a question arises in my mind, do you wish to be an intensive care unit? And bodhisattvas are intensive care units, but this intensive care is not caring too much or too little. It's intense in the sense that it's intensely balanced between excessive care, care that overdoes it, and insufficient care. The ethical training for these intensive care units, these enlightening beings, is It's enlightening practices which are applied to living beings and which mature living beings.

[01:15]

So, in a way, the enlightenment practices are the ways of relating to unenlightenment. to free unenlightenment from the misunderstanding that it's separate from enlightenment. And in fact, when you bring enlightening practices to unenlightenment, at that moment you can see there's no separation. When you're kind to a delusion, kindness to delusion is enlightenment. Enlightenment is delusion. Being generous with delusion is enlightenment. But as soon as there's generosity with delusion, you realize that the generosity, the enlightenment, and the delusion are inseparable. The enlightenment has no other place to be than applied directly to delusion.

[02:22]

Patience with the difficulties of delusion when it's applied to delusion, at that moment, this patience, which is enlightenment, from the delusion, and so on. All these practices, when they're actually applied, then that is enlightenment. Enlightenment is the way of treating delusion that frees delusion from separation from these compassionate ways of relating. Now you could come and ask questions or make statements or whatever if you like. And if you want to join in this process of being on the film with me.

[03:33]

You can come up here and ask me right up here. If you don't want to, you can ask from where you are. Who's sitting there? Could I maybe borrow that from nobody at the moment? Got another one over there? Thank you. If anyone would like to come up here and ask a question. Here's a place for you. And let's see. They're going to bring you a microphone, I think. Here it comes. Here comes the mic. so I don't have to do anything.

[04:43]

Welcome. Thank you. So I believe the traditional... Was it working correctly? Move it closer. It doesn't... There we go. I believe the traditional way of talking about the first pure precept is to say, well, that precept is to avoid all evil. Right? There is one. There is a... a presentation which goes, avoid all evil, practice all good, and benefit all beings. But another version of it is, the first one is restraint. Now you could understand that the restraint is the restraint of evil.

[05:45]

You could understand it that way. So, want to try it that way for a little while? Yeah. So the first one could be restraint of evil. All right? Restraint of... Restraint of distraction, you said. Yeah, restraint of distraction. So in that sense, distraction is a kind of evil. Evil is lived backwards. Restrain living backwards, or you restrain being someplace other than where you are. Being someplace other than where you are is evil. It's missing out on living. So you restrain that going away from here. You restrain that there's somebody better to talk to than me. And I restrain myself from thinking there's somebody better to talk to than you.

[06:49]

when I'm talking to you. I always try to restrain the thing of, you know, looking for somebody else to talk to when I've got somebody. So when you're talking to somebody to look for somebody else, it's kind of evil. You're missing out on your life. And you're missing out on the opportunity to do these other practices, which are not done someplace else. So we can call that evil. in the sense of distraction from our life. So I should avoid reading the newspaper while talking to my wife? No. If I can't be present talking to her while reading the newspaper, I should avoid reading the newspaper. Or avoid talking to her. And just say, most splendid of all wives, I now ask your permission to concentrate on the newspaper.

[07:54]

Because I really want to be present for this. Would you please support me to read this newspaper? And she might say, no. And you say, okay, I'll just concentrate on talking to you then, is that alright? And she might say, yes. And then you're totally present for her, and you're talking to her, and she says, you know, I think it's time for you to read the newspaper. But when you do, don't get distracted. Because you want to be a bodhisattva, right, Jim, dear husband? So it's possible to be multitasking and be distracted. And it's possible to be multitasking and be undistracted from multitasking. It's possible to do multitasking and try to get something. If you're trying to get something, that's evil. But it's also possible to multitask without trying to get anything.

[09:01]

It's possible to unit task and try to get something. It's the trying to get something that we're restraining. Because you don't have to get anything. You have to be present for what you've already been given to you. Always, every moment, something's given to us. We're never with. But we sometimes think, could I have a different one, please? I don't want to work with this one. So you can read the newspaper and talk to your wife if you're doing that multi-dimensional activity and you're totally present with it and concentrated and so on. I don't think my practice has reached that level yet. That thought that you just told us about We practice presence with that thought. And we have the thought, oh, my practice hasn't reached a certain level.

[10:08]

And that thought that it hasn't is separate from that other higher level. All the higher levels are inseparable from my present level. There's no question about this teaching. It is very clear to me that there cannot be a separation between higher levels of compassion and lower levels of compassion, because the higher levels are just trying to teach the lower levels. They're always right there. And the higher levels of compassion... Get away from the present low level you're at. They say be present with your present level, and if you're present with your present level, you just went a higher level. Whatever level you're at, when you're present with it, you've just evolved positively. You might say, relax with your present level. Relax with your present level, yeah. Relax with your present level. Say thank you to your present level. Just like if somebody comes to see you who's a beginning student, you say, thank you for coming.

