So to actually get down there and see what really is going on with yourself, you need a lot of backup. You need a lot of support. You need love, best wishes, compassion, joy, and equanimity. I'm saying that. I'm saying if you leave out part of that, you're going to get in there and you're going to, halfway through your studies, you're going to collapse. That's kind of like a happy story compared to what you could do. So if you don't have this material available to you, I'm saying get it. Get these resources, and when you've got them, then you can do this deep work. You seem to be aware that this deep work is really hard. And I'm saying get resources so you can do this hard work. Otherwise, you're just going to back off. Most people get close to it, and then just back off, and that's it. They don't finish the job. The practice of loving kindness can sustain you.

[01:03]

This love and compassion and joy and equanimity can sustain you through the hard work of deep study. The deep study is hard. Your body and mind offer you great challenges. We need a lot of support. And we need support from everybody, from all the Buddhas and all our friends all over the world. We need all that support. And you get that support by loving yourself and loving others. When you love others, you see they're helping you. You need that support. Don't underestimate how much support you need, and don't underestimate how much you have to give to get to realize that the support's coming. Okay, so I appreciate your question. Your question helps me emphasize that this is about what we need in order to do Buddhist practice. We need a change of love as the context of the practice because Buddha is all about love.

[02:05]

Okay, so then there's Judith and Edie. Yes, Judith. Because I'm sensing that what you're saying, that before I sit down to do a practice, I must bring joy to my being. Before I even begin. And yet, when you're practicing this, you can sense what I'm feeling right now. But then I understand that practice is like that. It's a wish created, or actually relevant. That through this practice, we will grow up. and loving kindness, and it will come to joy. I don't sit down, bubbly, bubbly with joy. But through this practice, through the application of the practice in my desire, I wish for it to be that I can create it.

[03:11]

But I'm saying to you that if I don't bring it into the room with me, before I begin the practice, I'm not going to be the practice. If you tell me that you've been practicing for many years and you don't have joy, I would say the same thing I said to her. Take a break. You know, take a break. Quit practicing for a while because you haven't been practicing. I'm just saying. And then, if you want to come back to practice, then you should come back to practice and look for the joy. There should be joy there. If it doesn't come right away, I'm saying, take a break and come back and find that joy. And until you find the joy, realizing that there's something off. It's not that the practice is off, there's something off in the practice.

[04:15]

I mean, the practice is supposed to have the joy, and you're not practicing in such a way to get the joy. Find the way to get the joy in the practice. Don't leave it out for a week or a year without checking it out and trying to find out what's off there. How can you bring the joy element into the practice? So, are you still confused about this? You would look to chanting as a way to... Well, it's not so much the chanting or the walking, okay?

[05:42]

It's that whatever you're doing, whether it's reading the scripture or chanting... All these practices should be done with this loving feeling. It's just that if you're chanting, you might not be able to generate this feeling of love. Then it would be good to do it, I would say, around your chanting. But if you don't want to do that loving-kindness meditation, then just do the chanting. Maybe the chanting will be a way for you to find this love. Again, many Zen students say, Don't do loving-kindness meditation, but they sit and the love comes to them. Just the way they sit, the way they hold their body is very loving and very joyful and very equanimous and very compassionate. So it's all there even though they don't say those words. Well, fine. No problem. But some of them sit, chant or read scriptures, but they're mean to themselves while they're doing these things.

[06:46]

Right? Have you heard about this? They're mean to themselves. They're not being loving to themselves. They don't feel that they're loving to themselves. They're actually feeling bad thoughts about themselves and not thinking about themselves. Not wishing themselves well. They're just feeling anxious and angry. And they're sitting there in their anxiousness and anger, but not in a loving way. And then after a while they say, well, this is... I don't like this. Well, that makes sense. You could be standing up and walking around and hating yourself and feeling bad about yourself. You could do that. You don't have to sit down to do that. Why don't you sit down to take care of yourself, to do something good for yourself? If you're going to make a special time for yourself, to sit down and be with yourself. And if you sit down and notice that you're miserable, why don't you not take care of yourself by being loving to yourself? Now, Patricia says she sits down and feels some comfort in sitting down. Well, if you already feel some comfort, well, fine. or chanting, or reading.

