a little bit more to say in response to what Andre brought up. I don't know, it's not exactly what he brought up, but it's my response to it. And that is to tell you a story I heard about the Buddha Shakyamuni. I heard that he that he mentioned to his group that there are six Buddhas before him in this particular world system or this particular lineage here. So many of you know that we often talk about the seven Buddhas before Buddha, but actually there's only six. And so at Zen Center in San Francisco, we say the names of those six Buddhas and then the name of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[01:11]

And he said to his group that the first three, the way they talk, they didn't really have much of a group, I guess. They just move around in the world. And when they'd meet somebody, they would just, you know, relate to that person. find out where they were stuck, you know, at the point of their . And then he would, like, just help them with that point, and then they would wake up. And he did, the first three Buddhas, I think, were taught like that. They didn't have really any forms for their students. They just find the person's cage and then together with the person paint the bars away in terms of what we're talking about this morning.

[02:18]

he didn't have a set of bars for the community to get in, a set cage for the community to get into to help them as a group get in touch with their places of clinging, for three of those Buddhas. The next three they taught somewhat differently. They taught that same way of relating to different people and helping them, but they also had like forms and ceremonies for their community to practice with. And the ceremonies. So some regulations or some precepts are about, in some sense, forms or regulations. like not killing and so on. And then other things are more like ceremonies or ways of deportment. So moral, but they may not seem so much into like avoiding evil, but they more have to do with a dignified, mindful, respectful way to move through the world.

[03:33]

So he had this set of The next three had these kinds of things for their students. And then the Buddha mentioned that the first three, their teaching lasted for, I forgot how long it lasted, but not very long. After they passed away, their teaching didn't last much longer than death. But the Buddhas who had these regulations and ceremonies, their teachings lasted for quite a few eons after they left. And then he used the metaphor of, it's like if you take some poles and you pile them up sort of towards the center. If you balance them right, they'll stay for a little while. But if somebody bumps into them when the wind blows, they fall over. But if you tie a rope around the poles, like the Native Americans did when they made their teabag, probably they did it in Siberia, too, before they came over to the Bering Straits.

[04:47]

But anyway, this way of making a kind of stable structure by tiling poles together at a vortex and tying a string around it stays much longer. He said tying like this. So then one of the noted students of the Buddha, I think it was Shariputra, says, well then, Master, please give us the precepts so that your dharma will last a long time. And the Buddha said, the Buddha will decide when to give the precepts. And then he said, I will give the precepts when it's necessary. But right now we don't need them. He said, but as the group gets bigger, and as it becomes more famous and powerful, like monasteries and things like that, then we may have to have precepts. When the group was small enough so that they were all close to the Buddha, they didn't really have to have any precepts.

[05:53]

Nobody would get very far off being close to the Buddha. It may be necessary. And so not too long after that, he did give the forms and ceremonies for the monks to work with. But it is possible, particularly a one-on-one, a teacher and one student, it's possible that you wouldn't have to have any much regulations and ceremonies. At one temple in Japan, It wasn't a Zen temple, but it was a man who is, I think, respected by Zen people. His name was... And he had just basically one precept in his temple, which he had hanging over the door to the practice room. And the precept was, do what's appropriate. Or, you know, act appropriately...

[06:59]

That's, you know, that's a pretty good precept, of course, and that's what they're all about. But as the group gets big, somehow people's different interpretations may vary greatly, and if there isn't enough supervision, they may think it's certain things which the Buddha would not think were appropriate. But since he can't keep track of a huge group, they got more specific. And generally speaking, the forms arose from situations where people did things that weren't appropriate. So if you look at some of the rules, the monks must have been pretty bad in those days to come up with some of these rules. And the bodhisattva precepts that we use in Soto Zen are actually, there's just 16, which is the smallest number probably of any Zen school.

[08:19]

In China, they have the bodhisattva precepts, the traditional bodhisattva precepts from India and China, there's 58. I should say, the most popular rendition of Bodhisattva precepts, there's 58. There's 10 major ones and 58 minor ones. But in Soto Zen of the lineage of Dogen, and I'm pretty sure this is Dogen Zenji's innovation, we only use the 10 major ones of the 58 precepts. and the ten major precepts plus the three refuges and the three pure precepts. And on the continent, in China and Tibet and India, the Mahayana people would, but in all schools when people

[09:28]

enter the community, they first take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. All Buddhists do that. And then the three pure precepts are widespread, which are in Mahayana phrased as, you know, embrace and sustain the regulations and ceremonies of whatever school you're in. the forms of ceremonies. The next one is to embrace and sustain all the wholesome activities, all skillful activities, whenever is appropriate. And the third precept, the third major pure precept is to embrace and sustain all beings. So those three also in almost all Mahayana practice places, they practice And also in Mahayana, sometimes they have monks' monastic precepts, which are about your own personal conduct, plus they have these 58 bodhisattva precepts.

