Here is what seems to be a story. We are here together, and I'm talking to you, and I suggest to you something I heard, something I read, and it is that living beings just have consciousnesses which tell stories. Another way to say it is living beings just have karmic consciousness. You could say living beings have... Yeah, or almost you could say living beings are storytelling minds.

[01:19]

And right now, I have a story that I'm telling a story. Living beings are enclosed. They experience a kind of closure. They don't necessarily think it's a closure, but they are enclosed by their mental constructions. They can't see outside them. The world of appearances is an enclosure, a cognitive enclosure. And all the problems of birth and death, all the moral problems, all the ethical problems occur within this enclosure.

[02:39]

Birth and death and the problems we have with that aging and the problems we have with that all occur within this enclosure and only there. All the problems of human condition occur within this enclosure. And the enclosure is something to practice compassion towards, I would say. The enclosure is not really our life. Our life isn't really birth and death. But within the way our life appears, there is birth and death in that realm, and there is suffering.

[03:47]

But all of our suffering occurs within this conscious construction, within this consciousness, this storytelling consciousness, which is steadily making stories. These are my friends. These are not my friends. These people have hurt me. These people have helped me. This story is much more painful than that story. So there's a teaching which says all this stuff, all the stories about this person not being my friend and all the stories about this person hurting me, all the stories about me hurting myself and me hurting others, these are stories which our mind is constructing.

[04:52]

They're not real. They're just appearances. They're just dreams. They're just ideas. And if we're kind to them consistently and deeply, we will we will realize freedom from them without getting rid of them. If we're kind to the unreal, we will realize the real and therefore realize freedom from this cognitive enclosure. A lot of Zen stories are about teachers working with students who are just about ready to see the unreality of this cognitive enclosure.

[06:13]

A lot of the stories about teachers working with students are just about ready to realize that the story they have of what's going on really is just a story. And nothing more than a story. And again, some stories are really nice sounding, like, this is an excellent, wonderful, beneficent being I'm looking at. This person is so helpful. That's a very kind of, a person might feel that that's a very pleasant story. And the person might think it's not just a story. This person really is a beneficent person. And they're a beneficent person the way I think they're a beneficent person.

[07:17]

Some other people think they're beneficent, but I don't agree with the way they see it. That's my story about their story. Sometimes it does prepare us to realize this enclosure is unreal by having better and better storage within the enclosure. For example, we could have a story. This person who's telling me to practice compassion towards my stories is a good person, so I should practice compassion towards my stories. That story might help you practice compassion. So it's kind of a happy story. I got a nice, helpful person here who's recommending I practice compassion. And I think I will. And I have a story that I think I will practice compassion, or at least I want to.

[08:20]

Such stories prepare people to have somebody say, are you ready to fully accept that your cognitive construction is just a cognitive construction? So again, a lot of Zen stories are for people who have been instructed to practice compassion towards their stories and have done so for quite a while. And now by practicing compassion towards their stories and listening to the teaching that their stories are stories, they're very calm and relaxed with their stories, they've heard the teaching that these stories are stories, they've heard the teaching about, would you please go someplace where there's no stories? They've heard all this, and then the story that we hear, the Zen story, is about the teacher and the student interacting in such a way that the student becomes free of the story.

[09:22]

And then they sometimes say, this is really good to be free of the story. The story I just came from was a very happy story. And I... And I'm free of it. But I'm not sorry. Even though it was a very happy story, I'm even happier to be free of my story of happiness. I mean, I did have a story of happiness and in that story I was grateful for this happy situation. But being free of that is even better. Not to mention I had a story that was a horrible story and I wasn't grateful and I'm free of that one. So now you can easily understand how I'd be happy to be free of that one. But it's The stories are about people becoming free of their stories, a lot of them. There's not too many stories about the long process of encouragement between the student and the teacher, between the student and the tradition, encouraging them, giving this teaching over and over and encouraging them to be kind to the world of appearances in which they are enclosed.

[10:43]

So I have a story that I kind of need to tell the story about before the Zen stories. To tell the stories about how these people who we just hear, you know, the teacher goes, or the teacher goes, yeah, the teacher goes, blah, blah. A lot of stories how the teacher goes, blah, blah, and the student doesn't get it. So that's in the case where... They're not quite ready, and then the other story is the teacher goes, blah, blah, and the student is ready. Now, in this situation of being enclosed in our minds, Again, so this bull says, I'm enclosed in my mind, you're enclosed in your mind.

[11:48]

I often think of this commercial jingle, commercial song from my childhood on TV, which goes, I got a gang, you got a gang, everybody's got to have a gang. But there's only one gang that's for me, good old Buster Brown's gang. I think Buster Brown was a brand of shoes which sponsored this show. which I think is called Andy's Gang. Maybe it wasn't Buster Brown's Gang, maybe it was Andy's Gang. Anyway, I got a mind, you got a mind, everybody's got to have a mind, but there's only one mind that's for me, this one. This is not something to complain about, though, even though it's where all of our problems are.

[12:57]

It's not to complain, oh, this is where we have problems, this is where we suffer. Not complain. Matter of fact, the instruction is do not complain about being trapped in your mind wherein you suffer. And encourage other people who are trapped in their minds to not complain about where they're suffering. On the other hand, let's practice all kinds of virtues towards this imprisonment. And there's good days and bad days in prison. There's relatively comfortable days in prison. And sometimes right in the middle of one of those comfortable days, things get really uncomfortable all of a sudden. It was so nice this morning and then boom, got really hard. And then it lightened up. But I'm getting kind of nauseated by this going back and forth between not so hard and harder and a little bit easier.

