Did the person who asked the question about science leave? Oh, there he is. So what is your question? About science and Dharma practice? It has to do with grasping ideas and the way that one seeks wisdom. I think scientists often seek wisdom in a very fixed kind of way, but what Jack was bringing up seemed like a different way of seeking wisdom. And scientific method has a lot of similarity with practice method.

[01:29]

So, for example, in science you have theories, and then you have experiments that are designed to test the theories. And following from the theory, there are some experiments which some people would agree. If this experiment comes out this way, it would disprove the theory. And if this experiment comes out that way, it wouldn't prove the theory, but it would be in accord with what the theory would predict. And so then people do experiments, and some people would say that good theories are theories that seem to encourage or support experimentation. But the theory isn't scientific knowledge. The theory of relativity is not scientific knowledge. It's a theory.

[02:32]

But by doing experiments in relationship to that theory, something happens through the experimental process where the kind of knowledge grows. And the knowledge is not the experiment or the results of the experiment. I would say it's an interaction. Something arises from the interaction between the experiment, the results of the experiment, and the theory, which is kind of supporting the experimentation. So knowledge is, in that sense, you can't grasp the knowledge. But then you can do things based on that knowledge, over and above, in some sense, you can actually then go from this knowledge that comes through the experimentation process

[03:37]

and go from there, rather than go back all the time to the theory, even. You can act directly from the knowledge, which comes from testing the theory with the experiments. So, for example, you have a theory that the Earth is round, and there are certain experiments you can do based on that theory, and when you do those experiments, based on that, a certain kind of knowledge comes, and from that kind of knowledge, you can do other things. But you don't have to keep going back to the Earth is round every time. But you could, but you don't need to. A new knowledge comes that was there in addition to the theory. And you can't really grasp it, but you can act on the basis of it. And in Buddhism, too, we have theories, like we have the theory I proposed this morning, about the two different aspects of mind, one conscious and one unconscious,

[04:40]

and there's a theory of how practice works with these two minds. And so you could then test that theory by experimenting with it, and by experimenting with it, in this case, we are clearly articulating that we're not trying to... Yeah, well, actually, we are trying to develop a transformation of the storehouse consciousness. But it doesn't exactly mean we're fixing the storehouse consciousness, even, but rather we're creating a transformation of it. So the transformation of it actually maybe could coexist with it, so you could still have the storehouse consciousness and have this other consciousness, which was all the while living non-dually with the storehouse consciousness. But by experimenting with the theory about storehouse consciousness as active consciousness, we realize another consciousness, which in a sense is a transformation of the storehouse consciousness,

[05:46]

but maybe without getting rid of the storehouse consciousness. And this other kind of mind is like a knowledge, which is the fruit of studying the mind, and that knowledge in some ways isn't ordinary consciousness. And again, it isn't ordinary consciousness in the sense that it was always coexistent with ordinary consciousness. But waiting to be realized, and the price of realization is to study the ordinary consciousness, which is limiting, which is confining, which is circumscribing sentient beings. Sentient beings, as long as they grasp the self, they live within this circumscribed mind. So in that sense, Buddha's knowledge and scientific knowledge are kind of analogous to each other. And in science, there's two basic ways to validate or verify experience.

[06:50]

One is inferential, indirect, and the other is direct. And they're not supposed to be using scriptures in science, but they do to some extent use scriptures in the sense of what I call professional journals. So they actually cite journals, and some of the journals they cite were maybe journals whose information was not just citing journals. If you just cite journals, it's not as strong as if you have journals plus reasoned analysis, not to mention direct experience. Whereas Buddhism, we allow ourselves to use scriptures, indirect, inferential knowledge, and direct perception, all three. And so some of the teachings are coming from an authority who has had indirect and direct experience of some of the things that are being taught. But again, there's a parallel between science and Buddha's knowledge

[07:56]

to have these direct perception and inferential knowledge are superior to just what has traditionally been taught. It's a deeper understanding than just hearing the thing and believing it and trying it. So again, if you hear a teaching and you experiment with it, in the process of experiment, this other kind of knowledge comes. Maybe a valid inference comes. Which is parallel to the knowledge that comes with experimenting with a theory in science. So now, in both cases, if you think you can grasp knowledge, that's a mistake. The knowledge, for example, that the Earth is round, or that the planets in our solar system rotate around the sun, that's a theory.