[07:51]

Sometimes you read scriptures and you start reading scriptures and you immediately start feeling loved. You feel the love coming to you from reading the scriptures in a loving way. You know, just... Now maybe you take the scripture and you throw it down, you know, disrespectfully, and you open it and gradually the sutra starts loving you, even though you didn't love it. Well, that's okay. I mean, it's okay that it loves you. It's too bad that you threw it down. And after it starts loving you, you probably say, you know, I'm sorry I threw you down. I'll bow to you before I set you down. As a matter of fact, I'll get you a nice little cover. I'm sorry. You know you're sorry. Because you feel the love and you feel that you're disrespectful. Same with your chanting. I'm going, yeah, you can't change that, but, you know. Well, it's the time now when the program is supposed to end. Was there any last burning questions?

[09:13]

Huh? A song. I have a song. I have a song book here. So I have one song here that... Do you want to do the sutra? You can do the sutra too. But I have one song here that I like. I don't know if you people like this, but you can start. It's written by the Gershwin brothers. It's very clear our love is here to stay. Not forever, but ever and a day. The Rockies... Excuse me. Sorry, I got it wrong. Sorry, no, I got it wrong. the radio and the telephone and the movies that we know may just be passing fancies and in time will go but oh dear our love is here to stay it's very clear our love is here to stay not for a year and a day

[10:41]

In time, the Rockies may crumble. Gibraltar may crumble. They're only made of clay. But our love is here to stay. Does that mean that love is substance? strictly speaking this scripture can be interpreted on two levels one level is everything is impermanent but love is not impermanent love is the nature is the nature of reality love is interdependence The things that manifest interdependently, they come and go.

[11:46]

You know, I come and go, you come and go. But our love does not come and go. Because it's not substantial. All substantial things, like the Rockies, crumble. Gibraltar may tumble. They're only made of... I'm going to crumble. You're going to tumble. But our love will not. So this is about, you know, tune in to the love. Because it's good now, it's good later, and it's good forever. That's why we've got to get together with it. But we also have to get together with the Rockies and Gibraltar. Because they're connected to love, too. It's just that they're going to crumble. Well, I'll let you go. Thank you very much. Oh, excuse me.

[12:49]

I have a poem. And this is going to be hard for me to read because I don't read very well. Robert Frost from, what's it called? Two Tramps in Mud Time. Two Tramps in Mud Time. this is an excerpt but yield who will my object is my object in living is to unite my avocation is my vocation as my two eyes make one insight only where love And the work is play for mortal stakes. Is the deed ever really done? For heaven and the future's sake.

[13:51]

But yield who will to liberation. My object in living is to unite. My avocation is my vocation. as my two eyes make one insight. Only where love and need are one and the work is play for more is the deed ever really done for heaven's and the future's sake. Is that enough? Thank you very much. But if the person who is not so sophisticated at judging then gets loving kindness behind the judging, the judging is even more wonderful because it's not so sophisticated, it's more pure and straightforward.

[15:02]

It's got less kind of like old habits of gain around it because it hasn't been used, it's been mostly an affliction. So when women become integrated, their critical faculty is in some ways even better than men's because it's not so sophisticated. Just like when men learn something about relationship and they actually start to get love behind it, in some ways they're very innocent and pure about the way they use it because they don't know a lot of tricks. They don't know any better than to be innocent. I think Beverly was next. Oh, those are good words. Those are good words. Yes, yes.

[16:04]

The loving-kindness practice with myself, and then when I'm doing it myself pretty well, towards you, for example. But you might not be the next one. I might wait for you to be third because you're someone I like very much. So I might not do the loving-kindness to you right away, otherwise, you know, Om might get upset. That's her husband. Anyway, somewhere along the line, I'll get to you. So I practice loving kindness with myself, I practice towards you. I wish me to be free of anxiety and fear. Okay? I wish you to be free of anxiety and fear. This feeling of wanting this for you, of loving you and wanting you to be free, goes with me also appreciating this for you. Okay? I have equanimity towards you. In other words, if you don't become free of anxiety, if you keep being anxious, I don't, like, get angry at you for not doing what I hoped you would do.

[17:14]

I'm patient, and I really appreciate you in your anxious state, and I'm joyful for you in your anxious state. And if you become unanxious, I'm happy about that. But I don't prefer you in one state over another, even though I wish you the best. Okay? and I feel compassion for you. I want you to be free of the pain of anxiety. Okay? I'm practicing these practices towards you and towards me. That gives me the lack of anger. It gives me equanimity. It gives me joy and energy. I'm awake. I'm alive. I'm balanced. I'm not angry. I'm loving. Now I can turn my attention to the roots of the anxiety. the roots of the fear. But now, because of loving-kindness, I have a context in which I can actually now see clearly. When you're loving yourself, you calm down, clear up, wake up, and now you're ready to look at the sources of the anxiety and the fear.

