I have a heart. And I guess you do too. And it almost always hurts a little bit. at least a little. I don't know about yours. I've heard that yours does too. The way I feel about this heart and the pain that it feels, not the way I feel about it, but the way I understand it, is that this pain doesn't come from nowhere.

[01:23]

It's kind of an effect, the pain is. And the heart is too. kind of a result of something, of certain conditions. So the physical heart seems to be a result of being alive as a human, as a mammal. But the pain seems to be the result of thinking that there's something other than myself or that myself and my life are two things. From my experience and my understanding, that's the way it is for me.

[02:30]

That the pervasive ongoing pain and anxiety of my life is not just a plague not just a blight of human existence but it's something that has depends on conditions and the primary condition depends on dualistic thought and dualistic thought is an ongoing process for me and for most humans therefore the pain of dualistic thinking is an ongoing process in addition to the root of this pain then once we're in pain we often

[03:35]

I often do things I often think that I can do things based on that dualistic thinking and I do things to cope with or deal with the pain which then causes more pain and so this I see a cycle here I experience a cycle I observe a cycle and If you excuse me for using a traditional term, this cycle is called going round and round. Samsara. It's called in the old country. Buddha called it samsara. Going round and round and round, dualistic thinking, giving rise to delusions, and dualistic karma, dualistic action. creating suffering, suffering promoting further dualistic coping and karma causing more suffering.

[04:42]

Round and round, our poor heart goes. I don't want to brag, but I do trust that if we can understand this dualistic thinking, if we can become intimate with this dualistic thinking, it will drop off in a sense. We will become free of it through intimacy with the root suffering we will become free of the root of suffering and becoming free of the root of suffering will become free of suffering and I also experience and understand that there is a a way of living

[06:01]

that brings us into intimacy with the conditions for suffering and the cycle of the origination and effect, origination and effect, dualistic thinking, suffering, dualistic suffering, that there is a process, a practice that can bring us into intimacy with this process and by intimacy with this process or we can be liberated. And by seeing this process, by seeing the process, by understanding the process, we realize Buddha's wisdom and become awake and released. Is that clear? The Buddha, Shakyamuni, taught a path to become intimate with this samsara and attain freedom from it.

[07:29]

And he called this the Eightfold Sacred Path, this Eightfold Noble Path. And the eight branches are Each branch is modified or has the adjective samyak before it. Samyak means right or complete or comprehensive. So the first aspect is right or complete view, complete understanding. The next one is complete thinking or thought. The next one is complete speech. Next, complete action. Next, complete livelihood.

[08:36]

Next, complete effort. Next, complete mindfulness. And eighth, I didn't miss one. is complete concentration. Can you hear me in the back? Those are the eight sacred practices. Okay? Do you remember them? Do you remember them? Hey, there you go. So right understanding, the first time you go through this, this is a cycle. You go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. So my explaining now and my talking about these eight is part of the first one. Just putting out the eight is part of right view or right understanding.

[09:42]

To have the view that there's a path, that's part of the right understanding. So you've got this view now. Now this isn't the only way, this eightfold thing isn't the only way to see it. This is just one way to see it. And that's part of right view too, is to know that we have some view of the path to intimacy with our life. There's some way for us to become settled and intimate with our life, with our suffering, and with the causes of our suffering. You can see it as eight, or you can see it as one. The onefold path, would be just flat-out intimacy. Just be intimate with your life. That's one-fold. You can also do eight, six, 23, whatever. There's various ways. That's part of Right View is to understand it's not just eight. So Right View is, part about Right View is, it's very important to study the process. Right Intention is that

[10:47]

our intention should be to act in a harmless and beneficial way right speech is to speak in a harmless beneficial way to refrain from harmful ways of talking like lying cruel harsh speech you know, idle, wasteful speech, and speaking of others faults, undermining union among the community. Right, action is to refrain again from wholesome things and do beneficial, refrain from harmful, unwholesome things and do skillful, beneficial things, and particularly is not to steal, kill, or misuse sexuality.

[11:48]

Right livelihood, again, means to earn our livelihood in a way that doesn't harm others. So it means not selling drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, other kinds of poisons, not killing animals, not selling arms or using arms. giving up all those kinds of livelihood which harm life, and taking up, hopefully, livelihood which promotes life, if possible. Okay? So that's the first five. The last week here, we've been working particularly on the next three. The last three. Right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. If you look at the eight, the middle three are particularly concerned with ethical conduct, right speech, right action, and right livelihood.