[14:05]

That's what kind of nauseating. I'm feeling suffocated and strangled. The root of the word anxiety is which the root of the word anxiety is to be choked or strangled. We are more or less strangled by this cognitive enclosure. Sometimes it's not so bad. And you can still breathe pretty well. But sometimes it's really hard to breathe and it gets scary. This is not something to complain about. I mean, you could complain about it. But the instruction from the who? From the ones who have been kind to this enclosure in the past. They encourage people who are now living in this enclosure and believing it, who are believing, I believe I've been choked, who believe that, who think it's true, rather than, I saw the story, I've been choked.

[15:13]

For those people, the people who have in the past been kind to when they were choked, they encourage other people to be kind to their current anxiety and suffocation and strangulation because if they can be kind to it they also will become free of it. The people who were kind in the past and then became free are now sending messages to those who are trapped about how to become free. Sometimes the messages come and you don't even know somebody else is sending them. Or sometimes they send you a message and you don't know it's a message. Like the one that comes to my mind is one I've told often about this person who was put into a prison.

[16:15]

Before he was put into prison, he didn't think he was in prison. So the situation got set up so that he would understand he was in prison. So they put him in a prison so he could understand, because before that he thought he wasn't. But then he thought he was. He was right. He didn't realize everybody else was in prison. I mean, all the other living beings were in prison, but that wasn't his concern. His concern was that he was in prison. And somebody sent him a present. Somebody from outside the prison sent him a present. This man lived, this man was a Muslim, I guess. So somebody sent him a care package, which was a prayer rug. But he actually was not too happy with this gift. He preferred a key to the cell or a saw. or money to bribe the guards or something, but that's not what he got. He got a prayer rug, and he was not grateful for this gift, which was coming from a good place.

[17:27]

Anyway, he put the prayer rug down anyway, just because, softer than the hard floor of the cell. And after a long time he just happened to look at it. And then he looked at it again. Because there wasn't any, I guess, that much more interesting to look at than the pterorug. So he just kept looking at it and looking at it. And he finally noticed that it kind of had an unusual pattern in it. And then he looked at it some more and he realized that it kind of looked actually like a diagram of something. And he realized that it was a diagram of a lock. And maybe it was a diagram of the lock of his cell, he thought, perhaps. So then he constructed a key to fit that lock. And sure enough, he became free. By gradually giving attention and kindness to the prayer rug,

[18:33]

Actually, I didn't tell the story quite right. He actually didn't just look at the prayer rug. He thought, well, it's a prayer rug. Maybe I can bow on it. So he started bowing on it. And when he bowed on it, he started to see it more clearly. He started to see the patterns and the bowing. So I told this story before. I don't have to tell it again, but it might be helpful. It's a story about a person named Xiang Yan. He was a monk, a Buddhist monk in China around 1100 years ago. And he lived in a cognitive enclosure like all living beings, except that in his cognitive enclosure, in addition to like stories of friends and enemies, like most people have, or Republicans and Democrats, you know, and Obamacare, and, you know,

[20:00]

In addition to that stuff, he had, his enclosure was, you know, full of Buddhist scriptures. You know? The surface of his enclosure was like all these Buddhist scriptures. Wonderful, fabulous, wonderful Buddhist teachings, which he, like, and he studied them. He read all those scriptures in addition to the other stuff which people read like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and yummy breakfast. He read all these Buddhist scriptures and he loved them and he understood them quite well. And then he happened to run into one of these people who had accepted the teaching of cognitive enclosure and practiced kindness towards cognitive enclosure and had become free of it.

[21:03]

And after becoming free of it, he invited other people to come and visit him in freedom. When they were ready. He didn't invite everybody to come. Oftentimes, for your information, I laugh when a story comes to my mind, and I laugh before I tell you the story. Sometimes I never get to the story, because something else comes up before I can tell you. But this time, I might be able to tell you the story before we move on, if you want to hear it. I laugh because of people being ready, and sometimes people aren't ready for these teachings. So this is a story about my grandson. We were in Santa Barbara, which is a city in California, which is a state in the United States of America, in the cognitive enclosure of planet Earth, etc.

[22:11]

So there we were, and I was giving a workshop, and he came to see me with his mother and his and in his mother's stomach was his future little sister. And he came to see me because I brought him a brand new bicycle from San Francisco, California. That's one of the cities on the surface of your cognitive enclosure, probably. It's a lovely city, generally speaking. For some people. Some people think San Francisco is horrible. Some people think it's wonderful. So I brought him the bicycle down there and he came to get his bicycle. And I said, do you like your bicycle? And he says, mm-hmm. And my sister's not going to get to ride it. his little sister who hadn't even been born yet, he was making clear, she's not going to ride my bicycle.

[23:22]

And I said, by the time she's old enough to ride it, you will be away at college probably. And he says, I don't care. I still don't want her to ride it. And I said, but the person who will be there at that time won't be you. It'll be another person. You'll be a college student who you aren't right now, but you won't be here anymore. That person will be here. That person might be okay with her riding the bicycle. And he said, that is totally incomprehensible. So we live in this cognitive enclosure and sometimes people who have realized freedom with this cognitive enclosure, in this cognitive enclosure, beyond this, anyway, who are free of it because they understand it, they send us messages sometimes.

[24:31]

And they somehow get through our cognitive enclosure. And sometimes we say, that's totally incomprehensible. But then sometimes, because we have a story, this is a good person, we think about it a little bit more. So Shan Yan met this teacher. And the teacher said, I don't want to hear any more about Buddhism from you, about all the stuff you learned. Don't tell me any about that. Don't tell me about anything you've learned or studied. Would you please just say something from before your self was born, from before your mind discriminated objects. In the cognitive enclosure, there's a self that was born, and then sometimes it dies and gets born, and another one comes up. But anyway, before these selves were born, would you please say something to me from before that?