[18:23]

So you still have to face the fear, but you need a context in which you can face the fear and feel good, because it's hard to face the fear. It's hard to look at the anxiety. And again, boredom comes in there. when you start to see it, boredom comes and says, you've got better things to do than look at anxiety, Beverly. So, again, the joy helps you enjoy the deep work of looking at the roots of anxiety, fear, anger, and affliction. If you just try to walk up to and look at the roots of your anxiety and fear, It's almost impossible because you feel bad already and now you're going to do some really hard work. No. It's too hard. You've got to build up your resources of comfort and joy and then go into the cave. The dark cave. Illusion. You know, thriving. Does that make sense?

[19:30]

Okay, I think next was Calmer. It might be a little off, but it's something that I've met with very old teachers. Yeah, pretty old. I'm wondering how it was validated. Was it a trial and error? Well, it's almost scientific. Yeah, yeah. It's been tried, and it works, all that. Well, I think scientific, but also artistic. So, there should be this trial and error kind of thing, and you validate it for yourself. You know, this is the theory. This is the theory about love. Try it out. Check it out. If you, you know, we not only told you some experiments you can do, you can make new experiments. that you think are reasonable tests. Then you come back to the theory center, the text or the teacher, and you say, well, according to this theory, I tried this experiment and it didn't work.

[20:34]

And then the person says, well, your experimental design was off. You forgot to do that part. You say, oh. And then if you come back and say, well, I tried it this way and it didn't work, and the teacher says, well, yeah, you tried it right, you know, try it again. In science, too, you try things over and over because sometimes Even though you got everything right and all the designs correct, still, you have to do multiple trials. And you don't notice the difference, but some subtle thing, finally it works. And somehow you tune into the beam, the correct beam, and then you get, it starts to work. But there's also a creative side to it, which is you can redesign the experiment and try new ones, because these are old stories, you know, old images. So you can try new and creative approaches. That's part of it, too. Yes. Right. And... Yeah, and so this book that I'm reading was written in the 4th century, where that person was bringing together stuff which had been accumulated over the previous 600 years or 700 years of Buddhist history.

[21:53]

He put it all together, and people still, even over the last Years have still been reprinting this book because it still seems to be pretty good. They've been trying it and getting some success or anyway enjoying failing anyway. But it's... But I think anyway some of you have tried some of these practices this weekend and got some encouragement. And so some encouragement... that encouragement and use it to do deeper work. So this is like encouragement to do deeper work and deeper work is encouragement to do deeper work and so on. Okay? Let's see, I think next, I think was, I think you're next. Equanimity, devotion, and intimacy. You're in a relationship with someone.

[23:05]

They're healing a wound. They need a lot of attention. Like if you have two relationships and one seems to need more attention than the other. Is that what you're saying? I think... So you have two relationships. You're devoted to both people. One needs more attention. Seems to be. Well, then give the attention to the one who needs more attention. Not because you prefer that person, but just because they need more attention. You're not choosing them. They just need more attention, so you give them more attention. If you choose them... You choose them, that's not equanimity, and then you're going to be undermined in giving your devotion to them and attention to them because you're going to feel guilty because you abandoned the other person.

[24:09]

Again, the basic principle here, way down deep, deep, deep, is that when you love someone, you're attached to them, okay? That's because you feel separate from them. But when you love someone, and you're not attached to them, that's because you know you're connected to them. They're not going to stay with you because you're holding on to them. They're staying with you because they're staying with you. You're not separable. And you love them in that non-separation. If you think you have to hold on to them, you don't believe in that you're connected. You don't believe that you're interdependent. And then you get into preference and stuff. So you can love someone and attach to them, but that's okay, but you need to do deeper work to take that love and use that love to do the deeper work so that you stop being attached to them and be devoted to them without attachment. Totally devoted without attachment.

[25:17]

And you know, that's Buddhist. Totally devoted to people that are not, you're not attached to, and you're not in control of, and you can devote your whole life to them, and then they can split, you never see them again, and you don't feel like you wasted that time. But it's very hard to like give your whole heart to somebody, and then they disappear, and you don't know what happened. You never get separated, really. And if you put your time into people and think that, okay, now you get to keep them, this is no good. But that's a common thing. Okay, I put all this time and effort into you, stay around. Right? That's attachment. That's like, we're separated. You're going to go away. I'm going to lose you. Pardon? Pardon? Well, in families it doesn't work. People don't practice Buddhism in their families. Forget that.