[10:32]

So the Zen Master Dogen took these universal precepts, the three pure precepts, and put them together with the ten major precepts. And that presentation is really, in some sense, the simplest set of precepts of almost any Zen school. In China, mostly they did the 58. So although we do have these things, in that way the bodhisattva precepts are simple. And also another thing about bodhisattva precepts is that they're the same for lay people and for priests, or the same for lay people and monastics. That's true in China and Japan and Korea and I think Tibet too. I wanted to bring up a really big difficult topic which is the part in the teaching we've been reciting where it says, all this however does not appear within perception.

[11:47]

And all this means the way that the trees and the mountains and the rocks and the water and the wind, the way all that stuff is engaged in Buddha activity and how that Buddha activity resonates from them to us and back from us to them, and how we're engaged in Buddha activity and how that resonates from us and back to us. So, you know, the wonderful way that we are working together with everyone, that enlightened way we're working together, it resonates out from us endlessly and touches everything and then comes and then bounces back to us from everything. Unstopped exchange of the Buddha's teaching is going on endlessly. And all this, however, does not appear within perception. Because it is unconstructedness and stillness, this working together is not constructed.

[13:02]

It's not fabricated. It's not made. Harmony is, peace and harmony are not made by consciousnesses. Things are constructed, phenomena are constructed by consciousnesses. And consciousnesses can apprehend the things which the consciousnesses create. And consciousnesses can apprehend these things by packaging them. So we can actually, our consciousness can reach the things which our consciousness creates. Our consciousness can reach, our perception can reach the things that we together make, like mountains and people. But our consciousness cannot reach the unconstructedness and stillness.

[14:07]

It can't reach the way things are not dual. They can't reach the way things are actually working together, which is beyond construction, any kind of packaging. Another way to say it is, it is immediate realization. The way this Buddha work is going on is immediate realization. No media, no medium. You can't like, there's no way you can get at it through a medium. You're totally intimate with it. And being intimate with something, you can't get it away from you so that your mind can know it. And then it says, that which can be met with recognition is not realization itself.

[15:12]

So if you could see, if you saw this way that everything's resonating and helping each other, if you saw it, that wouldn't be it. The way things are working together, that is realization, that is enlightenment. But if you could recognize it, you would have separated yourself from it. That which you can recognize is not realization because realization is immediate. However, even though realization cannot be recognized or that which can be recognized is not realization, realization is actually possible because is always working to make beings realize how they're being made. How you're being made is working to help you realize how you're being made.

[16:13]

And that's, again, realization. But we also recognize where we can recognize things, and we like that world very much. And although it's very painful and scary, and all kinds of terrible things are happening to it, we're used to it, and we're built to imagine things as recognizable. So it's hard to let go of that world and open to the world that we can't recognize, which is immediate realization. So the Buddhas not only tell us about this, from the place they speak from a place consciousness can't reach they speak from a place where words don't reach and they tell us about the place that words don't reach and they also give teachings about how to reach the place that words don't reach which happens to be where you are right now teach you how to be where you are

[17:22]

without having any medium between you and the where you are. They teach you to give up any kind of way to be where you are, which of course you don't need, and that makes perfect sense. We usually like to have some way to be where we are. Because if you don't have any way to be where you are, you can't recognize where you are, and we're not used to that. And I mentioned, I guess I was talking to Vanya about autistic people, autistic people, you know the German word, is it autism also? Yeah. So there's varieties of autism, but some autistic people, even autistic children, if you show them something like an apple or a dog or a horse,

[18:25]

and give them a pen and some paper, they can sometimes draw a picture of it which looks very much like a dog or a horse or whatever it is. And then if you ask them what it is, they don't know what it is. Like if you say, what's that on the paper? They don't say, well, it's the horse. Some of these children, they can't recognize on the paper that it's the horse, and they also can't recognize the horse anyway as a horse. yet they can see the horse as it is, as an actual image, and because they see the dark and light patches and shapes, they just draw on the paper with the patches that they see. And other children also see the patches, but then they package the packages of shapes into a horse, and then they say they can recognize it as a horse. But when they draw a picture of it, they don't draw the patches dark and light on the paper. They usually draw something which looks not at all like a horse to anybody.