[25:37]

before we lived in a world where there was like good people and bad people, you know, Republicans and Democrats, before you got into that world, that consciously constructed world, would you please say something to me from before that? And to make a long story short, this brilliant student of the cognitive enclosure of Buddha Dharma couldn't say anything the teacher found acceptable and he was really kind of sad about it and decided to leave the teacher, not in anger, but just because he felt like the teacher was saying, you can't study, I don't want to hear about the other stuff you've been studying and the new assignment he just couldn't do. You following that? He couldn't say something from this new place and the teacher said, I don't want to hear anything about the old place. I don't want to hear about anything from, I don't want you to tell me what's in your world. I want to tell you something from freedom from your world.

[26:45]

Say something from freedom from your world. Don't tell me anymore about your world. Just tell me something about freedom from your world, would you please?" And he couldn't. But again, I think that he had already been kind enough to his world that the teacher was ready to say this to him, but he wasn't quite kind enough. Basically, he was thinking, this is totally incomprehensible to me. But unlike my grandson, he wanted to keep meditating on it. So he left the teacher and he went to a place where he thought he could continue to meditate on this strange instruction to speak from basically the time before this cognitive construction happened, the time before the mind encloses us. And I imagine that he continued to practice kindness towards his enclosure where he didn't understand what the teacher was telling him, but he was still thinking about it, contemplating it, and trying to be kind to that world.

[27:53]

And then one day, when he was cleaning the grounds around the monument to the national teacher, Jung, his broom or his scythe struck a stone. The stone flew through the air and hit a stalk of bamboo and went. When he heard the sound, he became free of the cognitive enclosure and he was And he was free. And he was free of suffering and free of his mind and full of gratitude. There's a lot more to this story which I'm not going to go into right away.

[28:54]

I just want to tell you a poem that he wrote quite a while later. I'll just tell you that upon the occasion of this becoming free of his mind, and by the way, how did he become free of his mind? Before I tell you more, would somebody please tell me how did he become free of his mind? Tell me about it. Tell me a story about how he became free of his mind. He was kind to his mind, yeah. For a long time. For a long time. And also he was kind to the stories he had of the teachings that he had received, to be kind and also the teachings to please not only be kind to your cognitive enclosure but please say something to me before it was constructed. So he was kind to his mind and he was kind to those teachings and that got him ready to, in a sense,

[29:58]

accept freedom from his mind. And then he wrote a bunch of poems in gratitude which he sent to his teacher. But I'm not going to talk about those poems right now. I'm going to talk about another poem which he wrote later. And the poem goes like this. The chick pecks from inside. Inside what? A shell, yeah. The chick pecks from inside. He didn't say what, but you can understand. It's the shell. The chick pecks from inside. The hen pecks from outside. The chick breaks free through the shell. When the hen and chick are both forgotten,

[31:00]

the great function has all lined up. Singing the same song, the mystical voice goes on solo. When Xiangyan met his teacher Guishan, he was a sincere practitioner and he was pecking He was pecking on the shell. For him, the shell was probably... He was pecking on the shell by reciting Buddhist scriptures, by asking the teacher questions about what he had learned. He was really saying, would you please show me how to get out of this this trap of my mind. He was pecking and the teacher heard the peck, so the teacher pecked back and said, don't tell me about anything in that shell anymore.

[32:05]

Say something to me from before that shell was constructed. And then he pecked back and the teacher pecked back and said, uh-uh. And he pecked back and the teacher pecked back and said, no. He pecked back and the teacher said, no. No. And he pecked back and said, I'm going to go away now for a while and peck on this thing without you around. And the teacher pecked back and said, okay. And he went away and he pecked and he pecked and he pecked. And every time he pecked, even though his teacher wasn't around, there was a peck back. And he pecked and he pecked and finally he broke through. broke through the shell. And when you break through the shell, you break free of the story of you and the teacher, or the teacher and you, or you and the student and the student.

[33:11]

You break through those stories too. All those stories that are in this world, you break through those too. So it's kind of like you're free of the stories of how you became free. which is part of why freedom is so cool. Here's something which is kind of a big thing to say, but I'm going to try it here.

[34:24]

And that is, I'm going to offer you kind of like a practical, kind of a practical side and a theoretical side. Of what? Well, let's say of the Buddha Dharma, of the Buddha teaching. The practical side is that devotion and respect for what you... the way you want to be. In other words, devotion and respect for the way you really think you're responsible to be. In other words, Devotion and respect to being ethical. But ethical means the way you think you want to be, the way you would really like to be.

[35:31]

Devotion and respect for that is freedom. That's the first layer of the practical side of the Buddhist teaching. Respect for what you think is most important for you to devote your life to. That respect and that devotion is freedom. That's the practical side of the practice. The other side is, the theoretical side is the impossibility of knowing the reality of freedom.

[36:39]

That's the theoretical side. And the theoretical side and the practical side meet at freedom. That's where they meet. The practical side is this practice is freedom. The theoretical side is it's impossible to know the reality of freedom. Freedom is ungraspable. You can't get it. And this is the practice to realize it. But if you don't have the theoretical side to go with the practical side, you might think when you're practicing the ethics of compassion, when you might think when you're practicing the ethics of compassion, the compassionate ethics, you might think that this is freedom, which it is, and then you might think that you know what the freedom is.