[13:07]

The last three, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration, have to do with concentration or cultivating and developing a state of mind which is stable calm, and present with what's happening. And the first two are about the insight into what's happening, the actual vision of how samsara works, such that you can be released from the process. Now, at the beginning, we start with using, and that's wisdom, right? So, wisdom is the first two. next group is ethics you know their group is concentration but in actual practice when you first go through it in some sense like today at the beginning of my talk now I'm talking about right view to give you a view of the of the path it's a kind of incipient wisdom but after practicing ethics and concentration then you come back to practice right view again but this time

[14:23]

right view is based on concentration and now right view cannot just be a sense of what the path is but can take you down into the workings of samsara and offer you a vision which will release you from dualistic thinking So, in some sense, you can look at dualistic thinking at three levels, or dualistic life at three levels. One is the basic, very deep, deep, deep sense, which is, you know, very deeply in us, of a sense of that we're split into two parts, that there's me and my life, and that there's me and you. Very deep, deep, deep we feel that. We sense that.

[15:24]

We believe that. That's the root delusion, the root stain, you could say, of our mind. Defilement. The Sanskrit word for defilement is klesha, it means to be stained. The basic stain of our life is that we feel that we're separate from the rest of life. And again, even separate from our own life. That there's me and my pain. This is the kind of basic problem that's the deepest level wisdom addresses that and coming up from that basic delusion various kinds of unskillful attitudes arise in the mind like I'll tell you them later but anyway various unskillful things come up in the mind and concentration the concentration practices right effort right mindfulness

[16:26]

and right concentration address these unskillful states of mind, these hindering, obstructing states of mind are addressed by the three concentration practices. And if those states of mind are not addressed and go unattended, they can actually flare up into actual action of speech and speaking and physical activity based on unskillfulness which is based in turn on delusion. So delusion, basic delusion, unskillful thought arising from that basic delusion, and then they can go into verbal and physical actions based on that unskillful thoughts. And that grossest flowering of delusion is addressed by the middle three. Right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Those address the grossest, like killing, stealing, lying, making a living in harmful ways.

[17:38]

Those middle three address this grossest manifestation of dualistic thinking. Concentration addresses the next more subtle, namely, and I'll tell you what they are, ill will, sensual desire, related to aversion, hatred, and, respectively, and greed. And the middle one, related to delusion, drowsiness, dullness, excitation, agitation, worry, doubt. All these are manifestations of basic delusion. So then the next step down is, again, this fundamental Dualism. So dualism. Split the mind. Split the mind at the root. Break it. And then, because of that break, there can be anything that's experienced.

[18:43]

There's experience and there's experiencer. Then the experience can be positive, negative, and neutral. And then you can try to avoid it or destroy it. If it's negative, avoid or destroy it. Or... If you like it, you can try to hold it, possess it, keep it, greed, or you can be confused about what to do. Greed, hate, and delusion are the three basic dualistic responses to your experience then. There's life. There's life. There's life. And you split life in two parts. This is the basic problem. Two parts to life. Life is broken and there's pain. As soon as life is broken in two parts, pain. Anxiety. Fear. And then, in response to these things out there, which we feel pain, anxiety, and fear about, they can be positive and negative or neutral. Even positive things, we feel anxiety and pain. And because we're in pain, if we see something positive, we go, try to get it.

[19:48]

Because maybe if we can hold on to the positive, that will help us, that will assuage our pain. So try to keep, if anything positive, try to get it. Maybe that'll assuage our pain. It distracts us from our pain. If it's negative, it might make our pain worse, so get rid of it. If we're not sure if it's positive or negative, we're in pain, right? If we're not sure if it's positive or negative, what should we do? What should we do? What should we do? Well, maybe take a nap. Oh, I'm so sleepy. When I first was dating my wife, my wife from early times, with me anyway, from early dates, She kind of gave me a hard time. You know, let's say you're the man in the relationship, and you go to pick up the woman, and maybe you're driving, let's say. You could be the other way around, of course, but let's say you're driving, and you're a man, and you drive over to pick up a woman for a date, right?