[19:27]

But if you ask them what it is, they say it's a horse. They don't notice that it doesn't look anything like the actual horse. It doesn't look anything like it. They think this is a drawing of it, because what they're drawing is just something they can recognize as a horse, not anything that looks like a horse. And they're called the normal children. because they can recognize things. Normal people can recognize things, but in order to recognize, you have to ignore, you know, the way they are. Which is, you know, a good idea, since that's what everybody else is doing. And the autistic children cannot see, cannot ignore the way they are. So then they can't recognize it. Do not come recognizable. I'm not walking around recognizable. Neither are you. But you don't let that stop you.

[20:30]

You make an image of me that you can recognize, and then you're fine. But actually, I'm unrecognizable. I'm not in person. But you're not interested in that. You want to see something that appears. So you make me into an appearance, And then you can recognize me and throw things and cut my head. Yes? I was just thinking about the paradox of what is it that creates autistic children. It's a disconnection from loved ones, a total disconnection, a lack of connection with the parents. I don't know. I don't know the etiology of this particular syndrome, what it is. I'm just thinking back to the connection between us all, that normal children get very intimately connected. They have that from the start. Yeah. And autistic children, yeah, don't have that. I don't understand what you mean that they don't have it.

[21:33]

Well, isn't it, Andre, help me on this one. I think... Autism occurs because the relationship between the parents and the children, there's no connection with their emotion, confirmation, something like that. That's not the problem. It's empty. I mean, that's the description. That's how it looks. They have a hard time connecting. But actually, how it comes into life, I don't know. I don't think anybody knows it. Another way to talk about it is they have trouble, I think they actually see, I think to some extent they see how complex a face is, for example. Whereas other kids just ignore the complexity of it and make it into something that they can deal with. Or another way to put it is ordinary children can deal with the complexity of the face and make it into something recognizable.

[22:42]

But the autistic children, seeing all this complexity, I mean, if you think about how much information is coming from the face and how fast it changes, and these slight little changes in the eyes and the nose, the lips, the eyebrows, the forehead, the ears, the body, It's changing constantly. It's just, you know, it's awesome what we can deal with. And then we can convert that into some kind of like recognizable sequence of messages. And they see all that and they just kind of like turn away from it. It's just too much, a lot of them. It's just... And yet it's partly... And sometimes the ordinary kid's success is that they render this complexity into something graspable. It's a success at ignoring the complexity. Yes? She was what?

[23:52]

She was sitting at the door, and she didn't want to eat with others, so she was staying from the morning. My mother would come. Then I asked the educator who knew her for years and years, did her mother come? Really? But he told me no. She thought that she was... And she never came again. And at the time, came her mother. Yeah. Without you, without us. Thank you. Would you care to tell me something about, not so much something about it, but can you express something from this place that you can't recognize?

[25:34]

Can you express something from this place of immediate realization? I invite you to express something from the place of immediate realization. Thank you. Please. Do something more? Another one? No? No, that was it? What about, no, that was it? The place of immediate realization is also a place where you're responding to everyone and everyone's responding to you.

[26:57]

The immediate realization is where you're in resonance with the entire universe, where you're being supported by the entire universe and the entire universe is arising in dependence on you. It's just that the way that's going by our grasping equipment. But you can speak from that place, you can think from that place, and you can make gestures from that place. So I'm inviting you to express from there. And Jean did, but then she took a break after that. She says, she did. Pardon? Non-expression can also be an expression. Non-expression can also be an expression?

[28:02]

What is non-expression? Could you give me an example of not expressing anything? No? Not now? Later maybe, huh? Yes? I wanted to ask if I understood this correctly. Is enlightenment a form of immediate realization? Yes. Realization is another word. And immediate means unmediated enlightenment. It's not an enlightenment over there or over here. It's unmediated by over there, anything. It's immediate. You can't get it because it's not separate from the getting equipment.

[29:11]

It totally non-dual with everything, so it cannot be grasped, but it is the way things can be realized if you give up trying to get it as an object. And be yourself. Anything? Oh, yes. I asked you if there was a realization that is supported by everything, then any action?

[30:32]

Could you speak up, please? Could you hear him? Isn't that something? That's wonderful. See if the people way over there can hear you. I asked a question. And the question was, if there's a realization of being supported by all beings in the child phenomenal world, Yes. Is the action that takes place from that space beneficial?