[26:19]

You can never get that far. Do it with people that aren't in your family. You can't do it in your family. You can't, like, put your whole... Give your milk and your blood and, you know, and your money and your time and your sweat and your tears and all that attention to your kid and then, like, let go of it. No, you can't do that. Like... Hi, you know, see you later. I'll never see you again. No problem. You can't do that, right? No, you hold on to them. You say, you can't go. I own you. You know, I bought you. Right? No, no, you can't practice Buddhism with your kids or with your spouse. You got to... Time in, all this love in. You can't, like, then just have them, like, be free agents. No, that's too much to ask. But with other people you can do that, right? And then maybe someday you can actually not be attached to your spouse and your kids and your parents. But that's like the last people you really are devoted to.

[27:22]

But in that devotion there's this little side thing, you know, of, you know, gaining something and then gradually you start to grab them and own them and then you kill the relationship. Gradually you strangle it. But hopefully before you wake up and stop doing that and start, you know, being more equanimous about it and so on and then it can come back to life. It's easy to not be attached to people when you don't give them anything. It's easy. You can drive in your car, drive by somebody's yard and just look at it. You see, look at their garden. Oh, there's a flower there. That's nice. But you, you take care of the garden for day after day, year after year, and you make this wonderful garden. Okay? Or even you make this lousy garden. But you put your life into it. You own it. It's easy to think you do own it.

[28:26]

You can even think you own it before you even start working on it. Not to mention if you put your whole life into it, then you think, this is my garden. Yeah, I own it. Well, sure, yeah, you're right. We were just driving by. We weren't saying you had to practice equanimity or anything like that. No problem. Pardon? Buddha did leave his family, but some people don't like the way he left them. He came back. The story is, anyway, he came back and he worked it out with them. He gave his love to his wife and to his mother and to his father and to his son. He really became a good father and husband later. that he really was kind to his family. But when he left, he wasn't enlightened yet. He didn't do a very good job when he left. Kind of mean, the way he left. But he was a deluded person.

[29:26]

But he woke up, and then he came back and did his best to recover his past karma. I think John's next. And then you... In your answer, Beverly, you talked about... Right. Yeah. Yeah, fine. Yeah. Well, one thing is the mechanism of, you know, maybe no manana. That's one mechanism. It's called the teaching of... Be careful about postponing your practice till tomorrow. That's one thing. And the other thing is if you're not ready to go into the cave, if you haven't got enough comfort and joy, get more.

[30:31]

I'm not pushing you in ahead of time. I'm saying if you don't feel ready, what do you need to get ready? How much more love do you need to feel supported for this difficult work? You need to feel confident that you've got enough support to go in there. That's why we need a group and teachers. We need friends and teachers to help us do this hard work because when you get down there, it's not good to go down there and then freak out and quit for ten years. push yourself too hard it's good to go down take one step and then before you take another step get make sure you where you got your feet and then take another step okay and then another step not once not three steps and then two back and then I quit I remember one time I was mountain climbing. It wasn't a big mountain, but anyway, I was climbing up in the Swiss Alps, the Austrian Alps, and I went with some experienced climbers.

[31:32]

And we just went up, you know, and they didn't say anything to me about how to climb mountains. Huh? Yeah, they just, you know, they just said, let's go. But as we got up higher, we got up into the snow, it was summertime, got up into the snow, and things started getting steep, and we're walking on, you know, ridges that were about this wide, and both ways down straight. Not straight, but, you know, really steep. Then they started to give me instruction. Laughter And one of the first instructions I think they gave was, don't look around. And then the guy said, pick, step, pick, step, not step, pick. First the pick in, then the step, then the pick, then the step. But they didn't tell me early, which I think that was, whatever. I didn't need to know early, but at a certain time they started saying, pick, step, pick, step, fall.

[32:41]

So, this is difficult work, so you've got to go, pick, you know, get a firm base. Okay, ready? Want to go down or up? Step, okay? Ready? Ready to go further? No? Okay, well, Ready? Yes. Pick. Okay, you ready to take a step? No? Okay, we'll stay here for a while. If you're afraid, calm down. Step. So this is... Plan your descent or ascent into this work carefully, and you should be based on... Good about it. Don't start practicing feeling bad. You already feel bad. Just start taking care of yourself. Do the practices to take care of yourself to feel good by love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. Then, when you're feeling pretty good, are you ready to now go down and start looking at the world? If you say no, okay, we'll wait. Patience. But keep doing these practices that you feel good about until you feel so overfull with joy and courage

[33:54]

You know, this loving-kindness thing is the cradle of courage. Stay in this cradle long enough, you're going to have the courage to do this hard work. And then go down. And then if you have some trouble, then go back in the cradle. Get some more courage and keep back and forth, just like a kid going on further, deeper and deeper journeys away from mommy. Okay? Okay? And if you feel like you're being lazy, go tell a teacher, say, maybe have I waited too long, you know? Teacher might say, no, it's okay, you're not ready. Or yeah, it's time for you to go. Go ahead. You'll be all right. Sometimes you're not sure. If you just check with somebody and say, you can do this. You can take that step. Sure. Sure. Yes.