[20:51]

You drive up your car, and she gets in, and you go for a ride, and then she starts saying to you, how come you drive that way? This is not what they usually say on the first date, right? Like, oh, you're a nice car, you know. She said, you drive funny. So I pull over, you know. What do you mean funny? She starts to tell me. I go to sleep. I wasn't sure if this was good or bad, you know. Well, you know, maybe she has some reason for it. Maybe, you know, if it was just pure pain, really strong pain, then I just would have hated her, right? get rid of her, but it wasn't clear, you know. So I was drowsy, but, you know, it's like I wasn't really that sleepy, but I was falling asleep on these dates. Anyway, that's one way to deal with, if you're not sure, you're worried, you're suffering, you're in pain, okay, and then something happens and you don't know whether you should grab it or get rid of it, so just take a nap.

[21:52]

Another possibility is dull yourself. Try to dull yourself. Feel dull. I'm not sleepy, but I'm awake, but I'm dull. And there's various ways to promote that, right? You don't need to take drugs and stuff to do it. You can do it just with your basic equipment. You can just go, oh, I feel dull. Another way to deal with situations where you're not sure whether you're being threatened or praised or whatever is just get anxious, get agitated, or worry. Another way is doubt. These are things that happen when something happens, you feel separate from it, you feel separate from it, and if you feel separate from what's happening, you're in pain. So something's happening and you're in pain. Now, again, whatever it is, it can still be positive, negative, or neutral experience, but you're still in pain no matter what it is. Somebody can give you a very nice touch on the cheek, say you're such a nice person, you can go, oh, nice, and still you're in pain because...

[22:59]

that person and that touch are outside you, you're anxious. And of course, if they slap you hard, that's a painful thing, but that's not the main pain. The main pain is that that slap and the person slapping you are outside you. Okay? So, if then you give rise to anger, an ill will, in response to the pain, in order to protect yourself, or greed in response to the positive sensation, or all these other fancy things in response to kind of confusion or not sure whether it's okay or not. These states of mind then are what we call unskillful responses to pain, pleasure, and neutral sensation. Unskillful from the point of view of you're already suffering. You're already suffering. You're already suffering. I'm already suffering, okay? I'm suffering because I feel separate from what's happening. And now, In response to what's happening, I give rise to ill will and sensory desire and all this other stuff, which just makes it more confused and more likely that I'm going to now do something, even now I'm going to act, maybe, based on these obstructions.

[24:21]

But it's very hard for me with all this stuff flying up in my face, this ill will, this sensory desire, and dullness, distraction, where it's very hard for me to look and see the suffering and its conditions, where it's very easy to keep going forward in this process of suffering, because it's getting more confused now. So we spent most of the week talking about how it is that when something happens, Something happens. How, when something happens and you feel that pain, which you may feel with almost anything that happens, how to stay present with that pain, and if you stay present with that pain, these unskillful responses of ill will, sensory greed, and all this dullness, distraction, agitation, worry, and doubt, if you stay present with the pain, they don't come up.

[25:26]

If you can get intimate with the pain, they won't come up. So then that's the level of keeping yourself concentrated and in touch with your basic situation. Now, if you don't pay attention to your pain and you look away from it, then just the place you look away, these unskillful responses come rushing in and take over your mind, temporarily at least, and make you more confused and hindered in terms of being able to see in such a way that you'll become free. So there's another set of practices which address these unskillful states when they arise, and we've been talking about those too. But again, basically, the basic thing is that when these unskillful states arise, if you can work with them in a skillful way, if you can become intimate with them, they will drop.

[26:42]

And then you'll be back at the basic situation again of pain due to dualistic thinking. Okay? So, again, if you see these levels, the basic level is dualistic thinking and pain because of that. Then if you look... And then if you look away from that pain, you get thrown up into a grosser level where all these obstructions arise, all these distractions from the pain arise. And then you can't see the original pain anymore. All you can see is all the unskillful things you're doing to avoid the pain by possessiveness or ill will and so on. So now you're in pain but it's really confused. And then if you don't attend to that, then it flies up into Actions, even a higher level of confusion and problems. If you're up at that level, then you practice right speech, right action, right livelihood.