[31:38]

There is all actions. Yes. So I'm now asking, is that the only beneficial action that springs from that point? No. Or this springs from realization. Yeah. There's no action. Huh? There's no action. You were saying, you know, there wasn't anything outside of you acting. Everything that happened was you acting. Everything's engaged in Buddha activity. There's no activity outside of it.

[32:43]

There's no activity outside of the Dharma. There's no activity outside of the one mind. There's no activity outside of Buddha mind, but there is activity which is harmful. activity is not separate from the beneficial activity. But also you could ask the question, as Simon did, is there any unbeneficial action? So if a person who hasn't realized this realm of the self-receiving awareness, is it possible for some beneficial action to arise through their . And I would say, yes, it is possible.

[33:47]

They're actually in the same place as the one who realizes it. The realized person and the unrealized person are not separate. The unrealized person supports the realized person. The realized person supports the unrealized person. But unrealized persons don't understand. But still, they're coming from the same place. It's just that they don't get it. And even coming from the place of not understanding it, they suffer. But suffering people who don't understand reality still can be very beneficial. For example, they can help the Buddhas do their job because they have somebody to teach. So all ignorant people to some extent are beneficial because they give Buddha an opportunity to be Buddha. But also they can harm each other

[34:52]

And when they harm each other, harming is not usually called beneficial action. And when they don't respect each other, that's not beneficial response. But unenlightened beings can do a lot of good. It's just that enlightened beings just do nothing but good. because they're manifesting and demonstrating perfectly the way things are. And it's always beneficial. They're always skillful because of this. They're always in accord at all the different levels of awareness. And other people, however, are sometimes helpful. But in some realms, Some people are not helpful, or I should say, some people are cruel, and cruelty comes from ignoring the self-receiving and employing realm.

[36:08]

It comes from not having that kind of awareness. That's where cruelty and disrespect originate. And cruelty and disrespect sometimes do not They even seem to discourage people from looking at what's happening and learning what will help them. So that doesn't seem beneficial. But people making mistakes because they don't understand is sometimes... To have someone make a mistake and you can see the mistake, that person, although they get in trouble, they sometimes help a whole bunch of other people not make that mistake. So they are helpful, even though they make a mistake which might hurt them. And maybe the mistake doesn't hurt them. It just hurts them. And so it's actually pretty beneficial because it hurt them, but it didn't discourage them, maybe.

[37:11]

And a lot of other people then learn from it. So actually, even though they're not enlightened, they still are helping out a lot of people. But other people who aren't enlightened do things which nobody likes. Nobody. Everybody thinks it's unfortunate. And, you know, it's just definitely not beneficial. However, what it is, is that it actually is something that's supported by all beings. So when you don't understand, you are still supported by all beings. So what it actually is, is also doing Buddha's activity. So Buddha's activity could manifest as somebody doing something harmful. But the person's still engaged in Buddha activity, but because of a lack of realization, it's very painful. So like in that picture, you know, of the donkeys pulling against each other,

[38:13]

They're actually connected, but because they don't realize it, they hinder each other and suffer. But there's still something, but the truth is still working there. The truth is, when they don't realize they're connected and they go in different directions, that's still Buddha activity. Buddha activity is still, you know, relationship. you can still see it there. Given that they're not looking at each other and don't see how they're connected and have desires, they have trouble. That's the way it works. And whether even when they were causing themselves and each other some problems, some challenges, some pain, still there was an evolution there. And the evolution is the Buddha activity.

[39:15]

So even though they're mistaken or ignoring their relationship and acting without understanding their relationship, or maybe even understanding that there was anybody there to relate to, even though they're acting out of ignorance, this direction on the chart is the Buddha activity. So this part, where they start noticing each other and committing to work together, these parts are also the Buddha activity. This is the evolutionary aspect here. So that's Buddha's activity too. If they would understand that, then they would have got to this stage real fast. The stage of where they stopped, who they were with, recognized the relationship and decided to work together. Does that make perfect sense? You can add and ask. Could you hear what he said?

[40:23]

There's someone acting from the space of realization by other people as not being beneficent. But they are. Yeah. And so we have a Zen tradition, a story which grapples with this issue. It's the famous story of the Zen master who supposedly killed a cat. Of course, we don't know if this happened, really, or if he really killed the cat, you know. But still, it's... It's out there for us to, like, struggle with. Could an enlightened person kill a cat?