[37:50]

but you know the reality of the freedom. And that would not be good, because that would be the cognitive enclosure of freedom, which you would think was freedom, and it's not. Freedom is freedom from your idea of freedom. And your freedom from the idea of freedom could be simply... It's impossible to know the reality of freedom. That's freedom from the idea of freedom. But also, that's no good unless you have a practice which is freedom. This is freedom, but nobody knows what freedom is. And this is it. And I don't know what it is, but this is it. Those two together. which also means that I'm devoted to compassion towards this, towards everything. I'm devoted to the cognitive enclosure, and if there's anything besides that, I'm devoted to that.

[38:54]

I'm compassionate towards the cognitive enclosure. I mean, I want to be. I don't know if I am. I take it back. I don't know if I am compassionate towards the cognitive enclosure. I don't know if I am compassionate towards everything, in other words. But I want to be and I respect that. But I don't think the appearance of me being kind, that's not the practice. That's just my view. This is compassion. This is cruelty. This is kindness. This is a crime. These thoughts are flowing around in this world. crime and punishment, which I see. But I'm not devoted to those things. I'm devoted to being respectful of ethics.

[39:58]

I'm being respectful of what I really feel responsible to be. My respect for this is not my respect for what I think I'm doing or not doing. That's just what appears to me. And I see other people, oh, they're good or they're not good. But that's not my practice. The practice, the freedom is not to be thinking, oh, he's good and she's not. That's not the freedom. That's just the world in which one respects what is freedom, which is respect for ethics. You respect ethics, but you don't know what it is. And then you see, this is ethics and this is not. But that's not the practice. The practice isn't judging this is ethics and this is not.

[41:00]

The practice is devotion to ethics, respect for ethics, respect for ethics, respect for compassion, not this is compassion and this is not. That's not the practice. That's just the mind that you practice compassion towards, hopefully. That's the mind which you intend to practice compassion towards, the mind which is judging compassion and not compassion. And to keep you on the beam of freedom is the teaching, the theoretical teaching, which is you do not know what freedom is, but also you don't know what ethics is either. But it may be a little easier to understand you do not know the reality of freedom. Well, I just want to tell you that I have a whole bunch of stories about chickens, excuse me, about chicks in shells and hens outside of shells, which is stories about before enlightenment and after.

[42:20]

It's got a whole bunch of stories about them. I just told you one of them. It was a story of Xiang Yang and his teacher, Guishan. Xiang Yang was a chick. Guishan was a hen. Xiang Yang didn't know that he was asking for somebody to tell him how to get out of the shell. But the teacher heard them and pecked back. So that's one story of before and after enlightenment. Peck, peck, peck, peck, and then freedom. But I think what I just gave you is enough to start with. Peck away. The Buddhas will hear you. Thank you for today's stories. And here you can have my story at the moment. You're welcome for the stories which you heard, which you made up in response to me.

[43:27]

A place where I continually get confused, maybe, as to do with the distinction between kind to... Excuse me. Could I say something? Okay. She said, a place where I continually get confused, I just want to say, that's karmic consciousness. The place that she's talking about is our mind. We get confused in our mind. So now you're going to tell us about your mind. Okay, here we go. So is the distinction between kind to and complacent that way? A distinction between kind to and complacent, yeah. So in my mind, they merge together and I don't, It's not powerful, it's not useful, but this chick, so I'm thinking about this chick. And I'm thinking, was that chick being kind to being inside that egg?

[44:28]

The chick wasn't complacent about it. So it feels like there's some piece missing between kind to and complacent. There's something else like thrive or desire or infinite spirit moving things forward or Buddha nature. Oh, yeah. Sorry. So in this shell that we live in, in this cognitive enclosure, it can happen that because we're pecking, you know, we're saying, ow, [...] something pecks back and we think, oh, I would like to be free of this suffering. And then that can occur in this place of confusion. I would like to be free of suffering. Or if I would be that way, I think I would be free of suffering. The thought might arise. If I would be kind to people, I would be free of suffering.

[45:31]

The thought can occur in this realm of confusion. Or another thought is, I would like to become... I would like to really become... kind and I would like to be kind to the point of becoming completely enlightened in order to help all beings who are in such cognitive enclosures as I'm in right now. I would like to develop enlightenment and Buddhahood in order to liberate all beings from this realm of confusion and suffering. That thought can occur. And then I wish, I aspire to that. And that is the thing that's driving the process. Where does that come from? Doesn't that come from being kind to how things already are? It comes from pecking. What's having the chick peck? Why is the chick pecking? Because they're suffering. Well, if they languish, then they might die.

[46:35]

and then get another chance later where they don't languish. We're talking about cases where the chicks are crying out in pain and somebody's responding. What about complacency? Complacency, I guess, doesn't go too well. Complacency is something that might come up in the mind of someone who aspires to realize enlightenment for the welfare of all beings. Complacency might come up in their mind. Because there you are trying not to attach to being some other way. So I'm saying I sometimes can't tell if I'm being kind to something or complacent about it. And if I were a chick, I'd be... If you saw something that looked like complacency, then you can be kind to that. Because of your aspiration, If I see somebody in my mind, if I see somebody who I thought said that they aspired to realize great wisdom and compassion in order to help all beings, if I think I see somebody like that, and then they're acting in a way that looks complacent, I might check in and say, am I correct that you would like to actually

[48:01]

develop compassion and wisdom? And if they say yes, then I say, well, would you like some feedback? And they say yes, and I say, well, it sounds like you're being kind of like trying to, it sounds like you're kind of complacent. It sounds like you're not remembering that you really care about whatever it is that I think they're being complacent of. I think that's good. I think that helps. Maybe in your own loop, you can't tell, so hence you have to teach it. Yeah, but sometimes you can tell in yourself. You can spot in yourself, oh, I'm trying to, I'm feeling stressed, and I think maybe if I was complacent, that would give me a break. Maybe complacency. What does complacency mean? Complacency means everything's fine. There's no problems. Well, that doesn't necessarily complacent, but it might be. So somebody's saying, everything's fine, no problems. And how do you get out of the egg if everything's fine and there are no problems?

