're stressed. Because we're not. That's just a construction of being separate. And we're also not one, you know, we're not like just one either. But we live in a world where we project onto other people that they're separate, that they're out there separate from us.

[34:38]

And that creates things like attachment and possessiveness or, you know, trying to get rid of them or whatever. And this is where all the stress comes from. This is where we start grasping. We grasp people because we think they're external, and when we grasp them, we suffer. We don't really grasp them. We grasp our illusions. We can't grasp somebody. People are bigger than what we can grasp, but we can't deal with that, so we make them into graspable illusions, and then we try to grasp them and try to control them because we think they're like, you know, controllable things. So all these things are perfect, you know, themselves. But when we try to grasp them, they become suffering. Food's okay. Alcohol's okay. Drugs are okay. Money's okay. Power's okay. All this stuff's okay until it gets external. And then we become addicted to it. Or then we have an addictive relationship. And then there's stress.

[35:40]

I mean, what's not external is our relationship to this stuff, because that's all internal. Well, you could say it's internal, but anyway, it's just our mind. Internal is another construction, but anyway, it's our mind. Mind isn't actually internal or external. Internal or external are mental constructions. There really isn't internal or external, really, other than us thinking of it. Like as far as I know, ants don't think of internal or external, because they don't have that imagination. But they do, I think, I think they do think external, internal. I take it back. They think in their colony. They have ways of smelling their colony. This is our people. And then other smells are other colonies. So they have internal and external too. Therefore, I think ants are stressed also. They just don't have the word internal and the word external.

[36:43]

We do. You're welcome. Thank you for your question. I see you in non-external-ville. Okay. Yes. This is on. It's on. I agree. Great. I just wanted to come up here because I was feeling incomplete about our conversation earlier. And I just wanted to confess that I am a person that does not like getting up in front of a group of people and speaking into a microphone.

[37:48]

So that's why I was a little bit reticent earlier. Oh, no, I don't feel that you did. I just acknowledge that that's why I was being reticent earlier. And I was curious if you felt complete in the conversation and if you had a question now that you've had some time to kind of listen to everyone. Well, sort of. I can feel my heart going like this. But I think that it's good practice, actually, to get out of your comfort zone and to do the thing that isn't necessarily your typical habit. Well, actually, I think what you and I were talking about was what might be called cultural differences, which was a little bit off of... the idea of the altruism of our species, of our groups, which is similar to the ant.

[39:01]

So it was a question which maybe would have been better served in a different slide. But it's interesting, though, because the question then to you is, even if you do see things as external to you, one may think it's and then you realize, no, that was off. If there is, for instance, a cultural habit. Excuse me, did you say even if you do think things are external? Yes. Okay. Yes. And so you see these ants and you say, wow, these ants have a different habit, a different addiction, but actually that's different from how we typically are. And I would like to be a little bit more ant-like. not in a robotic way, ideally, but what is a way that we can learn from and practice in the way that is contrary to our habit without falling over into addiction?

[40:08]

That's my question. Well, if I'm sort of robotically self-serving, then when I see ants, Well, that would be cool to be able to be like them. I mean, to be like them but not be robotic in their way either. In other words, to get out of my robotism, to break out of this and be able to serve as freely as they can but without their rigidity. I'd like to be able to do it in a relaxed, playful way. I'd like to be able to throw my body down playfully for the welfare of others. I'd like to give my blood and body and mind playfully, not habitually. And you may not say habitually, but just maybe one time will do it. But to give yourself not habitually, not addictively, but just spontaneously because it seems to be joyful and appropriate.

[41:13]

And then not to do it when it doesn't seem appropriate. But you're not doing it by momentum. you're doing it because it seems right, it seems good. And if you can't do it, you're okay with that. You can do it another way. Some of this flexibility and creativity. But sometimes you see people do stuff and for you to be able to do what they're doing would be to break out of your mold. But they may actually be in a mold. For me to be like a gorilla, I'd be a Zen master. But for gorillas to be a Zen master, they should be like me. But the way they act is like, if a human being was like a gorilla, in a lot of situations you say, wow, that person is so enlightened and so flexible. Reaching your person and saying, can I suck your comb? You know, or whatever, you know. Are you wearing your hat because it's different?