[41:35]

Is it possible that the enlightened person would do that? That the enlightened person couldn't come up with anything better than to kill a cat under the circumstances? And I heard that someone cornered the Dalai Lama into, with this call-on, if you knew that Oh yeah, if you saw that someone was going to press a button which would set off a nuclear holocaust, and you couldn't think of any other way to stop the person than to kill them, would you kill them? And he said, I think I heard he said yes. And of course, if he killed a person, that would be big trouble for him. But according to other teachings, to kill someone and stop them from killing many people is doing a big favor to that person.

[42:48]

And it's possible that the person who kills them understands that everybody's supporting them, that almost everybody wants him to stop that guy or that gal from pressing that button. They really feel they're doing it together with all beings, but still in the world of duality as killing somebody. It almost never works out that way. It almost never works out that way that you have to kill anybody to benefit anybody. I've heard some Americans lately arguing that what America is doing is killing Muslims, basically. They say, well, this is like Hitler, you know, and nobody stopped him at the beginning. So we're getting in there and we're stopping... an apocalypse by killing, by killing your orphans.

[44:01]

It's the extrapolation from the Dalai Lama from that quandary. Where do you draw the line? I think Mr. Bush argues the same way as the Dalai Lama does. Like, Kill some people to prevent them kill others. Yeah, but he may say that, but the theory was, I think, it wouldn't be... One person thinks that, you know, killing this one person would protect all these people. I would think it wouldn't be just that it would be his opinion. But in the case where everybody thought this person was going to do that, and everybody checked out the button to make sure it really was connected, because of mass destruction, where everybody agrees, this is not like a theory that maybe he's going to do this, and the theory that he's connected.

[45:11]

In that case, if I thought somebody might kill somebody, And I checked with all the other countries in the world, and they all agreed. It's in that case that you'd do it. But aren't you still acting from fear and dread? Would you be? No, not necessarily. No. You just might want to protect this person from this big mistake. But you'd have to know that they were going to do this really, and it really was going to cause this effect. If you knew that somehow, almost no one would know that. It would be very difficult to ascertain that, for sure. But if you somehow knew that in that setup, which we almost never do, that's why it's almost never...

[46:14]

There's almost, there's like, there's a story about that in a former life, not in his life as the teacher, that in a former life, he was quite evolved, and he saw this murderer getting on a boat, and the murderer was going to kill everybody on the boat, and he killed the murderer to protect the murderer and the people on the boat. But the person who is doing this has this extra normal power to be able to tell such things. So almost no ordinary person would be able to do that. Only a realized person could do that. George Bishop, the CIA. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost impossible that that would happen. And in the history of the tradition, we only have a cat being killed so far.

[47:22]

We have no other examples where the tradition is saying an awakened person killed anything. But it's theoretically possible that a setup like that could occur. But again, the person talking about doing it is somebody who can see things that ordinary people can't see. person does not have the right ever to do anything like that. But, you know, you can get yourself into that theoretical place where that might be possible. Yes? some preconceived ideas or some prejudices or ideas people have of how somebody like the master has to behave.

[48:41]

There's that. And another thing about it is What would you do to stop him from doing that? That's another way to deal with that. So how would you stop him from doing it? He asked people to do something and nobody did anything. People just stood frozen in fear. And nobody said anything. And then later his student, Zhao Zhao, heard the story and he did something. And the teacher said, if you had been there, the captain, would have, because you would have done something, like you just did. You wouldn't have frozen. So, another interpretation of that story is the teacher is pushing you, the universe is pushing you to find some way to protect beings in situations like that, that you have to find a way to protect them.

[49:46]

Not so much is it okay to kill them, but rather that if we don't find a way to protect them, they will be killed sometimes. Yes? Yes. But this distinction between beneficial and not beneficial only comes up in the deluded mind and the realized person or the closer. In this case or in any other way of killing, I mean, wouldn't have that dualistic view and it wouldn't be. So the badness only comes with a perception of the deluded mind. mind but not of a of a realized person a realized person couldn't do something bad because he doesn't dualistically distinguish between bad and good and doesn't see the world like that and doesn't see death like killing like now a realized person can see the realm where where the words good

[51:00]

They can realize that realm, but if they get even more realized, they can see the realm simultaneously where there is benefit and harm. They can see that too. It's just that they don't believe that those categories actually reach anything. But they still see the categories and they work with the categories. And they, huh? They don't believe in the categories, but they still practice in good, because if you practice good, you have a chance of becoming free of the categories. But if you don't practice good in the realm of categories, if you don't commit to good in that realm, you won't be able to understand that those words, good and bad, do not reach anything. There's nothing they actually reach.