[27:43]

And if you practice them, then you come down to the level of the obstructions. And if you face the obstructions and become intimate with them, then you come down to the level of the basic situation of samsara. And that's where wisdom happens. And that's where right view is developed. So like I said, we spend all week on those right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Right mindfulness is how you apply your mind, first of all, to the pain. And if you don't practice right mindfulness, then these unskillful things arise, but then then you missed your chance to stop them from arising, but now they've arisen, now apply right mindfulness to the unskillfulness that has arisen because you wouldn't pay attention to the pain. If you pay attention to the pain with right mindfulness, you get concentrated and these unskillful states don't arise.

[28:48]

If you look away for a little while, these unskillful states will come up, but then if they do, then take the right mindfulness and apply to them then. And then they'll drop away, and you went back to the basic obnoxious situation. Then again, there, practice right mindfulness with that, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, and now you're basically down in the real mud of human existence, the place where you can really be liberated. You can't be liberated at these higher levels, at these unfolded or ramified or derivative forms delusion and avoidance of reality you have to get down to the root problem okay so right now if you can feel this basic pain you're in a place where wisdom can work and it's not just the pain but the pain is the easiest thing to find

[29:55]

It's not just the pain. It's first the pain. But then, if you can be present and intimate with the pain, you'll notice the other part of the pain. The other part of the pain is what? What? The dualism, the condition for the pain. There's pain. There's a feeling. Dualism has a feeling. It's not just this mental thing. It's not just a mental thing. It has a pain that goes with it. And the pain is easier to find than the dualism. Dualism doesn't necessarily knock on the door and say, haven't you overlooked something in the nature of your mind? But the pain knocks and says, hello, isn't something bothering? Isn't something off here? Aren't you uncomfortable? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I am. Would you please pay attention to me? I'm trying to get your attention. Something's off here. Would you please look at this? And again, look at it doesn't mean stick your head into it. It means meet it.

[30:58]

Just give it enough attention. Don't get into the pain, and don't go away from the pain. Like I said last week with the handstand example. You know handstand? Put your hands on the ground, kick your feet up, and you go in handstand, right? But if you're going into the handstand, you have to slow down just before the end, otherwise you fall over backwards. If you don't push hard enough, you never get up. So when you come to meet this pain, you have to go up, and as you get close to it, you have to start slowing down so you land right on it. Not sort of like, into the pain so much. No, just right and meet it. So you're there and you're balanced right in the middle of the pain. Many of us stop too soon, but some of us have too much momentum, and we overdo it and get sunk in it. To meet it, Intimately, you have a balanced dance with it. And when you're intimate with the pain, then its partner, dualistic thinking, starts to reveal itself.

[32:10]

Because it's right there. You start to see the dualistic thinking and the pain. Dualistic thinking, pain, dualistic thinking, the people in pain. I'm separate from other people. I don't trust them because they're not me. I'm separate from my own experience. I don't trust it. And pain, pain, dualistic thinking. You start to see that cycle. When you tune into that cycle, you're all set. And it's very hard to get tuned into that cycle. You have to be very careful of your daily life. You have to make right effort and really be close to your pain So these unskillful states don't arise, and when they do arise, you have to learn how to deal with them and let them drop away. It takes a lot of work to get down to your life because it's actually happening. And once you get there, it's still difficult because there's pain. And not only is there pain, but it's not one pain. It's pain after pain after pain.

[33:12]

It keeps changing, and it keeps going around. It's not only pain, but it's also dizzying because it's not just pain. It keeps coming up and going down. caused and then it's caused to go away around. It's a dynamic, turbulent. I mean, it's the worst. It's very difficult. That's why we go off into this other stuff and try to look away from it, but it makes it worse then. It's not really worse in some sense. It's just worse in the sense that we can never get free up there. But actually, we prefer that in some ways to this. We prefer what doesn't liberate us because it's not so intense. But we have to If you want to be free, you have to go down to face the actual intensity of your life. That's why it hurts, is because your life doesn't like dualism, because your life isn't dualistic. You don't have two lives. Life says, don't do this to us. Don't do this to me. Don't do this to life. Don't make it two. It hurts. Such a strict thing, this life.

[34:13]

So strict. It will not accept anything but reality. OK, so now you're down there, all right? You're in samsara. You're ready to work. A couple of days ago, the head of the meditation hall, Reverend Thorn, came to me and said that we have a new what's called in Japanese Han, which Han means a wooden board. And in Zen, you know, we have these signals, we have these signals which we use to signal events. And we actually use some of the Asian equipment that they use in Asia. Like in Asia, you come up to a monastery, when you get to the door, you're a guest, they have this wooden board, you know, and then you have a hammer, and you hit the board, you know.