[42:20]

Stop. I'm wearing my hat because I just felt this mutation occur. Does that mean that I can ask you a follow-up question? Or would someone else like to ask a question? I think the meaning of my question... Pardon? Somebody else has a question? Someone else has a question. And you're going to donate your question to them? I would like to. How very altruistic. Well, it's a little altruistic. Yeah. Who are you going to donate to? Oh, yes. Well, okay, go ahead. Please come quickly. We're in the up-to-me department. if this can be short.

[43:23]

I was wondering if you could take that segment where we become compassionate when we see that we think things are external, a place that it turns around, if that's something you can... You want me to talk about being compassionate when we notice that we think things are external? Yeah, that place where... How does it turn around, that moment when we kind of can come back to the middle way? Well, how does it turn? Well, here's how it turns. The way you're compassionate to, like when you see people as external, you're compassionate to that. In other words, you're compassionate. If you've heard this teaching, you notice, oh, I see things the way people, or deluded people see things. That's how I see things. I've heard the deluded people think that other people see things. And that's the way it looks to me. So I guess I'm, according to that, maybe I'm deluded. So I'm open to that. Being open to that is compassionate.

[44:29]

And then also I'm generous and I welcome. I'm a deluded person. I welcome that. I welcome the teaching which tells me that I'm deluded. And I also notice that I'm in stress around that. I notice I'm afraid because I think people are external. And I'm concerned about whether they like me or will support me or not. I'm concerned about that. I'm stressed around that. Will people, you know, will they feed me when I'm sick? So then I'm compassionate towards, and I'm open to my stress around that externality. Then I'm also careful with it. So I practice ethical principles in relationship to the things which I understand I don't see correctly. I try to practice not stealing in the situation of thinking things are external. You know, again, when I think they're external, I feel a craving for them and I want to grasp them. And so I have this precepts of don't take them unless they're given.

[45:33]

That not taking things unless they're given helps me tune into that I think they're external. Not act out my delusion that they're external, but, you know, kind of like be present. It's like, well, I'll just wait till they give it to me if I can. So practicing not stealing is a way to deal with the world when we think things are out there to grasp and so on. Other ethical principles embrace the situation of being deluded and thinking things are external and the stress around it. Then we practice patience. We practice patience with our shortcomings in the practice I'm talking about and also patience with the stress of delusion, the stress of thinking that and craving them and grasping them. Practice patience with the pain of that. Learn how to be present with that and not run away from that and not try to get things as a solution to the pain we feel from trying to get them.

[46:34]

And then we go on to practice heroic effort where we continue those practices but also we wish to practice concentration and be very calm with the situation. And so then we move on to practice concentration with this diluted, painful situation or this painful situation based on delusion. Now we can be calm with it because we are ethical and patient. And we've generated energy to be really present with it and really still with it and really open to it. And in that situation, the sense that things are external becomes attenuated. It kind of gets turned off, the externality. Because in the concentration you see how the mind and what it's aware of are actually not separate, that they're one-pointed. In the concentration you see that the mind and what it knows

[47:39]

So you get a break from that sense of externality and you get a rest and a relief and a peace with that externality. It's kind of turned off temporarily. Then, from that calm place where it kind of turned off, now you can look at it again and verify that it's false. And that's the place where it really turns. But you have to prepare for that with generosity, ethics, concentration, effort, excuse me, generosity, ethics, patience, enthusiasm, concentration. And then you can look at this sense that things are separate and see that it's really totally insubstantial without even taking it away. It's still there, but you realize that the mind and what it knows are You understand that.

[48:43]

But still, the sense of subject and object is there, but you understand that the sense of separation is an illusion. That's where it turns. But that wisdom turning is based on being compassionate with the situation, being gentle and careful with it, and then settling down with it and seeing, oh, there's nothing like that. And then there's no craving and no grasping. And then you're in the middle way. And then you can carry on to interact with people so that they can join the program. Okay? Thank you very much.

[49:24]

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