[52:02]

So there is good, but all our concepts of good don't reach good. And there is harm, and none of our concepts of harm reach harm. So the recommendation is to practice good, and the way things work is that if you practice good, you'll realize freedom from the conceptions of good, and you'll realize good. and you will protect beings from harm. But it's not that there's no good in harm. There is good in harm. There is protection in harm. It's just that nobody's ideas of good reach good, and nobody's ideas of harm reach harm. the category of good, which even the realized person can see, is that you get other people to realize, too, or other beings to realize, too.

[53:16]

So good action is enhancing people. Yes? How, in this respect, would it be bad, I ask now the other way around, I'm not judging that killing the cat is bad, or would be bad, or even happened. It happened or didn't happen. I'm just saying that to me the story says, what are you going to do to protect beings? That's what I feel the story is saying. Not so much judging how could an enlightened person do that, but how Are you going to protect beings? And enlightened beings, I think, are pushing that question in our face. What are you going to do to protect life? So, please, what are you going to do? What am I going to do to protect life? And there's many things you can do.

[54:21]

And those will be the things you're trying to do to protect life. If somebody's about to fall down the stairs, you try to catch them before they hit the ground. That's what you're trying to do. If someone's about to kill a cat, you say, excuse me, I have a question, or whatever, you know. You're always, the Buddha's always concerned with protecting life. That's the message. And any category is about life, If you keep trying to protect life all the time, that's good. That's the kind of thing you realize that no categories of good and bad reach good and bad. And then also, that helps you open to which tell you that you don't do any of this stuff by yourself.

[55:25]

So you'll also be open to other people's input into how you're protecting life. So you also, if you listen to the teaching of dependent core rising, you will also not protect beings just according to your own idea of how to protect beings. You will listen to other people. You may not agree with them, but you'll listen to them. And if they tell you you're not listening, you'll listen to them tell you that they don't think you're listening. And some people who you disagree with can still say, I think you really listened to me. And you're not doing what I want, but you really did listen to me. That's possible. I know it's hard to generalize it, but I'd still like to ask what could be seen as a Buddhist opinion about that case in America we had some months ago about that woman

[56:39]

actually kept alive, and they had this big lawsuit. Harassment wanted her to take off the machines, and apparently she didn't want to. So it was about this prolonging life for her, although she was unconscious. And all Buddhist opinion about abortion, the other way around. If somebody asked me pumping nutrients into them after they were unconscious indefinitely, I might say okay and do it. Does that make sense, what I said? If they asked me, they said, would you please try to you know, nutrients, even if I'm unconscious, you know, for a long, long time, I might say, okay, I'll try to do that.

[57:48]

If they didn't ask me, however, and they went unconscious, I might not suggest to put nutrients into them for five minutes. If someone opens their mouth and says, give me food, I won't necessarily give them any food. But if they ask me to give them food, I usually will try to do that. So if someone's unconscious and they didn't tell me or anybody else beforehand that they wanted to life be continued indefinitely, I wouldn't necessarily take it upon myself to start messing with their body. I wouldn't do that. Now, if the person was already on one of these programs set up by some other people who also weren't asked, and people thought, you know, that they should disconnect it, I really wouldn't know what to say. To keep it going longer, to tell you the truth, I don't think it matters much.

[58:59]

If the person wanted me to keep them going, I would do it. If the person had no opinion about it one way or another, because they're unconscious, and somebody wants to keep them alive, I don't see it as a big problem myself. It doesn't seem to be causing the person any problem. So keeping them alive doesn't bother me, but also disconnecting them doesn't bother me because I don't think that would bother her either. Especially since I have no information. Did you not follow that? You made some faces like, So it seems like keeping them going is okay. It seems like disconnecting her from this equipment is okay since I have no information that she wanted this to continue. But if I did have that information, I would, then I would, you know, which is, I thought that's what she said. She told me, you know, she wrote it in this thing. I would, I don't think it's going to hurt her. If someone else may say, say, I don't know,

[60:04]

you're postponing her, you know, her next job or something like that. But I, you know, let her move on or something. But I don't really think it does that much harm to keep her going because she wasn't, it didn't seem like she was really conscious of suffering any, you know, and disconnecting her doesn't seem like that would bother her either, as far as I know. So to me, I really wouldn't get involved. Either way would seem okay with me. I wouldn't think that disconnecting her would be harming life. Because I don't plan to do that myself, of being kept going indefinitely. If I couldn't swallow food anymore, even if I was conscious, I don't know if I would go on IV for very long. unless you're going to be able to swallow again in a couple of weeks. I mean, pretty soon I'm going to let go of this body.