[35:19]

And you go, bump, bump, bump. Instead of a doorbell, they have that. Bump, bump, bump. Somebody's coming to visit. So then the guest person, the guest director comes out and says, hello, what's happening, and so on. That's how you come in. And then when they have meditation, they hit it. Have another signal that they hit so the monks know, the meditators know. It's time for meditation. They hear this, bop, bop, bop. Okay. So we have one out there, it's wearing out, so we're getting a new one. So he said, I got a new one, and he wanted to know what is traditionally written on the board. And I couldn't remember exactly, so I got out in the little Chinese book, and I read what it says. And I did some different translations. I'll tell you some of them, because they're kind of relevant. So when Zen monks are hitting this Han, they're sitting there hitting the Han, hitting the board, boom, to call the other monks to the other meditators to the meditation hall.

[36:25]

They're looking at this and the thing it says there, it says, attention everyone, samsara is the great matter. Boom, samsara is the great matter. Samsara is the great matter. Suffering, cause of suffering, suffering and delusion, that's the great matter for Zen meditators. Impermanent and swiftly fleeting. Everything's ready. Awake, awake. Be careful. Do not Be negligent and miss the point. Samsara is the greatest matter.

[37:29]

Swift, impermanent and fleeting. Everything's right. Awake, awake. Be careful. Do not be negligent and miss the mark. Miss this opportunity. course, what's Buddhism about? Buddhism is about becoming free. But the Buddha doesn't just teach how to be free. The Buddha teaches, first of all, what is it that we get to be free from? What is the situation that we're stuck in? It didn't say nirvana. It didn't say freedom is the great matter. Of course it is. It said being stuck is the great matter. Being in bondage Being in miserable bondage is the great matter. Pay attention to this. And wake up. Again, it's hard to actually get in touch with samsara, actual samsara.

[38:41]

Of course we're in it, but to get to the actual root experience of it is very hard. It takes a lot of work. But then when you get there, then pay attention to it. So living in a practice place, the whole program is to get us intimate with the samsara and then support us to stay intimate with it, to keep in touch, to keep close to it without indulging in it or running away from it. Someone said, you know, talked about touching the pain, you know? We say touching it is actually too much. If you touch it, it'll blow up in your face. Don't touch the pain. It's better to join your palms and bow to the pain. Hello, Mr. Pain. I recognize, I honorably, sincerely, humbly recognize we got some pain here.

[39:45]

Not touching it. Well, maybe touch if you ask for permission. But basically, touching is not intimate. And turning away is not intimate. If you touch the pain, it may flare up and burn you. If you turn away, you lose your life. If you touch it, these unskillful mental responses come up. because touching it is a kind of insult, because the pain isn't really over there. It's better to just be present with it. Not run away, don't look away, and don't even look at the pain. Just be aware of it, without focusing on the pain. Intimate. Not touching, not turning away. And again, intimacy with the pain, brings us into intimacy with the dualistic thinking, intimacy with the dualistic thinking, become liberated from the dualistic thinking, and we'll be liberated from the pain.

[40:58]

And then we're in what's called nirvana. Samsara is the life of Buddha. It's the life of Buddha. If we exclude samsara, we lose the life of Buddha. If you push this world of samsara away the tiniest bit, you lose the life of awakening and freedom. you push suffering and its conditions away the slightest bit, you lose conditions for happiness, peace, and freedom.

[42:08]

If you indulge in samsara and try to hold on to it, you also lose Buddha. Samsara is Buddha's life, but if you hold on to that, it backfires. If you push it away, it backfires. To not desire freedom or hate bondage. Buddha is the one who's free of samsara. And being free of samsara is not to hate it or prefer being free from it. If you prefer being free from samsara, you're stuck in samsara. Then someone says, but don't we prefer?

[43:21]

But don't you prefer freedom and liberation? Well, if you ask me, I'd say, sure, I do. But... Yeah. And that's called being stuck in samsara. So I admit it. I admit I'm stuck. But if you ask somebody else who lives in the same place, do you prefer nirvana? That person says, no, I don't. I don't prefer nirvana. I don't prefer samsara. I don't yearn for freedom and peace. I'm just settled with samsara. That's freedom and peace. That's freedom from samsara. If there's the slightest bit of preferring freedom over bondage, you're in bondage. Buddha does not prefer freedom over bondage.