[08:58]

And you can experiment with that, and as a result of experimenting with it, you can get some knowledge. But that knowledge cannot be grasped. It doesn't belong to two or three scientists. It belongs to all. All beings could. It's a transpersonal law. But the law, again, doesn't mean that you can get a hold of it, or that things are always that way. It's just, again, a useful law, which, again, can be interacted with experimentally to create more knowledge. And that's so that, in some ways, it's not a good Buddhist practitioner or a good scientist to grasp knowledge. Authentic knowledge, in some sense, cannot be grasped. But it can be realized by practicing and living in accord with it.

[10:01]

Like sail a ship around the world, using that knowledge. But it doesn't mean you're grasping it. It's more like you're just using it, hopefully with some sense of flexibility and sense of humor. Yes? We have a guest here from Berlin. Yes. And she publishes your books. Yes. In Germany. And I wanted to welcome Ursula Richard. Thank you. To our sitting today. Welcome, Ursula Richard. Thank you. Yes? You said something that the second you say it, it disappears. Not for me.

[11:13]

And I've heard you say it a couple of times, and I have a feeling... For me, too. Well, if you can keep saying it, I can't keep saying it, so it disappears. And I think you'll probably be saying it for years, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Want me to say it again? Yeah. What? Well, here. Did you say you can transform the past? Would I say you can transform the past? Did you say that? That there's something we can do now that can transform the past? You're talking, I think, about the storehouse concept. There's two kinds of ways of transforming the past. One actually transforms the past itself, and the other is like a transformation which is not just the past. But the simplest way of transforming the past is that every moment of active consciousness, like right now I'm having this active consciousness of where I think I'm talking to you, and now that's gone. But that has an effect. And now I have a new past which incorporates the effects of that little conversation I'm referring to.

[12:23]

So my past has that conversation in it, and my past didn't have that conversation in it before, and now my past does. It's a new past, a changed past, by my conscious activity. I can't believe I actually get it in this moment. I don't know if I remember, but I actually see it for this moment. And then there's another transformation, which is a transformation that sometimes can even transcend the past and the present, which is to practice with the present in such a way that that also has effects on the past, which will be the basis for the next present active consciousness. And that creates a kind of transcendent body.

[13:23]

So when we say that the transformed basis consciousness, one way to understand it is that the transformed basis consciousness, when it's fully transformed, there's no more old base consciousness. Another way would be to say, when you completely transform this base consciousness, it's still there, but you've made this transformation from it. Kind of like a work of art. A perfect work of art is a complete transformation of a deluded consciousness, but the deluded consciousness might still be there, but the art is a complete transformation. The art maybe would be like no elaboration, no birth, no death, no trying to gain anything, and that could be seen as a transformation of the mind that embodies the history of lots of concern for gain and loss. So there's some discussion here in Mahabharata whether we say that the transformation of the store consciousness means that the old store consciousness...

[14:30]

Well, the old store consciousness is already always changed, but that there'd be no store consciousness. That would be eliminated is one understanding. The other is that it's been transformed all along, and now it's transformed to such an extent that it realizes its own transcendence. But without changing it at all, even though it has been changing all along, without any further changing, there is a transcendence, which was always there, actually. So this is a point, a very subtle and elusive point. And then, Oscar, yes. I have two questions here. One question is, earlier you referenced two kinds of past, the past of a moment ago, and then the vast...