[61:13]

I wouldn't want just to keep an unconscious body going another 30 years myself. I'd like to get on with other things. That's how I feel, actually. I think it's kind of like a not very big issue in her case because she was unconscious. So I don't mind keeping the body alive and I don't mind, you know, just letting it take care of itself. If she wants to go to the grocery store, fine. I'll take her. What do you want? No, I want some of that and some of that. Okay, here. And if she can't eat it, then okay. But if she I can't eat that stuff. Would you plug me into an IV? I'd say, okay. That's how I feel. I think it's kind of simple, actually. Today I do anyway. Yes? Case is not exactly the other way.

[62:22]

Your case, because it could have gone that way with her. If you kept it going longer, she might have snapped out of it and then written some books and made a lot of money. So it's just a question of if that guy had been disconnected after 17 years, I myself would not see that as a big problem. I don't see it as a big problem. You know? If we're starved, we'll all die. I don't see that as a big problem. But if somebody starves me on purpose to be mean, that's a problem. But if I didn't ask to be fed and I'm not eating and people don't come and force me, I don't think that's a big problem if I die. You know, if I'm out in the woods and, you know, stuck out there and I can't get any food, I die.

[63:31]

But I think that's okay. You know, people aren't being mean to me. Everybody's supporting me to die in the happiness of meditation. It's okay. Pardon? That's right. That's right. Well, protecting, don't worry, you don't have to protect the life of realized people, you could be mean to them. But unrealized people, unrealized humans, you want to protect their life because as long as you have a great chance of becoming realized, I didn't say only humans. I have the same, I have exactly the same policy with rats. Same policy. If rats asked me to keep them going on intravenous feeding, pardon?

[64:37]

No. If they don't, I wouldn't do it. But if my dog could somehow say, come on, keep me going, give me some kind of signal, and I could test, are you really mean you want me to keep you going in this state? I would do it, but I... And people do talk to me all the time about their dogs and cats when they get old. Should they... Doing this stuff, and I basically say, if you have some way of knowing that the cat's asking you to do this, when their throat's closed and they're not eating and they're just lying there, they're not asking, they don't look like they're not going to their food anymore, I don't necessarily think you should do anything to keep them going. Love them. And be kind to them, and that will make them want to live longer. They'll live as long as they want to under the circumstances of love. If you don't love them, they'll start dying real fast because of lack of love. But unless the cat or dog can convey to me somehow that they want these special procedures done, I wouldn't do it with a cat or dog either.

[65:46]

However, I would make them as comfortable and... loved as possible. But I also do not turn cats and dogs off. I won't. I don't think I'll do that. I won't take them to the thing and put the poison in them either. And I won't do that with people too. So far nobody said, would you help me commit suicide? But I don't think I'd help anybody commit suicide. But if any of you want to stop breathing right now and you feel like, you know, I really love you and you feel really supported and you still want to stop breathing, it's okay. But if you want to stop breathing because you don't feel loved, well, then you are loved. So I encourage people to keep living. Try to make it nice for them to keep living as much as possible. But I won't help them kill themselves. And I won't keep them living. If they're not eating, the person is not eating, I will not then take over and start putting stuff into them.

[66:47]

And I won't do that with dogs or cats either. That's basically the same. The only difference is that humans could conceivably ask me to do that, but so far nobody's asked me to do that, and nobody's asked me to kill them. So I haven't really been challenged that much, but that, I think, is the way I would respond. Okay? But to realize people, you know, it's a little bit different with... I'm not saying I'm a fanatic, but I'm into protecting all life. It seems like a paradox in that it's from a realized point of view, death is not what it is.

[67:54]

The unrealized point of view, and that the protecting The wish to protect life seems to come from the unrealized. No, no, no. The Buddha, the realized people are the ones who actually are most emphatic about protecting life. That's the part you don't understand? All right. Unrealized people are into some life, but realized people are into protecting all life. And the reason they want to do it is not to make life longer per se, but make the possibility of realization possible. They're basically trying to help people be free of suffering and realize themselves. That's what they're really concerned about, not just making their life longer. And in fact, if a realized person could see that if this person would die today, they would actually be reborn in a better practice situation tomorrow, they would be very happy to see them die today.