[44:26]

All Buddha is is trying to help people be free from bondage. Buddha is just to help people be free from bondage by showing them that if they would just not hate bondage, they would be free. Of course, preferring bondage also doesn't work. And also, hating nirvana doesn't work. You can't reverse the preferences. No preferences. Buddha comes to show us no preferences. Buddha comes into the world of suffering and says, you know, I'm actually happy to be here with you guys. I'm not just saying that to encourage you. I know it does encourage you, but that's not the reason. Actually, the truth is, Buddha actually has no other life than to be in samsara. No other life. And that's what Buddha shows us, is that

[45:31]

We think we have another life. So we show Buddha that we need help. So Buddha comes to show us we don't have another life. We don't. Again, the dualistic thinking. We think that freedom is something other than this. Now, I don't want to brag or anything. Excuse me, but I didn't grow up in Oakland. So I don't know about Ebonics. Although I think they're totally cool. I grew up in Minnesota. And they finally got this thing out, the equivalent of Ebonics for Minnesotans. It's called Wobegonics. And they used to just have regular Minnesota language tapes. But that was actually kind of a, that was kind of like, you know, just a, what do you call it, a cop-out. It was kind of like, it was like Minnesotan sort of accommodating to TV.

[46:31]

There really is a pure Minnesotan, just like there's a pure Ebonics in Oakland, and pure Minnesotan, the main characteristics of Webegonics, what is it? Wolbegonics. The main characteristics of Wolbegonics is a virtual absence of any terms that indicate preference. You know, like in Lake Bobegon, you go into the, what do you call it, you go into the coffee shop, you know, the Chatterbox Cafe, you go in there, and you say, it's February, right? And it's not summer, it's February, it's 27 below. Everybody's trying to stay warm, drinking some hot coffee, and you say, well, Looks like I gotta go to Hawaii.

[47:34]

I mean, I don't care. But, you know, my wife's brother-in-law, his uncle, is having a funeral in California, so we have to go. We have to go to California. And then also, there's a bunch of people who are trying to put together a tour group. They need one more couple to go to Hawaii. So then after that, we have to go to Hawaii. So I guess we've got to go. But there's no preference for, you know, like... Temperature is somewhere, you know... around 50, 60, 70, 80 degrees. There's no preference for that over like 27 below. Or at least the language doesn't allow that. You're not allowed to state any preferences in Lake Wobegon.

[48:46]

Actually, Buddhists can state preferences left and right, but they don't have any preferences. They don't possess them. They do not prefer the complete freedom and happiness which they have realized, they do not prefer that over the worst misery. Therefore, they just plunge into the worst misery, and that proves how happy they are. When you're in the worst misery, there's no alternative. You have to do that. And intimacy with your worst misery is not to hate it. And it's also not to like it. That's ridiculous. But hating it is just pretty close to as ridiculous. And a lot more common. Intimacy is just... Misery is misery, that's it. Samsara is samsara. And when samsara is just samsara, you are free. When samsara is just samsara, I am free.

[49:55]

Buddha, out of great compassion, comes into the world to show people it's possible to live in this world with no wishing that it was something other than this and thereby liberate beings if they are willing to copy Buddha by simply being themselves. who Zen monks were walking along one day in China. And one said, no Buddha within samsara. I just said Buddha comes into samsara, right? One said, no Buddha in samsara is itself. No samsara. The other one said, Buddha in samsara is no confusion about samsara.

[51:04]

So when Buddha is in samsara, there's no confusion about samsara. You see samsara, there's no confusion. That's liberation. And Buddha does come into samsara to show what it's like to have no delusion about samsara. Patiently, calmly sitting in the boiling oil with all beings. And no delusion about that. This is boiling well. And demonstrate liberation. Pretty good. That is very good. But the other monk said, no Buddha in samsara is itself no samsara. In other words, this world of suffering is completely free of the world of suffering, regardless of Buddha. even before Buddha arrives to show us that if we would sit here in this world, we would become clear about what it is and be free of it.