[15:34]

Actually, I would say three paths. One is your dream of the past in the present, and then the consciousness that just passed, that's an important one, and then all the past consciousnesses before that. And the totality of all the past ones, minus the one that just passed, that's the storehouse consciousness. And then the one that just passed is a special one, which is pointed to as one of the essential ingredients in the arising of the next active consciousness. So when an active consciousness ceases, it makes a contribution to the past,

[16:36]

which is a support for the arising of the next active consciousness. But another support of the active consciousness, in addition to the whole past, is the specific immediate past, that plays a special role in the arising of the next active consciousness, because that past is a past active consciousness. Whereas the storehouse consciousness is a past of all the past active consciousnesses, and it's not a just past active consciousness. It's all the past karma, rather than the specific one just happening before. And so there's three paths. There's our conscious story of the past, which we know is very selective, this particular immediate antecedent past, and then the actual impression or consequence of all of our past actions, which, in some sense, there's no selectivity there,

[17:40]

other than maybe the past consciousnesses are competing with each other or something. But there's nobody in charge of selecting there. So that implies that the immediate past has a lot of power in terms of... It has a lot of power, and the present story has a lot of power. Particularly it has a lot of power to cause trouble, because we have the story about what just happened, and we're conscious so we can argue about it. Whereas we can't really argue about our immediately antecedent sense consciousness. There's nothing really to argue about there. And the other one we're not conscious of, but the... I don't know which is most powerful, they're all powerful. The base consciousness is very powerful, because it's the base consciousness.

[18:41]

It's the consciousness that includes all the possible things that we can become actively aware of. And the immediate antecedent is very important for the arising of the consciousness, and also the immediate antecedent is two types. One type is just to serve the function to support the arising of the next moment, in particular from the previous one, but also it's the place where the projection of self is focused, in this later teaching that followed about a thousand years after the Buddha. The antecedent moment is both the support for the arising of the current consciousness, but it's also the place that's designated as where the projection of self occurs. To see that storehouse consciousness as a graspable entity, and also it defiles the present active consciousness with that. So that's what active karmic consciousness is all we have, and it's defiled.

[19:49]

And it's based on this past karmic consciousness. So if I were to try to be mindful of what's going on in my life, that's actually what I'm being mindful of, that antecedent moment? No, you're basically being mindful of your current active consciousness, which has a certain pattern, which is called your story of what's going on right now. It's your present active karmic consciousness, and it's related to a specific object. Whereas the storehouse consciousness also has objects, but objects are more like just a general sense that there's a world, that there's a world that contains all living beings. There's some sense of that, unconsciously. We kind of feel like there's a world. But we're not always looking at the world that contains all beings.

[20:52]

We're usually looking at some specific being in the world, and we feel like there's a world in which this current... So when we're looking at some person, for example, our active consciousness is aware of this person at this moment, and this consciousness is specifically related to this person. But there's an underlying, unconscious assumption or sense that this current object is contained in a world that has continuity. We don't necessarily think this person, the way they are right now, has continuity. We do somehow tend to think this is the same Oscar as there was yesterday, but I also know that in a way this is a different Oscar. But on an unconscious level, I assume he's living in a world that's changing, but basically containing all the constantly changing people, for example, or constantly changing birds, or weather. Can I ask a second question?

[22:02]

It's simply the use of the term unconscious the way you've been using it today. Also in Western psychology, and there seems to be some similarity in these two concepts. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, to what extent there is a similarity, these spheres of knowledge overlap, and to what extent maybe there's not. Well, the similarity seems to be that in Western psychology, ordinary consciousness includes people's intention. It includes that they have some sense of what's going on, consciously. And then they have some intention, like particularly they might have an intention to do some good in the world,

[23:05]

or to benefit beings, they might. And then they consciously notice that they just forgot what they wanted to do. They forgot that they wanted to help this person, when this person spit in their face, and somehow they lost track of their deep interest and deep intention to benefit this person, because this person did something shocking. And when the person did something shocking, suddenly they did something which they really feel wasn't beneficial to the person. And so I think some Western psychology would say that coming up with this very unwholesome response, an unkind response, surprises the person themselves. They often say, where did that come from? How come I suddenly hated this person who I was devoted to?