[11:15]

You don't say, you're too, you're too, you know, you're not well enough developed to practice here. Same with yourself. You're generous to your present level, and as soon as you do, then Buddhahood is right there with your present level. But it doesn't mean you don't think, well, I actually, when I hear about these bodhisattvas, I don't think I've reached that level. Yeah, I don't think I've reached that level. I also understand that if I'm generous towards that thought, and whatever level I'm at, regardless of what I think, that's exactly what Buddha would do with me. If I was at level B or level Z, what would Buddha do? Buddha would be with me wherever I am. So if I'm with myself wherever I am, Buddha's being practiced right now. And also I notice I forget that. We have a practice for that, which I'll talk about a little later. Remind me of that. Okay. Thank you for starting the ball rolling.

[12:18]

You're welcome. Any other questions? Please come up if you like, or stay there if you don't want to come up. However you stay there, I'll repeat your question if you stay there. Okay? Yeah. It's actually, enlightenment is applying wholesome to everything. So, applying wholesome to wholesome, and wholesome to unwholesome. I'd like your thoughts on how to evaluate and manage applying wholesome anger to unwholesome anger. You're wondering about could there be an example of applying wholesome anger to unwholesome anger? Yeah. For example, if someone's being kind to you and you... that's unwholesome.

[13:23]

If someone's telling you, perhaps, that they'd like you to stop doing something that's hurting you, and you get angry at them, that's not helpful, probably. So someone else might come up to you, even a Buddha might come up to you and say, knock it off. And it might snap you out of your delusion that makes you think that this person's not helping you. So sometimes the appearance of ferocity is quite helpful. But the person who's expressing it in a helpful way has no ill will towards you. They only want the best for you. And so sometimes they speak, you know, what seems to be angrily. So I often use the example of, I saw my daughter, she was at the edge of the street. ...to step into the street, but she wasn't close enough for me to, you know, put my arm around her and pull her out of the street.

[14:27]

So I, I hope she's far away, so I yelled no, really, really loudly, and it shocked her. But she stopped still and didn't go in the street. I didn't, that was kind of like... You know, that kind of raging energy. But it wasn't out of disrespect. It wasn't out of disliking her. It wasn't no ill will. I just wanted to protect her with that angry energy, that no energy. But you can also say yes to somebody and it's very harmful. You really mean it's really contemptuous and disrespectful. That's unwholesome anger. And if someone might come up to you and say, never do that again, or something like that. And they love you completely, but they want to snap you out of your distraction from goodness. And if they're skillful, it works.

[15:28]

And you say, thank you. Thank you for bringing me back on track. I've had people yell at me, and I just sat there and listened to it and thought, yes, you know, Anything else at this time that you'd like to bring up? Please come. Want to come? Can I just say something? The question I have is about, you mentioned the intensive care unit. It's a metaphor. And for people who are kind of caretakers, they're in a position of too much caring almost. How do you do that little balance between too much and too little? Okay, so there's a person who is, we have, at least we have a caregiver, right?

[16:29]

Okay, so, what you might call robotic altruism. You know, somebody who is habitually trying to help others. wants to help others, as a habit. Not because they meet somebody and they think they're a good person, but they're doing it by their habit, and they cannot actually recognize the quality of the habit, so they're driven and sort of entrapped by their wish to help. So that's caring In fact, living beings, particularly humans, not particularly, but for example, humans, are both self-interested, concerned for their own welfare, and for the welfare of others, almost all.

[17:42]

But very few human beings have found what we call the middle way. The middle way is that you're free of the addiction to self-serving, to serving others. Most people are addicted to one or both of these. We call addiction to self-concern or self-care, we call it selfishness. And we call addiction, there's various names for it, to the welfare of others. One of them is called burnout. Another one is called, get me away from this person. I don't know what to call them, but I want to get away because they are applying an addiction to me. If I have to go along with their thing, otherwise they'll be very stressed because they're addicted to helping me.

[18:49]

So what do we do with the addiction to help others? Robotic alteration. What do we do with addiction to serving the self? What do we do with those two patterns of living backwards? What do we do with them? You can just shout it out. It's okay. Look at it. Pay attention. Recognize them. Okay. Now we got them. We've got them in our sights now With we've located one or both of these addictions now that we have to recognize them now, how do we practice with them? But before just list going in order before before we practice patience, huh? What be present be present with them and realize that these addictions of caring too much are these habitual ways of caring for others and these habitual ways of caring for self, that they are a bit separate from Buddhahood.