[68:59]

There are stories of Buddha's disciples. One of them, one of the wonderful disciples, came to the Buddha. The Buddha gave him instruction. He had an awakening experience in a very short period of time. And he wasn't a monk. And then he asked Buddha if he could become a monk. And Buddha said, fine, get your robe, bring it to me. And as he was in the process of getting his robe and stuff, he got killed by a water buffalo. But the Buddha, and everybody says, oh, it's too bad he was enlightened. He wanted to become a monk. That would have been so cute. And the Buddha said, don't worry. He's actually like, he's excellent. And, huh? Well, I don't know. Pardon? Pardon? I'm not looking at it as a terrible thing. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, to me it looks like someone holding this cat up and threatening to kill it is basically saying to everybody in the world, what are you going to do to protect life?

[70:07]

How are you going to do that right now? You know, that's what he's pushing people to, like, really, like, get into, like, how are you going to protect life? That's what they want you to do all the time. And I think actually my experience of you people is that you do look at that, that you are taking care of each other and are concerned with caring for each other and protecting each other's life. That's good. But sometimes when people are arguing, like they were in that monastery, they were arguing over a cat. They were arguing over each other. And if I saw you people being rude to each other and disrespectful of each other, I might hold up something to you too and say, you know, are you going to get with the program here or not? Are you going to keep arguing with each other and being disrespectful to each other? But in a frightening way, and I don't know that that was right or wrong, but to me, that's what I feel, is that it's like, what are you going to do about Iraq?

[71:12]

How are you going to protect beings? This is the constant question, and realize people are concerned with because they want to help living beings evolve positively. And when you've got a living being, what can you do to help them evolve positively? And generally speaking, usually they appreciate you being kind to them. That's what allows them to develop wisdom. And so if you're with somebody and you can be kind to them, there's a possibility that they'll wake up So be kind to them and protect them from any harm. That's the environment you want to, generally speaking, develop. Now, if they're highly developed, then it's different. Then what you want to do is be mean to them to see if they can even grow on that. But not kill them, just be mean to them. But this is for very, very advanced people.

[72:16]

People who, the more you're mean to them, and compassion and patience just looms up, gets brighter and brighter and brighter, the crueler you are to them. There are cases like that. Shakyamuni Buddha. People were mean to him, and what did he do? He just got to be a bigger, bigger, bigger Buddha. The more people were mean to them, the more he thrived. But when you're mean to some people, they shrink and they become less alive and less confident and less expressive. But if you're mean to somebody who's developed, they become more expressive and more vital. Like the example, we use the example of if you have a candle and you blow on it, it blows out. So a lot of people are like candles. And so you should protect this little flame, this sweet little flame. Because it's a very precious thing, this life, this consciousness.

[73:19]

It's like the universe, each person is a lot of work. So each one should be... Each person, that means not just human persons. Each person, wherever it is, is a very precious commodity and can realize Buddhahood through evolution. But a forest fire... You blow on it, it just gets stronger. So realize people are like forest fires. The more you give them trouble, the better. And you watch. You watch. Blow on them. They just get brighter. So you don't have to worry about them. Blow on them, you're really protecting their life because you're making their life thrive by giving them a hard time. And so people like Dalai Lama do thrive because people give him a hard time. And he's doing really well because of the hard time everybody gives him. Not everybody, but a lot of people do. Like, what is it?

[74:22]

This huge country is oppressing his dear people. That's giving him a really hard time. And, of course, all the other suffering in the world is giving him a hard time. He's getting dented all over the place, but he's doing quite well. Help life grow. Yes, yes, that's the point. And how are you going to do it? Huh? Being aware really helps, yeah. Being aware and listening to people and asking what they want and listening to what they say and then checking with them to see if you understood what they said. These kinds of things are really, generally speaking, quite helpful. Not absolutely always, but generally speaking, it's a good idea to be respectful and gentle with people so you don't blow out the candle.

[75:23]

The candle's really important. That candle of life, that candle of consciousness, it can grow to be a great fire of consciousness. which can help many beings. Everyone can evolve. Even donkeys, you know, can evolve. So in that picture you can see in the vertical dimension is the Buddha activity working to help them wake up and live in peace and harmony, to realize that. But again, at the beginning of the picture they were completely... But because they were ignorant of it, they couldn't enjoy Yeah. Good afternoon. Huh? Yes?

[76:26]

Say that again. That was nice. Say that again. No. We are intentional.

[76:42]

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