[52:15]

But before Buddha even arrives, samsara is already free of samsara. Therefore, we don't have to make this happen. That's the way things really are. The world of suffering is actually free of the world of suffering. Buddha is coming to encourage us to see that. But it At some point, we don't even have Buddha anymore. We just have reality. Both statements are good, but I think the second one is more radically to the bone of our life. You don't even have Buddha to help you. But if Buddha was helping you, that's how Buddha would help you. Buddha would help you by showing you But there's no alternative. And if you're intimate and devoted to your life of suffering, you will become free of it. But you have to get kind of close to get intimate.

[53:24]

And you have to get not too close to get intimate. And that's a lot of work. But I really think it's possible. I've seen some people do it. It's a wonderful thing when people become intimate with their life and become free. Someone said to me at the early part of our sitting here together, we've been sitting here for a week from nine from five in the morning till nine at night and after a couple days one person came to me and told me that he he felt he had a pain in his heart he also had pain in his knees and so on but he felt like the pain was kind of collected at his heart In one sense, when we're sitting, our mind can feel the pain at various places.

[54:42]

And our heart doesn't feel at various places. It collects it all right at the heart. And then down lower in our body, we don't so much feel pain unless we have indigestion. We just more feel settled down here in the lower part of our body. So by being settled in our body, we can really feel that our heart hurts. And so I asked him if he felt intimate with the pain in his heart. I don't remember what he said. But then I said, well, maybe if you talk to it, that would help you get intimate with it. Or does it have anything to say to you? Or is there anything you can say that would make you feel closer to it? And there's many things you might be able to say to this pain in your heart that would make you feel more intimate with it. Many things you might be able to say. You can check it out for yourself.

[55:45]

What kind of language would reduce the distance between you and the pain in your heart? And so anyway, he said, what came for him, what what words he could say that would make him feel closer to this pain, what he said was, thank you. That made him feel closer. And then I asked him, and I said, well, if you get any more ways of talking to your heart or talking to that pain, or just talking in general, or talking to other people. It could be towards the pain, towards the heart, but it also could be talking to other people in a way that would address this pain. So if you have any other ways of talking that make you feel closer to it or more settled there, let me know.

[56:52]

And he didn't have too much more to say after a week. He didn't have much more to say. But anyway, I just thought I'd tell you what I found. my experience of some ways of talking to this pain that helped me. I asked him that because I had the same experience, partly. And that is, if I'm by myself and I feel this pain, if I just say thank you, I feel more settled there, more settled and more open. If I'm with someone else and looking at someone else and I feel pain in my heart between us, if I say thank you to them, It opens it up. It clears the stuffy, congested, stiff, anxious feeling there if I say thank you. It's not thank you for the pain. It's just thank you. But I noticed that it didn't clear it up completely. It didn't get me all the way there.

[57:55]

So then another word came to me. And that was, I'm sorry. And that seemed to get me closer and even clear it up more. And then finally I said, I love you. And then I felt, you know, I felt that for me that took care of it. The different dimensions of the pain were addressed and I felt close to it. I don't know if those words work for everybody. Maybe you have some different language. But there's maybe some way you can talk to address it, to make you feel like that resonates with this part, this place. So we got a little, in a sense, there's a problem here.

[59:22]

I don't know. Are you expecting to have question and answer today or anything? No? You're not? OK. And it's OK if we don't? It's OK if we don't? Well, really, is it OK if we don't? It's OK. I mean, I know some people are saying yes, but one person is not sure. What? Okay, one question. That's the I'm sorry part. Melt away the root of transgression by the great power of confession.

[60:32]

I'm sorry. I hope that was clear. I know it was a lot. Are you intimate with samsara? Are you intimate with a pain in your heart? By the way, it's okay to smile even if you're intimate with the pain in your heart.

[61:51]

Buddha. Oh, look at Manjushri smiling. How about Tara? Is she smiling? She seems to be smiling and Manjushri definitely looks like he had the smile on his face and Shakyamuni had the smile on his face. But Jizo, to say he's smiling is going a bit far. But Tara and Manjushri and Shakyamuni have subtle smiles on their face, and their heart is embracing the suffering of the whole world. Huh? Jesus' toe is kind of smiling, yeah. So anyway, it's okay to be happy. It's okay to be happy. And intimate with your pain. They go together. I start with asking if you're intimate with your pain.

[62:55]

Are you? Can you find some kind of peaceful intimacy with that? And then if you can, are you happy?

[63:12]

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