[34:58]

Yes. Yes. Well, it's just, what do you call it? Basically, it doesn't sound like anything to worry about, and it's quite common that when you sit, you know, especially if you're not used to sitting still, various things which can't happen when you're moving fast, doing your custom work, can start happening. The body can do many things, which means the body can move in many different ways, can see in many different ways, can hear in many different ways, can smell in different ways, And the sensations of the skin can be many different things than you notice when you're doing your usual things. When you're sitting and you have no particular agenda, sometimes the body just loosens up and lets things happen that it doesn't usually want to have happen because it thinks they don't interfere with various projects you're on. So various things start loosening up and then various things start happening.

[36:05]

And then when those happen, then sometimes if you let those happen, more things happen. But if you have any question about a specific, go talk to somebody who does a lot of sitting. And usually, either they know about it or they know somebody else who knows about it. And then you go talk to a person and tell them, well, this is happening. They might say, no problem. Or they might say, oh, that's a problem. You should straighten the back of your neck. or uncross your legs, or do more walking meditation, or don't eat right before you sit, get more sleep, or whatever. They know from their own experience various things that are happening are just not a problem. And you don't know. Like I said sometimes to people, after I read those stories about the Zen monks and that they practice meditation, I started practicing by myself in Minnesota. And I started having experiences And I didn't know, I said, like, go to see a psychiatrist, or go on TV. Was this some great yogic breakthrough, or was I just crazy?

[37:12]

It could be either, as far as I know. Turns out that they were neither. They're just ordinary, run-of-the-mill experiences for a non-meditator, but quite common for a meditator. So I thought maybe I should go be with somebody who sat a lot so I could just easily check in. That's nice to have a meditation teacher because you can say, well, this happened. They say, okay, fine, no problem. Or, that is a problem. Or, that's great. And it's so great that you should... Don't mention it again. But what you're saying sounds like quite familiar, not a problem. Uh-huh.

[38:16]

Stop. Stop meditating. Yeah, right now. And don't start again until you really want to. Until you really want to. Until you, like, just feel great about starting again. You will eventually. Just take a break. Fast. Take a meditation fast. Fast from meditating until you really want to go sit. get back to that place where you started. When you first started meditating, you didn't, you wanted to, right? Yeah, we just stopped then. Just stopped meditating. Yeah.

[39:22]

And if you want to know when to start, call me up. I'll tell you. If you want to start again, let me know. And I'll require you to feel joy about it. So don't start until you feel joy at the prospect of meditating. Don't do it. Okay? That's my suggestion. You know, I'm not in control of you, but that's my suggestion. Can't she just sit with her lack of joy? Huh? Can't she just sit and be joyless? Oh, she's been doing that for a long time. Equanimity should be joyful. All this stuff should be joyful. So you've tried it. You haven't had joy. Just quit. And when you feel joy at the prospect of meditating, come back. If you don't, you're not going to be meditating right anyway, so forget it. Got a problem?

[40:24]

Got a problem? What's the problem? That goes for all of you, by the way. Just stop. Just forget it until you have joy, equanimity. That's the situation in which you should be practicing. If you don't have that, you can't practice, so don't pretend that you're practicing. But if you want to practice, well, just have a little joy here. If you don't want to give joy, okay. You're holding back. Why go spend your time holding back? Why have a special session to waste your time? Why don't you just waste your time in the rest of your life? Like, waste your time working, waste your time talking to your husband, waste your time with your kids, waste your time driving cars. Why don't you just... Why make a special session called meditation to waste your time? Meditation should be the time when you're not going to waste your time. And then you get the feeling for not wasting your time, and then you don't waste your time the rest of your life.

[41:37]

If you see how you're wasting your time, that's good. All right? But if you don't have joy at seeing how you're wasting your time, that's just depression. To me, it's a joy to see how I'm wasting my time. When I see how I'm wasting my time, that's not a waste of time. That's wisdom. That's calling a spade a spade. Spade, spades. Aren't you? If you're not happy calling a spade spades, well, then don't be happy calling a spade spades, but don't call that meditation. It's not. It's depression. It's not enjoying calling spades, spades, or miras, miras. I love calling mira, mira. Meditation. If you don't enjoy calling reb, reb, don't call it meditation. Call it being bored. Call it being depressed. Call it lack of joy. Call it missing the boat. Call it wasting your time.