[49:12]

If somebody said that to me, I might say that. Well, how do you get out of the egg if everything's fine? But actually, I would say, probably what I would say to the person is, I want to check with you again about what your aspiration in life is. So if they're temporarily using, everything's fine, no problem, I don't have to do anything with the situation, if they said that to me, I might just check, just go with your aspiration for great wisdom and compassion. And they might say, yeah. I'd say, wow. So, and then we, you know, and then they say, let's see now, you say everything's fine. Did you say everything's fine and therefore you're just totally enthusiastic about practicing generosity towards everything? And they say, yeah. I say, oh, that doesn't sound like complacency anymore. Are you like wanting to welcome all suffering beings into your heart? They say, totally.

[50:13]

Now it doesn't sound complacent anymore. But they say, you know, I really don't have to welcome all these suffering beings because everything's fine as it is. I say, and I would go back to it. Let me check what your aspiration is again. Is your aspiration to keep everybody away so that everything's fine? Is your aspiration to put up a wall so all the suffering people don't get in? And then you can sit there and say, okay, everything's fine. No problem. Is that what your aspiration? And the person says, no. I want to open up my heart to all beings for the welfare of all beings. And I also want to have wisdom about what's really going on in my relationship with everybody. And in that situation, I say, everything's fine. It's fine that all the suffering is here. It's fine because I know what to do with it. It's fine because I have a practice to deal with all this misery. That's what's fine. But when somebody sounds like they're not particularly interested in practicing generosity towards all beings and welcoming all suffering into their life and practicing the ethics of compassion and being patient with all the suffering, if they sound like they're like

[51:26]

I don't want to do those practices anymore. I just want to emphasize everything's fine. Then I would just check to see what's her aspiration. And if her aspiration isn't to do the practice, like for example, she cannot use my bicycle. She's not going to ride my bicycle. Well, then I'm not going to like, I mean, I'll try a little bit like, well, you know, when she's old enough, you won't even be around anymore. And that's incomprehensible. I just let it go for a while. But if I check with my grandson, are you aspiring to attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings? He said, that's totally incomprehensible. He's not ready for this discussion yet. So I try to encourage him to be kind by being kind towards him, telling me that he doesn't want to share his bicycle with his sister. You planted the seed. Yeah. I don't say, you rotten grandson, just not sharing your bicycle with your sister.

[52:32]

No, I say, you know, if you don't want to share anything with anybody on the planet, there's somebody right here who loves you no matter what and who would give his life for you joyfully because he loves you so much. But it isn't just that I would do that. I want to do that so you see an example of compassion. which you may not be interested in for a while. You're just going to keep your bicycle for now. And maybe ten years from now you'll be like, when I was all possessive of this, he accepted that. He accepted me being totally possessive and not caring about my little sister. I want to be that way. And there's the aspiration. But the grandfather might be gone by the time he realizes what he wants to do in this life. But really, really when he says, I don't want to share my bicycle, it's kind of a peck.

[53:33]

See, it pecked. And then I said back to him, well, you know, you won't even be around. And then he says, I can't use it anyway. It's another peck. She can't use it anyway as a peck. It's saying, help me. I'm selfish. So I peck back and say, well, you know, the person who's here, there's another peck. This is totally incomprehensible. In other words, leave. That's enough, granddaddy. Lay off. No more Dharma talks right now. Okay. One time I was looking at him and like, you know, adoring him at breakfast and he frowned And I just kept adoring him. And then he said, would you stop looking at me? So I started looking at the ceiling. Actually, I should have been, but I wasn't. Thank you. And then when he got a little break from it, he said, he said, do you think Gabe, my cousin Gabe, do you think he has trouble listening to instruction, following instruction?

[54:47]

In other words, he started the conversation again once I gave him some space. So that's where it comes from. It comes from somebody. We're calling out all the time to the Buddhas. and the other enlightened beings, we're calling out to them, would you please help me deal with the situation of living in a karmic consciousness? We don't know we're saying that, but that's what they understand we're saying. Like we say, I don't want to share my bicycle with anybody. You know? I hate so-and-so. I love so-and-so. But what they hear is, please help me wake up. That's what they hear. So they go, tap. And then we say something else, and they go, tap. And then we hear, hmm, compassion? Did somebody say compassion? What's that about?

[55:47]

And we see, oh, we see somebody being kind and say, hmm, that's cool. We saw it before. We thought, why don't they treat me that way? Why are they being kind to her instead of me? We saw the compassion, but we didn't kind of think, well, I'd like to do that, too. We thought, you know, I want that for me. And then we said, well, actually, if I want it for me, maybe I'd like to do it, actually. Like some kids just like to watch cartoons, and at some point they might realize you can actually draw cartoons and watch, you know, for yourself. So anyway, if I see somebody who's being compassionate, I mean being complacent, then the thing to do in that story is be kind to the story of complacency, whether it's somebody else or myself. And just keep being kind to it until time to say, is this what you really want, this complacency? And the person might say, yes. Then you can practice compassion towards that.

[56:51]

And eventually they'll probably say, well, actually, I would like to be complacent and also compassionate. I'd like to be complacent. Well, actually, I don't really want to be complacent. I want to be compassionate. I want to be alive rather than complacent. So complacent is one side, anxious is another. They both deserve compassion. I'm not strangled is one side. There's no problem. I can breathe freely. The other side is I'm choking. Both of them deserve compassion. And with compassion towards both of them, we can promote freedom from both of them. They're both just two different current renditions of the show. Is compassion the same as attention?