[20:03]

So bringing our attention to them and bringing our presence to them is an enactment of the non-separation between these addictive patterns and the enlightening practices. Now we move on. which we bring to these patterns of helping too much or helping too little or helping ourselves too much or helping others too much. We bring these practices to them. Then we move on to practicing these six practices. We start by being generous. So if we notice in ourselves or others we're habitually trying to help others or habitually trying to help themselves if we notice that we practice generosity towards that. Just like a Buddha would. A Buddha would be generous to somebody who's excessively caring or not caring enough. Which means this living being into her embrace. Really let them be somebody who's addictively helping others or addictively helping themselves.

[21:14]

Really let them be and let them feel that warmth and that graciousness. Let them feel that welcoming, that acceptance and affirmation of where they are. and show them how to do that with themselves. And then, again, move on to ethics, which means be careful. Habits are something to be careful of. We're recognizing this habit of helping too much or helping habitually. We're recognizing it. We're generous towards it. But also be careful of it. You've got to keep your eye on it because it's dangerous. These deluded states are dangerous unless we take good care of them. But again, take good care of them. Recognizing their danger doesn't mean looking down on them. It doesn't mean slandering them. Even though it's dangerous, you've got to be careful not to try to kill it or suck a little life out of it because it's powerful. It means being honest about it.

[22:17]

I'm being excessively self-concerned here. I think I'm being self-excessively concerned for the welfare of others. I think I'm being... I think I'm falling into one of my habits. I'm honest about that. And... Okay, also now, be patient. Be patient with my own habitual way of relating. to myself and others, and be patient with other people's habitual ways, addictive ways of relating to themselves and others. And now, then move on to enthusiasm. Enthusiasm for those previous practices which benefit the situation, which benefit the situation of these addictions even before they're changed. Even while they're still there, these practices bring benefit and welfare. Now I wish to know my aspiration to actually not just benefit beings who are suffering, but liberate them, bring them the highest benefit.

[23:28]

And I want to calm down with them. I want to relax and be really calm and flexible and present with them so that I can understand them being other people who have these problems and understand my own problems, that I can be calm with them and flexible with them and undistracted from them and then open up into entering the truth of them, the reality of them, enter wisdom. And six not easy steps. Six not easy steps. Yes. Thank you. You're welcome. Do you hear that? You're welcome. Don't say that in English.

[24:31]

I remember from some time ago hearing that you can't do good. Good arises. So it's what I think of in terms of is agency. Sort of separating yourself from good by saying, I am doing good. And it came to mind with the other question that was just asked about, you know, doing too little, and then you were talking about habitual or robotic. And I wondered how, what you would have to say about those things, those ideas. If I notice in myself the idea that I'm one thing and what I do is another, if I notice that sense of separation in my action, I see my action, but I could say that and still not really think that I'm something other than my action.

[25:38]

Or I could think that my action is another. If I notice that, and I'm kind to that, I will realize that that's insubstantial, that sense of separation. We're not something in addition to our activity. We are only our activity, not something separate from us. Our activity cannot be floating around in mid-air. It has to be totally integrated with us. All my activity right now is nowhere else from me, and I am nowhere else from my activity. Normally human beings think that they're separate from their activity. This is a delusion that appears in our mind naturally. If I'm kind to that delusion, and if I'm aware of that delusion and kind to it, I will become free of it. And then my activity will be the freedom of my activity, the freedom of activity, which is the freedom of me. The freedom of me is the same as the freedom of me.

[26:42]

It will be realized not by me, not by itself, but by the practice of being present and wholesome and skillful with that illusion, we will become free of that illusion. And our action, which are not separate, will become free. Thank you. You're welcome. Here's another teaching, which... No? Jim? The thing that we're going to talk about later? Please talk about the thing we're going to talk about later. Okay. So, part of ethics, part of this type of ethics of living for the welfare of the world,

[27:46]

Of course, the first part, well actually, part of the ethics is to receive ethical precepts. That's the first part, is to receive ethical precepts correctly from another. It's the first aspect of ethical training for those who wish to live for the welfare of the world. Number one. receive correctly these precepts from another. Number two is the aspiration to practice the precept, which is going to develop the welfare of others. Number three... You could say number three is to fail. at the precept that you aspire to. That's one way to put it.

[28:49]

Number four, well, I'm not going to go to number four yet. Number three could also be said to feel embarrassment and regret when you do not practice the precept which you want to practice. That's number three. In other words, number three recognizes that if we wish to live for the welfare of the world, if we wish to act in such a way that we prove that enlightenment and delusion are inseparable, if we wish to benefit this world and liberate this world, and we're given precepts to practice to realize that, and then we then we probably will forget sometimes. It's a normal thing to forget what's most important to us. But that's not the whole story.