[42:39]

Why waste your time not being joyful. There's no point to it. Why elevate it to call it meditation? Why just say, I'm wasting my time. I wasted the last ten minutes, I wasted the last five years, the rest of my life. I wasted my life. I'm not practicing joyfully. I'm wasting my time. If you face that, maybe you will decide to stop doing that and to start practicing joyfully. Why don't you just sort of be real strong and just say, okay, I haven't been practicing because it hasn't been joyful. I have been wasting my time. I confess I've been wasting my time. And now I'm just going to face that, and I'm not going to call practice, practice until I'm practicing, until it really, I feel joy. And then when I feel joy, I'm going to say, now I'm practicing. Before that, I'm not going to call it practice. I'm going to call it not practicing yet. Why not?

[43:41]

You've been doing this other thing all this time. Just chalk it up. Bye-bye. And when you're ready to start over, start over. Got a problem with that? Sounds like people look worried. I don't see the point myself of holding back your joy. It's right there. Why don't you give it to practice? How many... Do you want to see a little survey? How many people feel practice... practicing? How many people have ever felt joy practicing? Well, that was practice. That was practice.

[44:42]

Hmm? Pardon? What? How many people do not feel joy practicing? How many people do not feel joy practicing ever? You can ask whatever question you want. I just asked... You get, well, do you get 45 seconds of joy? Well, that's great. 45 seconds of joy? That's terrific. Yeah. Well, just, you know, what is it, the 15 minutes before and the 15 minutes after, okay? Practice. That's just like the time you set aside for the, what do you call it?

[45:48]

For the second of joy. Not keep practicing, you should practice. You should practice the way that's joyful. That's the way you should practice. And you should expand that to encompass your entire life. That's all. But it might help you to approach your meditation with a sense that, you know, when are you really doing the practice? When do you really think you're doing the practice? When do you think you're doing the practice? And when do you think you're wasting time? And if you're wasting time, you say, okay, this is the wasting time part. And this is the practice part. And this is the wasting time part. It's good to notice when you're wasting time. But then you don't call that practice, you call it wasting time. And noticing that it's wasting time, that's practice. But if you are wasting time for 15 minutes, and every moment of the wasting time, you know you're wasting time.

[46:56]

That's not wasting time. And you won't keep it up for 15 minutes. It's very hard to waste time moment after moment and catch yourself at it because it gets to be the noticing it keeps undermining the wasting time because the noticing it isn't wasting time so you got wasting time which is totally interfused by awareness so then you don't feel like that's wasting time you start feeling good if you sit for 15 minutes and you're not even noticing that you're not there it doesn't count it's a waste of time Don't you think? You say, well, the fact that it sets up the few minutes of being present and really enjoying it to me. So I say, fine. Like Suzuki Roshi said one time, we have seven-day sittings, and maybe in the middle of some time during that seven-day sitting, some time during that seven-day sitting, maybe for one period you'll be there. In the 168 hours, he didn't say that, but I calculated,

[47:58]

68 hours of this session, maybe 40 minutes, you're there. He said, that's pretty good. Huh? Yeah. So after the session, I said, so Roshi, is it okay if I just have a meditation in a week? Is that okay? He said, no, that's not good enough for you. It's very good, the time's very good, but if you ask, is it good enough? No, you should expand it to the whole week. No, loving kindness is too. If you're not practicing loving kindness when you're sitting, y'all should stop. If you're not practicing compassion, you should stop. If you're not practicing equanimity, stop. Stop and practice that way. A lot of Zen students sit, and that's part of why I offer this retreat, is because a lot of Zen students sit without loving kindness, and then they hurt their practice because they're not loving themselves while they're doing this kind of hard practice.

[49:17]

It's hard to really sit up straight day after day, year after year. You need to support it with love and equanimity. and joy and compassion. We need that. We need that. And if you don't do that, don't hurt yourself. Stop. If you're willing to give yourself this kind of support, and if you're willing to give yourself this kind of support, go ahead. Otherwise you're endangering this very precious thing called your Buddha heart by starving it, by not giving it the love it needs. You have a precious thing here to take care of. And if you're not taking care of it, don't call it practice. Practice is taking care of this. Don't you think? Yeah, sure you do. That's why you asked the question. It's the last time you ask a question. Richard? Richard?