[57:54]

Attention is a key ingredient in compassion. It's hard to welcome a difficult guest if you don't notice them. It doesn't really count if you welcome things without noticing because it doesn't really mean anything to welcome, for example, pain and confusion if you don't even notice it. It actually... Is it a joke? I just... It's funny that we actually do welcome all of our confusion, but we miss it. We actually, our consciousness actually does, is actually a host or hostess to the guest of our confusion. Our consciousness really is welcoming. It's welcoming all the stuff that's going on within it. But if you don't pay attention to the welcoming process, then the welcoming process doesn't count. So you miss it. But if you pay attention to something which you don't notice that you're welcoming and then you welcome it, then you feel like you're welcoming.

[58:58]

But actually you were welcoming before you practiced the welcoming. So you sort of have to practice attention in order to practice generosity. Then also practice being careful of whatever's coming. Practice the precepts. Be vigilant and cautious and gentle with everything. And then be patient with difficult stuff. And then be enthusiastic about this. And then calm down with all this. This is all compassion practices. But it's hard to calm down with things if you're not paying attention to them. It's hard to be patient with your pain if you're not even noticing it. Is the compassion practices, is it different than the quality of the compassion itself? Are the practices different than the quality of the compassion? The practices are the quality of the compassion. So compassion has these qualities. It's generous, it's ethical, it's patient, it's enthusiastic, it really aspires to itself.

[60:03]

Compassion aspires to a compassion. It has enthusiastically. Compassion has energy for compassion. Part of compassion is energy. Yes, I really do want to be compassionate. I really do want there to be a lot of compassion. That's part of compassion. And to have that energy for compassion, we need to keep checking our aspirations. So when I see somebody who doesn't seem to have much energy for compassion towards their own suffering, I'm suffering, yeah, but I don't feel much compassion toward it, yeah. Then I say, what did you aspire to? I'm nauseated, I'm choking, I'm aggressive, I'm confused. Are you feeling compassion towards all this stuff? No. What do you aspire to? Well, I don't know. Well, yeah, I kind of do aspire to be kind to this stuff. When we look at the pre-food, then we go back to the aspiration and crank that aspiration round and round.

[61:09]

Dance with that aspiration and the energy starts coming out. I actually would like to do this. I would like to be kind to this nauseating, strangulated situation. I would like to be kind to it. Not rip the throat open, but be kind to it being constricted. And if you're kind to the constriction, it opens. If you're mean to it, it tightens up more. But we have to get back to the aspiration. It's in there somewhere. What you really want is there. So we have to go back to it, and that's where we get energy, by contemplating that, that wish over and over, and it starts to give us energy. We have to keep doing it. We have to do that over and over, not just once and then the energy just keeps blowing. We have to keep going back to the roots. The roots of energy for compassion is in the aspiration to be compassionate. So you have to keep going back in the middle of all this mess. What was it again that I was wanting in this life?

[62:10]

What was it? Tell me. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. Okay, tell me. What was it? Well, what you said last Tuesday was that you wanted to be compassionate towards everything. Oh, yeah. Why do I keep forgetting that? Why do you have to remind me? It's karmic consciousness. One of the qualities of this cognitive enclosure, one of the qualities of karmic consciousness is that it is giddy. Karmic consciousness where we live, it's the land of giddiness. What does giddy mean? It means agitated to the point of distraction. We live in the realm of cognitive enclosure. We're in a cognitive enclosure and a cognitive trap. That's where our problems occur and that situation is giddy. It's very easy to get disoriented.

[63:11]

You know, let's see, I want to practice compassion. Okay, what was it again that I wanted to do? What was it? Oh, I wanted to be aggressive and angry. No, no, that wasn't it. What was it? [...] Tap, tap, tap, tap. It was compassion, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, right. I get that. So I just got back from Europe and I go to all these different places and people come to me and say, last year when you were here I realized my aspiration and then a few weeks afterwards I forgot it for a year. And now you're back and I remember it. We live in a realm of giddiness where we keep forgetting what's most important, don't we? We do. That's normal.

[64:12]

So you should be kind to them and forget. And if you're kind when you forget, you just remembered. Oh yeah, that's what I wanted to do. I don't have time to beat myself up for forgetting. I just know I've forgotten now. Okay, now I've forgotten. What is it again? What's the telephone number? Just relax now. As soon as you relax, you're starting to remember. I don't remember yet, but I'm just going to wait until it comes. Oh, yeah, right. I respect compassionate ethics. That's it. I don't know what they are, but I totally respect them. And that's freedom. This is freedom, and I don't know what freedom is. I heard also a teaching that it's impossible to know the reality of freedom, but I don't have to know the reality of freedom to say, this is freedom. So it's similar to my car keys that I forget where I put them until I calm down enough to stop heating myself up and calm down enough to remember where I put them.

[65:19]

Yeah. Or even not necessarily remember where you put them, but noticing that you feel kind towards and open to remembering. Yes. You said that Tracy started out saying, where does the aspiration come from? And I think you said it comes from suffering. No, I didn't say that. Okay, because everybody suffers. It comes from, the aspiration comes from crying out in suffering, which is a peck on the shell. When you cry out in suffering, somebody hears it. Somebody hears this yell go, peck, and they peck back. And then you cry again and they peck back, peck, peck, peck, peck. And after you cry and there's a response, you cry and there's a response several times, I don't know how many, the number varies.