[29:53]

The next thing is that we feel some regret at not doing and not being the way we want to be. We feel some embarrassment. That's number three. Number four is... consistent success at practicing the precept which we aspire to practice. So, in other words, it's not receive the precept, aspire to the precept, or aspire to the precept and receive the precept and succeed. That's not the story. There's a learning process. And the learning process is... There could be other learning processes. The learning process of this particular tradition, the learning process is you aspire to receive these ethical training methods, then you do receive them, and then you continue to aspire, and then you get distracted, and then you feel regret and embarrassment.

[30:59]

But the regret and embarrassment is a type of regret and embarrassment which stimulates you to aspire again and receive again and aspire [...] again and receive again until the time comes when you remember more and more and finally, possibly never forget the way you want to be. But there's innumerable occasions of forgetting and regretting in between receiving the precept and never forgetting it. This is like a surprise, but hopefully a happy surprise, that all the great beings of the past have gone through the same process that we're going through right now, namely, of wishing to help, receiving teachings, aspiring to practicing them, and getting distracted, and then feeling bad and trying again.

[32:05]

They did it over and over, until finally they didn't forget anymore. But it takes a long time. A lot of mistakes, a lot of regret, a lot of embarrassment. And I also want to... Because again, the first point is that you do not give yourself ethical precepts. There's a problem in assigning yourself what to work on. You might say, well, I'm going to assign myself something really difficult. But actually... Deciding what's difficult, actually that might actually not be what's difficult for you. What's easy for you might be difficult for you. So the teacher might say, well actually you don't have to do the difficult thing, do the easy thing. You say, no, I want to do the difficult thing. And then it's very difficult maybe for you to give up the difficult thing. Somebody else has to give us these precepts. And that's part of it, is that we did not make up these ethical precepts.

[33:12]

What I'm talking about today, I didn't make these up. These were given by the ancestors from beginningless time. So somebody else has to give it to you, and then also you have to receive it correctly. In other words, you need to have a little bit of dialogue about whether you understand what the precept is. And what you find out in the dialogue is that you don't understand what the precept is. But that's part of the training is that you understand from the beginning that you have some misconception of the precept. And one of the basic misunderstandings we have about these precepts is that we think that they're other than what we're doing, that they're separate from what we're doing right now. That I'm being generous right now But I probably think, if I think I'm not being generous, I probably think generosity is separate from my not being generous. But it's not. So when I first start practicing generosity, if I think I'm practicing generosity, I probably think... was saying that my generosity is separate from me.

[34:23]

Or your generosity is separate from me. Or my generosity is separate from you. This is a misunderstanding of generosity. Generosity is not separate from me or you. But when I first start practicing, that's the way I think of it, and then we practice towards my misunderstanding of generosity. Being generous towards the misunderstanding of generosity, you'll get over the misunderstanding of generosity and enter actual generosity, where there's no separation between the donor and the recipient and the gift. At the beginning we can't understand, but we don't really get it. We can say, well, I understand it, but we don't actually, this hasn't really entered our body because we haven't practiced with it long enough. So then we'll practice patience with how long that takes and so on. But please remember these four phases of precept. All these precepts I'm telling you about, all these ethical training methods, these are things which I'm telling you about and actually you can receive more formally when you actually go to a teacher and say, may I receive these precepts?

[35:35]

And the teacher's preceptor says, yes you can, and the preceptor says, no. But you actually, with your voice and your body, you say, would you give me the precepts? And they say yes, and then they give them. with some discussion, like I said, to make sure it's clear. And then you're in trouble. Because now you can fail at doing what you have clearly said you wanted, and it's clearly been given to you, and you wanted this responsibility, and now you notice, oops, I forgot. I feel regret. When you feel regret over these excellent practices, you're in the bodhisattva realm. If you do not do these practices and you have not committed to them, you might say, well, you know, it doesn't bother me that much. I didn't say I would do it. If you're not generous and you're not patient and you didn't say, I really want to be and I commit to be, then you might have just not cared too much.

[36:42]

So what? Rather than, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I feel sorrow over my shortcomings. Not sorrow so much that I completely... but sorrow to the point of, I am sorry. I want to try again. I want to do this. I really do want to do this. I'm not too good at it, and I'm sorry, but I haven't changed my mind. I still want to do it. Like when you're actually in the process. Of what process? Bringing welfare to the world. Until you're Buddha, you know, you're going to feel some sorrow in this process because there's going to be some shortcoming. But noticing the shortcoming and feeling sorrow over it is part of the lifeblood

[37:49]

of benefiting the world. Is that clear? Anything else right now? Okay, walking meditation.

[38:10]

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