[50:19]

What does it mean for seeking enlightenment? Well, like at the beginning of this retreat I said, I used to hear that loving-kindness was like a preliminary practice. It pushes away, it clears away anger, and also it's an antidote for fear. So that's what I heard it was, and also as a concentration practice. But I heard it's not about, like, the deep level of insight. Well, that's not right. But it's like the womb in which the baby Buddha grows up. So it's essential, even though the womb isn't enough. You've got to have wisdom in the middle of the womb. So loving-kindness is the context in which we do the deep work Understanding the source of our anxiety, the source of our fear, the source of our anger, and doing that deep work, we see the source of it is we don't understand ourself.

[51:30]

And seeing that we don't understand ourself, we understand ourself. Seeing that we understand ourself as separate, we see that that causes anxiety. If we understand ourselves as separate, the anxiety drops away. So loving-kindness is, you can say, a preliminary, but it's an essential preliminary that you keep needing all the way along the way. It's the context in which, it's the loving context in which you do this deep and difficult work. So it's inseparable. And also loving, the reason why it's inseparable is because it's there from the beginning to the end of the practice. It is the nature of Buddha. This loving kindness is the nature of Buddha. This joy is the nature of Buddha. This equanimity is the nature of Buddha. But still, also in the nature of wisdom, which isn't mentioned in these practices. But these practices are both the context for realizing Buddha's wisdom and they are the natural outflow of Buddha's wisdom so that they're before and after the realization of wisdom.

[52:33]

Okay? Okay? It's not exactly a means. Like, would you say that the petals and the petals and the leaves and the stem are a means to the flower? Well, you could, I guess, but really, they're the flower. Hmm? Right, there's more... Loving kindness goes with Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path. Loving kindness goes with deep wisdom. But without loving kindness, I think you cannot have deep wisdom. You can go a certain level of loving kindness, but then you start needing it. And some people can't go very far without loving kindness because they try to, especially practicing Zen, which tends to be a little tough physically, without loving kindness, they beat themselves up with the practice.

[53:37]

and then the terrible because they say, well, Zen's too hard. Well, it's not that Zen's too hard, it's that you were too hard on yourself practicing Zen. Zen's not hard or easy. Zen is an opportunity for you to practice Buddha's way. And if you don't practice it right, that's not Zen, that's just your practicing. Yes? Would you say that again, please? As loving. To put it down. Now first of all, you have your identity, and the loving-kindness is the place you send your loving-kindness to.

[54:44]

Your identity is like the recipient area or the receiving area for the loving-kindness. So first of all, you take your identity and put it someplace where you can find it, and send the loving-kindness there. When you send a loving kindness to your identity, then it feels good around your identity, and then there can be the study of the identity. Then you can let go of your identity. It's not that your identity isn't who you are, it's that who you are is not separate from your identity or anything else. What you really are is an interdependent, radiant, appearance. But there's an identity as part of it. So identity is a place you can look to see what you think of yourself. If you look carefully at what you think of yourself, if there's any misunderstanding of what you think you are, and if there is, then you notice that that's painful.

[55:46]

And as you notice the combination of the misunderstanding and the pain, you start to understand in a different way, which is not a misunderstanding and which is not painful. And correctly. Okay? That make sense? Bye-bye. No, identity doesn't limit you. You're not limited by anything. Nothing limits you. But you think that things limit you. Yeah. Red, you don't... You are limited. But I think you... I get this feeling like you want to eliminate something before you check it out.

[56:48]

Okay? So... You don't want to get a... Yeah. If you check it out in a loving way, you realize you don't have to get a hold of it, and therefore you don't have to get rid of it. Okay. Is there anything else you want to bring up? Yes? Yes. Amen. [...] Uh huh.

[57:56]

Uh huh. Uh huh. Well, you kind of waffled there a little bit in your description. Not waffled exactly, but you told me several different situations. So if I could like simplify your presentation, if you're feeling depressed and you want to sit as an impression getting rid of it, then you probably get more depressed. And it's probably better to do walking meditation or something like that, or go swimming. if you want to get rid of your depression. Not if you want to get rid of it, but if you have that impulse. It won't get rid of it necessarily, but you won't probably go deeper into it.

[58:58]

But if you're down trying to get rid of it, that's not so good. If you are feeling depressed and you feel like sitting down will make you, that will comfort you, you also said that. So sitting down, feeling that it will comfort you, is not necessarily saying that sitting down trying to get rid of it. Sitting down may make it deeper, deeper depression. Sitting down with a comforting attitude of something loving to do for yourself, something you think would be healthy, that probably would be a good idea. And that way would go with sitting down and practicing loving-kindness. Let's sit down and start giving yourself, wishing yourself well. Wishing yourself well, wishing yourself to be free of depression and sorrow, that's compassion. Wishing yourself to be happy, that's loving kindness. To do that, you're feeling depressed.