[24:08]

Or even the person doesn't do something assaulting, they're actually being friendly, and you're being friendly to them, and you want to continue to be nice to them, and suddenly you say something which actually seems to want to upset them, or disturb them, or frighten them. Or, you know, maybe you don't really say you want to hurt them, but in fact you do something that they feel hurt by, and later when you look, you say, yeah, why did I say that? That was kind of nasty. I didn't notice it right at the time, but it could be taken that way, and I didn't want to be nasty at all, but I seem to have said something quite nasty. Or another possibility is, so that would be saying, this unconscious has now manifested through this present active consciousness, and it doesn't seem to contradict the previous moment, or we kind of have this positive thought towards the person. Or another way to put it is,

[25:11]

we could have the intention to be kind, but also to be contemplative about what's going on all the time, to be contemplating what is real here, what is real. And we keep getting distracted from that. Well, where is that coming from? Where is the distraction coming from? At a previous moment I didn't want to be distracted, and even now I don't want to be distracted, but between now and a couple of moments ago, I was really distracted, and where did that distraction come from? So that's what some Western psychologists would say, it comes from the unconscious. That you spent many, many moments not contemplating reality, but contemplating what you could gain, how you could exploit others, or exploit situations, and now you shift from contemplation to exploitation, and now you're back to contemplation after several moments of exploitation. And it's a kind of surprise that you kind of forgot

[26:12]

how you really didn't want to be exploiting situations or people, even exploiting them in a way that was clearly harmful to them. Like you could sometimes exploit people, but it might be not that bad for them. Like you could be a football coach, and exploit the players by making them really skillful players, but you're really trying to make yourself a winning coach. But it doesn't seem to hurt the players. Other times you might actually try to hurt the players of another team, so that your team would win, and that seems to be really a harmful intention, based on exploitation. If you wanted to hurt the other team, you wanted all their necks broken, so that your team would... I don't know if you could still win a game if the other team was annihilated, but you might just be called off. So you might say, well, that was really unskillful, because I couldn't even win the game, my evil thought was so defective. Maybe I should modify it next time.

[27:13]

But this person who is a football coach at the high school could have been a philosophy teacher, besides being a football coach, and thinking all kinds of beneficent thoughts, and then forgot them when they got onto the field, and stopped paying attention to himself. But later he realized and said, that was really stupid, I'm really sorry that I... Where did that come from, the unconscious? And Buddhism comes the same, that the obstruction to the path of peace is because many past moments were not devoted to the path of peace. So if we try to walk that path, we try, and then... the unconscious, the past, which is unconscious, in an unconscious way supports the arising of some really distracted, contradictory intention from a path, a peaceful thing to do. So the two concepts are related,

[28:19]

but I'm thinking that the Buddhist idea, as you were discussing it earlier today, is a little larger, in that it encompasses more than the individual, so... It might... It encompasses more than the individual's personal history. In that way I... No, I don't think it's wider in that way. And some Western psychologists might be just as wide as Buddhism, but some might not. In other words, in Buddhism we're trying to study psychology, not just to improve the psychology, or improve the active consciousnesses so they're more and more skillful. We're trying to transform the basis of these active consciousnesses to realize a transcendent, totally unobstructed mind of wisdom and compassion. Some Western psychology may not have that goal.

[29:24]

That may be too lofty for them. But some might. Some might wish to make beings who are not just more skillful, and more happy, and more effective, but who actually understand that the whole process is an illusion, and not be dispirited by that, but actually be released to guide beings. So Buddhism is trying to make Buddhas rather than just much more healthy, sentient beings. Either make Buddhas or liberated beings, but in Mahayana we're trying to make Buddhas, and in some other vehicles they're trying to make individuals that are free from this karmic consciousness, rather than just make the karmic consciousness better and better and better. But some psychologists may have this more, in some sense, exalted goal too.

[30:26]

So you can't say that some of them don't have this bigger goal, or spiritual goal, rather than just psychological goal. But some don't. Some have a more limited scope. Freud seems to say, I have a more limited scope. I just want to make people who are less neurotic. Yes? Is karmic consciousness paradoxically collective as well as personal? Yeah, I think that the first thing that comes to mind is that personal and collective seem to be things that occur in active consciousness. Things that were like objects of active consciousness, like this is personal or this is collective.