[66:20]

In that communion between your cries and somebody who's hearing you and who has practiced in the past, somehow, in the realm of Gini enclosure, cognitive enclosure, we think, I would like to practice compassion. It arises from that relationship between our cries of discomfort. And sometimes we do say, help! But sometimes we just say, oh! But somebody hears oh as, you're aware of something's off. You're kind of asking for help. I hear you. I hear you. Oh, I hear you. Oh, I hear you. In that relationship, compassion is starting to manifest in the shell. It never was hindered by the shell. But we sort of have to call out to get a response. And then we start to realize we should continue calling out and continue hearing the response.

[67:25]

So this thought of enlightenment, this aspiration for great enlightenment for the welfare of all beings occurs through that relationship, through that interaction. You don't make it by yourself, and somebody else doesn't make it happen to you. It happens through you asking and a response, you asking and a response. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And that's how it happens. That's the story of how it happens. That's just the story of how it happens. That's not how it actually happens. That's a story. You can play both roles, though. You can play both roles, yeah. In fact, you are playing both roles. So I have a story that everybody's suffering, but not everybody enters as easily into that relationship that you're describing. So one story, everybody's suffering, but not everybody is into the relationship I described. Everybody's suffering is not quite right.

[68:28]

and everybody's not into the relationship is kind of right in the sense that not everybody's aware that they're asking for help. Not everybody's aware that everything they do is asking for help. Some people are. Some people understand everything they're saying is help. And some people who understand everything they say is help also understand that everything that their help has meant. Every time they say it, they feel a response. That's one possibility. But a lot of people are asking for help. They're asking for help, they don't know it, and they're getting a response and they don't know it. So in reality, the relationship's going on all the time. But there's basically four possibilities. We're asking for help and we're receiving it and don't know it. The other one, we're asking for help and we know it and we don't notice we're receiving it. The other is we don't think we're asking for it, but we think somebody's helping us.

[69:31]

But we didn't think we asked for it. That's like my grandson and me. I'm offering help. He said, I don't want any help. And the other one is we think we're asking for help and we think we're receiving it. So those are four possibilities. And all four are going on at once all over the place. But not everybody's suffering. Buddhists are not really suffering. Buddhas feel the pain of all suffering beings, but when they feel the pain, it's not suffering, it's happiness. They're not happy that beings are suffering, they're happy that they feel the suffering of beings. So again, you see some people, you're not happy they're suffering, but you're very happy that their suffering touches you. That happiness in being touched by their suffering is Buddha's compassion. But it's not suffering. It's happiness. Compassion is happiness. So the compassionate beings, the great compassionate beings, are not suffering. They're just feeling everybody's pain and being generous towards everybody's pain and calm with everybody's pain and thinking in response to everybody's pain.

[70:39]

This is happiness. But it's also total openness to pain, which takes quite a bit of practice to get to that point. Right? But they're not suffering. And they're not being separate from the people who are suffering. And they're happy about this non-separation. And they're happy about the practice which they're turning to teach. Yeah? In the story you told, is the stone striking the bamboo, is that a peck back? No. I think it's the peck that broke the shell. It's his. Well, the way he hears the sound breaks the shell. The chick actually breaks the shell. The teacher doesn't break the shell because...

[71:40]

the chick should be strong enough to break the shell, because if the teacher breaks the shell, the chick might not be ready, and you know, if the feathers are too wet, it's not good. So the teacher doesn't, the teacher, as it gets closer, or as it gets closer to the time of the shell getting ready to break, the teacher gets lighter and lighter. It's better, you know. The teacher never hits really hard. When a chick is strong, the chick can break. The chick's the one who breaks the shell. their final peck breaks the shell. So that means they're strong enough to tolerate freedom, the realization of freedom. And they're strong enough to tolerate the impossibility of knowing the reality of freedom before when you first start practicing the way of freedom, you're not, you know, you're practicing it, but you're not yet ready to accept that you don't know the reality of it.

[72:46]

But the more you're willing to accept that you don't know the reality of it, the more you're willing to accept, the more you're willing to know the impossibility of knowing the reality of it, the more you're willing to actually accept the reality of it without knowing it. So we usually like to have things in the knowing box. When you're finally ready, you break the shell of knowing and you're open to freedom, the impossibility of knowing the freedom, which is the freedom not confined by our addiction to knowing. Yes? How long does it take from, typically, from a chick to a hen? I mean, so... Oh, yeah.

[73:49]

It takes three and a half weeks. Now, once a chick breaks out, the chick then becomes sort of like in training to be a hen. You know, they're not... Actually, I guess they have to... They have to grow up enough so that eggs are brought to them. So there's a period when they're free, but eggs aren't being brought to them. But actually, I think actually the eggs are brought to them right away, I think, because they're not laying the eggs, but now they hear... Actually, so I think as soon as they break out their hand, because now they hear... when they hear people, when they hear them crying from within their confinement. So actually I think as soon as you break out, you're instantly a hen, but you can get to be a better and better hen.

[74:51]

And some people actually, there's some historical examples of people who are broken out and then they were hens and they heard the people crying from within and they knew the problem, but they hit too hard. and that was a mistake. Or too much, yeah. So there are some examples of people who broke out or made mistakes and people got hurt. Their shell got broken too early. In the short run, those are tragedies. Yes? It seems like in the context of the story in this world, there are innumerable chicks and very few hens. Yeah. That's a story. Inside the shell, there's that story. Somehow, it's true that the hens are rare, and at the same time that the hens are rare, there's innumerable rare hens.