[60:01]

If you can actually do it, if you can actually say those words to yourself, that would be okay to do when you're depressed. But if you're feeling depressed and you want to sit down and try to get rid of it, my experience is people go deeper into it then it's not good for depressed people to sit down still unless they've got some to give themselves some kindness at the same time It's okay to think this is going to be helpful. That's all right. It's all right. You should do things that are going to be helpful. That's okay. But if you sit down and think, if you're depressed, it would be good if you had some kind of sense that you're going to be good to yourself while you're sitting. You're not going to just be sinking down into depression. That's not necessarily good. But if you're going to sit down and practice loving kindness and you think that would be good for yourself, fine. That's not necessarily good in a depression. Sinking and wallowing is not good.

[61:06]

Better to walk around or go work in the kitchen or something. Do something symmetrical with both palms and legs. Do cross training. You don't want to sink into it. But loving kindness moves. If you're really practicing loving kindness to yourself, that moves the depression. It touches it, massages it. That's good. If you don't have enough energy to do that, then you probably shouldn't sit down with depression. That's what I would say. Go play tennis with both hands. With somebody else's playing with both hands. And see, I don't know who was next. So maybe it was Chris and Betty. In her situation, the joy would begin when it goes with the loving-kindness meditation. I think joy is an uplifting feeling, yes, definitely.

[62:17]

And if you're depressed and you practice loving-kindness in your depression, joy will be there. Joy will come with the loving-kindness meditation. That is the loving-kindness meditation. I shouldn't say that. The meditation on love, which has these four dimensions, when you're really doing the first one, you're doing the third one. When you're really doing the third one, you're doing the first one. So if you're depressed and you can do this meditation, and you're doing loving-kindness, but the joy isn't there, you know you haven't really got the loving-kindness going yet. So you keep working on loving-kindness, you know it's not complete, it hasn't done its job until it's joy, plus unless it's equanimity. and so on. But it's okay to start on one of them, because you can start on one before you even can do the one. You can start giving, you can start wishing yourself well before you even feel the effects of it. Feel it pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you feel joy right away.

[63:23]

But if you don't feel joy yet, then you know that you haven't reached the extent of the first practice. The third one isn't happening. So then maybe you want to even shift over to joy a little bit and see what's the matter. What are you doing? And you find constriction. So then maybe you should just... See, loving kindness, you don't do it towards somebody... You don't start loving kindness towards a person you like a lot. So maybe you should go over to joy and find somebody you like a lot to get a little joy to mix in with your loving kindness. Yes? My question is related to what Chris said, and the difference from what Patricia was saying about the comfort of sitting when there's stuff going on, and the comfort of sitting at times. And then how that differs from what Myra was saying, because I really identify with Myra's

[64:28]

I don't feel a lot of joy. I don't feel a lot of joy when I'm disintegrating and feeling this self-hatred and becoming in anger and affliction and But there's not a lot of... that's a hard place to feel the joy. Yet there is kind of like a comfort. So I'm kind of torn between identifying very strongly with what she was saying, and then when we told her to stop, I'm thinking, ah, that's very scary. And I also then thought, oh, but it's okay. Do you see where I'm going? well the comfort the comfort of the sitting okay that's part of the loving kindness which okay if you're gonna if you're gonna become intimate try to become intimate with your uh anxiety and so on i'm saying you're not going to be able to get intimate with your anxiety and your anger unless you bring some comfort to it

[65:38]

You're just going to go in there and, you know, mess things up more. So you want to go in with some comfort to do uncomfortable work. That comfort I don't think of as joy. I'm suggesting to you, I'm actually saying this to you. This is not, you know, Buddha talk. I'm actually saying to you, if you want to do this work... You need not just comfort, but joy too. It's hard work. If you're not joyful, you're not going to do the work. You're going to get in there and you're going to say, this is too hard. You're just going to give up. You need not just comfort, not just ease. You need joy and you need equanimity. Otherwise, you get in there and try to do this work. You're just going to say, this is too hard. I'm getting out of here and go do something easier. You've got to be able to handle real dynamic situation of life. It's a little package.

[66:43]

It's all interdependent and intense and ungraspable and uncontrollable. That's your life. So to actually get down there and see what really is going on with yourself, you need a lot of backup. You need a lot of support. You need love, best wishes, compassion, joy, and acceptance.

[67:00]

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