[31:28]

And I think that in the unconscious there are seeds for this is personal and this is collective. So when we think, oh, this is a personal consciousness or this is a collective consciousness, I don't think there actually is such a thing as a personal consciousness and a collective consciousness. So, actually, someone asked me, is this consciousness the same as Jung's collective consciousness? And I don't know exactly what Jung means by collective consciousness, but I would just say that collective and personal are just things that active consciousnesses think about. But there isn't really a collective and a personal. I was just thinking about it in terms of personal responsibility. Like, I'm responsible for my actions as well as the actions of everyone. Yeah, so,

[32:33]

feeling responsible for this karmic consciousness, this active consciousness, and being responsible for the consequences of this, which are namely, in particular, always, this storehouse consciousness is the basic consequence of my actions. So I'm responsible for this process. But I also could feel, through hearing teachings, my karmic consciousness hearing teachings, I could also feel responsible for your active consciousness and for how your active consciousness has consequences for your unconscious. I could feel responsible for that. Because, in fact, I might say to you, Good morning, Patty. Are you meditating? And you might say, Totally. And I might say,

[33:35]

You want to keep doing it all day? And you say, Yes. And I say, I'm supporting you. So then you, at that moment, I'm actively conscious that I'm participating with your meditation on your active consciousness. So I feel like, Hey, we're doing this together. I'm sharing the responsibility of your own thinking, which I understand will transform your past. Your future past will be transformed by the way I interact with you. If I try to distract you, I might not be successful, but even if I do try to distract you and you're able to concentrate while I'm doing that, and that influences your past, your future past, which you'll use for the next consciousness, I'm still responsible, even though I was trying to distract you. If I'm trying to help you concentrate and you refuse to concentrate, I'm trying to help you, but you're not cooperating. I'm responsible for you not cooperating.

[34:37]

But I'm not in control of you not cooperating. Otherwise, I would just dial in a perfectly enlightened person. Right? And then you'd be that way. So I would be responsible. You wouldn't. I'd be in control. A lot of people want the teacher just to do that for them. Just dial me into enlightenment and then let me go. Well, the teacher can't do that. But teacher does influence, so teacher is responsible, and student is responsible for the teacher's consciousness. So for me to feel responsible for my own past that I'm going to be using as a basis for my next, unconsciously using for my next moment of awareness, I'm also responsible for everybody else's current, past, and future consciousnesses. I'm not in control of anybody's, but I'm responsible. But I don't have to feel like that's personal or collective. But I could. But it's not really personal or collective. It's just that's an active consciousness

[35:39]

imagining collective and personal. Now, there does seem to be this language thing we're doing, and we all agree to do language in a certain way, within certain systems, and the fact that we're all willing to tailor our action, our thinking and our speech, and our postures too, like Italians and Norwegians gesture differently, and Chinese and Indians gesture differently, by channeling or forming our active consciousness according to certain conventions, we do very similar karma. So since we do very similar karma, we're making similar deposits into the storehouse. So in that way there's a similarity between our minds, which can be seen as collective or separate. They're not really separate, and they're not really, how would I call it, they're not really overlapping, or they're not really even united,

[36:42]

because you can't unite them unless they're separate. So they're not really united, not really separate, they're interdependent. So our minds are interdependent, your mind and my mind are interdependent, but my mind and my mind is interdependent. My active and passive, my active and conscious mind, my defiling mind and my storehouse mind, they're all interdependent, you can't find any of them, you can't find the separation between them, you can't make them the same, you don't have to make them different, they're different, but they're not separate. Your mind, I would say, is different from mine, but not separate. And I can project similarity, I can project collectiveness, I can collect... all these things are possible, but you can't find any of them. So, if Jung has something that he's saying really is a collective thing, I guess I'd have to hear more about what he's trying to say and see if that made any sense to me

[37:44]

other than just, basically, a delusion. Yes? You may have just answered this question, but I lost it anyway. Oh, you lost it. Yeah, here. How is it possible to have collective karma and not collective consciousness? How is it possible? I heard you. Is it possible to have collective karma but not collective consciousness? Yes. Well, for example, we could build a pyramid together, and so our collective karma builds this big monument. But each person had a different active consciousness while they were building it, and each person was making different contributions to their own storehouse consciousness, so each person now, after the thing's built, has a different consciousness about this thing