[76:02]

But they are rare. My story is that they're rare. Well, they are rare, but there's innumerable rare hens. Not all chicks have a hen available to them. All chicks have hens available. What you're doing right now is you're pecking on the shell and the hen's pecking back. But again, as I said before, there is you're pecking and you know it. You're pecking and you don't know it. You're pecking and you don't know it. You're pecking and you don't know you're pecking. And every time you peck, there's a response and you don't know it. That's one case. Everybody's pecking within their common consciousness, asking for somebody to peck back and bring them into the path of liberation, path of freedom. Other people say, I am asking for help, but I don't hear anybody responding. I've been asking for help, I've been asking for the Dharma, and I don't hear any Dharma coming back.

[77:08]

This is like, I'm getting kind of frustrated here. But every time they say, I'm asking, there's a response. They're just not calm enough to realize it. Other cases, people feel like, I didn't ask for any teaching and it's being given to me. I don't want it. And the other case is, I asked for it and I get it. I asked for it and I get it. I asked for it and I get it. But it's not that that's better than the other one. It's just they're all going on. Everybody's really in communion with enlightenment, but not everybody knows it. So we're trying to learn this, right? But we are being responded to. Some hens, ha ha ha, this is a joke. Not really a joke, it's just funny. Some hens, rare hens that they are, are very busy, like Santa Claus. When I was a kid, I used to wonder, how can Santa Claus possibly deliver all those presents in like six hours or whatever?

[78:15]

How could he go to all those houses, you know, and then go down the chimney and like, you know, say hi, you know, to the guy and, you know, wink his eye and stuff like that and then go back up the chimney? That takes like two or three seconds at minimum. If you multiply that times a billion kids, it's impossible to do it. And I couldn't understand how Santa Claus could deliver all this presents. Especially if you imagine he's delivering it to all the Muslim kids and all the Jewish kids too. And all the adults too. Adults get presents too, right? I just couldn't figure it out. So, these hands actually, some of these hands can deal with innumerable texts at once. So even if there's like only one hand in this section of the universe, that hen can respond to billions of pecks at once, simultaneously. So they may be rare, but they're very effective.

[79:17]

So just keep pecking away. What did you say? Inconceivable, yeah. It's inconceivable. This is called inconceivable mutual assistance. Our pecs assist the Buddha's. The Buddha's response assists us. It's inconceivable how we're working together with each other and with all the enlightened beings. It's inconceivable. And yeah. Yes, Charlie, please stand up. So if a chick aspires to help How does the chick deal with that aspiration when it's still inside the shell? Is it possible to relate to other chicks that are outside that shell inside of other shells? So before you get into that, he said when an aspiration arises for the chick in the cell, how do they deal with that aspiration?

[80:24]

The aspiration, in order to be realized, has to be protected. You have to train, otherwise the aspiration will not develop and be realized. And the training in the shell of the aspiration is the Bodhisattva practices. Summarized by sitting meditation. So we practice stillness. Got the aspiration? Be still. Got the aspiration? Be still. When that aspiration arises, don't go jumping around and drop it. Be present with it. And then be generous with it. And be ethical with it. And be patient with it. And be calm with it. And then listen to teachings about it. That's how the chick takes care of the aspiration. Otherwise, the aspiration either will be forgotten temporarily, but even if you remember it, it still takes a lot of training to bring that aspiration to what it aspires to be, Buddhahood.

[81:32]

And in that shell, you've got your story, your cognitive version of all the other beings who are in shells. Like you say to something, I don't know if I, was that a peck I did? Did you just peck? Did you just ask for help? And the person goes, peck. And it sounds like, yes. You say, did you say yes? And they peck and it sounds like no. Say, oh, I thought you said, I thought you said you wanted some help. Peck, no. Okay. So everybody's in their own shell and yet everybody's pecking touches my shell. And all my peckings resonate out, and touch everybody else's shell. So my peckings, you hear my peckings, I hear your peckings, but I make my version of your peckings, and you make your version of my pecking. But no matter what my version of your pecking is, even though you totally disagree, I practice the same way with whatever I think you sent me.

[82:35]

I do the same practices of compassion towards, like, I thought you wanted help. No, I don't. And I hear, no, you don't. Oh, okay. Whatever I think he said, I do the same practices with. And those practices with what I think he said are the same practices that protect the aspiration, these practices. So sometimes it feels like I want to start the hand practice while I'm still a chick, you know. And it's that, I mean, sometimes, or another way of saying this is, sometimes the bodhisattva training, like training doesn't feel like helping others. It's like, oh, I want to help everybody. Okay, here, go practice training. It's like, no, no, I want to go help other people. Yeah, so I think that part of what we need to understand is that training ourselves in these practices is what will make us eventually helpful in ways beyond the way we're currently helpful.

[83:39]

We're helpful right now, too. When a beginner is practicing compassion, that helps other beginners and also it assists, it's mutual. The beginner's practice assists the advanced people, the very advanced people. The students are helped, the beginner's practice is the beginner's pecs. So the beginners are helping the Buddhas and they're helping the other beginners. And as you evolve, you help in new ways. Then you evolve further and you help in new ways. So you're helping all the way along It isn't that you just start helping, but you help in a different way when you're free than before you're free. Or when you realize freedom, it's a different kind of helpfulness. It's in ways that were not yet possible. And all the previous ones are still available. It can still be stupid, but that's helpful. But you can also be, you know, do things that you never could do before.

[84:44]

Like you could share your lunch with people that you didn't, you know, that you never, that you couldn't, you couldn't share your lunch with before. Because you didn't understand who they were. And now you do, so like, no problem. How wonderful. Well, it's getting a little late. And I shouldn't say it's getting late. It's getting to be right on time for us to have lunch. It's now time to have lunch. And maybe somebody had brought some eggs. Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's Way.

[85:40]

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