[38:44]

than we collectively did together. And we don't have a collective consciousness, but in a sense, we had a collective karma, in the sense that the pyramid is our collective karma, but each one of our karmas, each moment, was our own karma. I thought I was doing this, you thought you were doing that. And the consequences will be different, even though... The consequences for the... The consequences for my past I would say are somewhat different than for yours. You could be saying, Oh, I love building pyramids, and I could say, I hate building pyramids. And we're both putting the rocks, working on the same rock, and you're saying, I love this rock work, and I say, I'm thinking, I hate this rock work. Matter of fact, I wish this rock would fall on the pharaoh's foot. And you're saying, Oh, I love the pharaoh's foot, I hope this rock protects it forever. We could have quite different attitudes, but we're working on the same rock, and in the end, there's a pyramid. It's kind of like a collective event.

[39:47]

And there's a teaching from the Buddha saying that the world, the so-called container world, you know, like the planet, or the solar system, the container world, the world we imagine that we're sharing physically, is the result of all of our karma. So that's like you could say, the result of all of our karma together is a physical world where we feel enclosed in. But this is also an illusion, the Buddha would say. This is like, this is our mind in its physical form, so the place where our karma kind of shares is the physical world. But again, the physical world, which also the fish and the flies and the rats are also contributing to. It's not just humans, they're living in the same physical world. We see them in the same physical world. They see themselves in the same physical world. But to the fish, it's water. To the birds, it's air.

[40:49]

And to us, it's like shopping centers. But it's the same world, and we all feel enclosed in it. It's just that the fish feel like, you know, the water parts where they live, and they don't think water is water the way we think water is water. They think water is a stable housing project where they can move around and have plenty of room. And we see them in a little container, maybe. But we also see they don't seem to have a life. And they don't complain about, you know, being crowded unless somebody else... They're not crowded by the world, they're just crowded by their neighbor. And they try to get their neighbor to back away. But they think their world is perfectly big enough if you just would get rid of all the competitors. And we feel that way, too. But it's all just, you know, an illusion created by active consciousness, which is based on a past of active consciousness. But there is a sense of a world,

[41:52]

which is not collective karma, but it's a world which is the result of all the individual karmas collected. All the individual rock workers' consciousness collected to make the pyramids, or to make, like, what is it? Isn't it bacteria? The collective action of bacteria make iron ore deposits? Isn't it? Yeah, I think the iron is sometimes collected in some very dense area where there's lots of iron. You know, like within a two-square-mile area, there's tremendous amount of iron ore. But that's concentrated there because of iron-fixing bacteria. There's bacteria all over the place, but some bacteria come into a colony, and they start working with the iron in the earth, and they make these huge iron ore deposits as a result of living together in a colony.

[42:53]

Like, what is it? Like coral, too, you know? They have these big reefs, which are the result of them living together, processing these chemicals in the water. So you have this big body of, this big piece of minerals in the ocean, but it's really the result of living beings. It's a physical thing, result. And we have pyramids and skyscrapers, and bacteria have iron ore deposits. And in the old days, they used to think that the iron ore deposits were deposited there by dwarfs. Or, what else was the other animals, the other beings that made the iron ore deposits? Not dwarfs. Not dwarfs. What are they called? Leprechauns. Not leprechauns. Gnomes. Yes, anyway, people used to think that something more like a human was making these iron ore deposits. But they, huh? Coots. Coots. Well, all those iron ore deposits

[43:58]

eventually became coots. Do you know what a coot is? No. Do you know what a geyser is? Huh? I know one interpretation for a geyser. What is one interpretation of a geyser? An old man. An old man. Do you know what a codger is? A what? A codger. Codger? No. Apparently, codger, coot, and geyser are synonyms. Yeah, I was suspecting that. Yeah. And they are, and they have been, some people think that they're responsible for the uneven distribution of iron ore on the planet. Because sometimes these geysers own big iron ore mining companies. They drive big cars also. Yeah, and when they were young, they were just like, you know, driving trucks and stuff. But when they really became, have a lot of responsibility when they became geysers. They say coots are a little bit nastier.

[45:01]

Coots are nastier than geysers? Yeah. And where do the codgers fit into this? Codgers are the least, codgers are the least obnoxious. They're the most obnoxious. So codger is the worst. Gey? Coots. Coats are next, and then geysers are the nicest? Yeah. And buzzards too. And buzzards? And silver fox. And silver fox. And hollow fox. And codgers. Well, when people call you a geyser, a codger, or a coot, all these are good opportunities for you know what? Mining. Huh? Mining. So, and the old women are called crones. And what else?

[46:02]

Hags. Oh, this is lovely. What? I said this is lovely. What other words besides crone and hag? Heartbeat. Huh? Heartbeat. Heartbeat? Kruger. Kruger. Bobcats. Lionesses. So, in reality, I propose to you, reality is a realm, but not a world. It's a domain, but not a world. Worlds, I would use the word world for an enclosure.

[47:03]

An enclosure of beings. And the word that's used in Indian Buddhism is, it's called the container world. And in the container world, living beings are contained therein. But the container world is basically the same as the storehouse consciousness. That's where we feel contained. And the storehouse consciousness has within it the sense that there is a world. There really isn't, but the sense that there is one is confining. And we feel it unconsciously, and sometimes we feel it consciously. But even when we don't feel it consciously, we feel it unconsciously. And both make us feel contained, enclosed, but also a little bit secure. Like we won't fall out of the container into vast, uncharted emptiness. So, this storehouse consciousness creates a sense of enclosure,

[48:10]

which also masks, or hides, unhindered freedom. Which you're kind of like, give me a break from that. Well, you got one. You got an enclosure, you're trapped in it, and you're safely separated from ultimate truth. You're a success. Robin? Does the sense of enclosure give you a feeling of aloneness? It could, but I think more of the thing that gives you a sense of aloneness is to see yourself in the enclosure, and see yourself as all by yourself in the enclosure. The projection of self on this realm of unconscious consequence of past karma.

[49:20]

To see that as a self is what I think really makes us feel alone and separate. And then the container, in some sense, feels like, well, if I'm alone, at least please contain me. Give me some place to be if I have to be alone. Maybe somebody else will come in there. But the container does not make us feel connected to people. The thing that makes us feel connected to people is reality. And the teaching, and then the realization of teaching, will make us feel like we don't need the container anymore, but we can use it, but we don't need it. Because even if you take away the boundaries of the world, we're still supported by all beings. So we're not going to fall anyplace. Robin's not alone. She's three of them. I was going to say, I think that she's going to be alone for a while. She's not alone. She never was alone, and she won't ever be alone.

[50:29]

But there's a deep tendency in all of us to see our children as separate from us. We know they're not, but we see them that way. And we see our mother as separate too. Innately, we feel that way. Now, children think they own their mother, that their mother is theirs, but there's some sense that this thing which is me, and which I own, of it being out there. And that's the basic ignorance. Which is to, again, project the self onto everything. And that's what makes us feel frightened and alone. Alone and frightened. But if we fully engage this defiling affliction of a self on everything, we can authenticate it. And authenticating it, we realize freedom.

[51:31]

We realize wisdom. And we have to be compassionate towards this delusion of a self separate from us, or as a self separate from other selves. We have to fully engage that with compassion in order to see that it's 100% illusion. That it never can be found. And accept that there's reasons why our mind creates this. Namely, a long history of doing that. So, again, fully engaging this process, we verify it, verifying it, we're released from it. But it's hard to engage it, because we have past habits of not engaging it. And just, in other words, not engaging it means believe it, and go with it, run with it, rather than study it. Rather than wonder, what is this, what is this, what is this? To train ourselves to contemplate this,

[52:37]

while constantly being fed impulses to distract ourselves from contemplating it. Okay, well thank you very much for another lovely day in the mind of no abode. May our intention equally extend to every being and place. With the true merit of the Buddha's way, beings are innumerable, I vow to save them. Illusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable,

[53:41]

I vow to become it.

[53:45]

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