I want to thank the videographers for your generous offering to record this day. And I thank all of you for accepting that this was going on during our retreat. I hope it's beneficial. Any questions about the practice of concentration and wisdom? Yes. Could you come closer and say that to me? I couldn't hear you. Hi, I realize how valuable you are and I have an eye infection plus other physical things going wrong so I decided I needed to go home so I walked over a mile home then I realized how rare it is for me to see you and how powerful and how much you're influencing my life so I came right back.

[01:34]

How lovely, thank you. When you came to this retreat, did you come here to help me? Are you still entertaining questions? This feels almost impossible to get down. There. Congratulations. Thank you.

[02:35]

In some sense, I wasn't sure if we talked about wisdom very much. And I wanted to know, or I just wanted to hear a little talk about, wisdom seems very slippery. And if you want to call it the entry into reality, the relationship between kind of intellectual understanding of the teachings and wisdom. And also, you know, there's kind of, wisdom often feels like a carrot out there. Watch. You know, there's always the idea of practice realization that it's kind of more about practice and realization are not separate.

[03:49]

So in some sense there's kind of a de-emphasis on big experience. And yet, it always feels like there's a carrot out there. So just all that's floating around in my mind right now. The first point I picked up is that you said that wisdom seems kind of slippery. It's not so much that, yes, it is slippery, because that would be pinning it down. Wisdom, I think, slips away from being slippery. But wisdom kind of does suggest that all these other practices

[05:05]

are ungraspable. And wisdom also is ungraspable. When we first approach these other practices, though, we do approach them in terms of how we're grasping them. Like they're offered to us, these other teachings, all these practices are offered to us And we sentient beings, again, we're born to see things as though they were out there graspable. So the teachings about the practices which help us get over our sense that things are out there to be grasped, those practices are not really graspable But even though we do them as though they were graspable, as we do them thinking that we can grasp them, they do gradually prepare us for their ungraspability.

[06:19]

When we practice our graspable version of generosity and our graspable version of ethical discipline and our graspable version of patience and enthusiasm and concentration. When we practice them, the message is that we come to a place by practicing them that we gradually open to what was there all along, namely that they are ungraspable. They develop, you know, a tolerance and an openness to their own ungraspability, and when we accept the ungraspability of what we've been doing, we also accept the ungraspability of wisdom, and that's wisdom. Wisdom is to live with each other with no grasping. And really there isn't any grasping already, but we can't tolerate it because we're so habitually

[07:24]

we have so often related to each other that way, and to ourselves that way, that it's just too much to suddenly leap into ungraspability, or the ungraspable nature of things. And even if we could jump into them, either we wouldn't know how to get back, and then we wouldn't know how to operate in that realm, or we just come back. But there's a way of being prepared to be with each other and to be with ourselves without grasping ourselves and grasping each other, including not grasping wisdom. That's being proposed. And it's being proposed understanding that people will grasp that proposal. But grasping that proposal gets you ready for not grasping that proposal. Grasping the teaching of not grasping is a warm-up to actually not grasping.

[08:29]

Practicing giving is a warm-up to not grasping. Does that make sense? Letting go of things is a warm-up. Even though when we let go, we still are grasping our version of how we let go. It's still kind of a warm-up. Being careful is a warm-up. So that actually, finally, when you do open to the life of not grasping, these practices continue. So you still can function even though you're not taking a hold of anything. And how do you function? By practicing giving. Giving can function in wisdom. You can give and receive without grasping and clinging. So the practice of giving doesn't end when you stop clinging to things. Also ethics, you can still be careful even though you don't really know what you're being careful of, or who is being careful, or what carefulness is. When you first start practicing carefulness you may say, I don't know how to practice carefulness unless I can say this is carefulness and this is not.

[09:39]

Okay, fine. So we're generous with people needing to make carefulness into something solid. But as you get the practice of carefulness going, after a while you can practice carefulness even though you don't know what it is. And you can practice generosity even though you don't know what it is. And you can practice patience. Nobody really knows what these practices are, so we have this teaching that when the teaching doesn't really fill you, you think it's sufficient. So when you get the teaching about the practices and you haven't really been filled with the teachings about the practices, you think you know enough to do the practices. So you do. But as you're practicing, the teaching fills you more and more, and as it fills you more and more, you realize,

[10:40]

there's a little bit missing here in my understanding of these practices and then they use the image of a going out in the ocean far enough away from the coast where there's no islands and you look around at the ocean and the ocean looks like a circle of water but the ocean isn't a circle of water but that's how it looks So you learn that you relate to the ocean, and everything is an ocean. Every experience is an ocean. Every feeling you have, every thought you have about yourself and every thought you have about others is an ocean. Everybody is an ocean. But we see everybody as a circle of water. We can't see them otherwise. However we can hear that teaching and realize, I'm in a circle of water with you.

[11:48]

And what you are, I don't know, I only have a circle of water about you. And you don't know, you only have a circle of water about you. And the same applies to the practices and everything. And if I can really accept that I only have a limited view of you, If I can accept that and open to my limitations, I also open to the ocean. But I don't get to see the ocean. I only get to see a limited version. But I can also not accept my limits and think my limits are reality. I can think my circle of water is the ocean. then I'm not really open to my limits I'm saying my limits aren't limits they're reality this is the way things really are rather than this is my small version so there's a teaching that these practices help us not be afraid of being little not being afraid of having a limited view accept

[13:02]

that I have a limited view, except that what I'm dealing with is my story of life. And that's the same for you. If you open to that, you open to what's not your limits. So in the Heart Sutra it says at the end, you know, the last thing it says is, welcome enlightenment. Welcome enlightenment. Bodhisvaha. Welcome enlightenment. Enlightenment isn't someplace else, but can you welcome it? You can welcome it if you welcome everything else, but what else can you welcome besides enlightenment? You can welcome your limits. You can welcome your delusions. You can welcome your small version of the universe. And we cannot get away from our small version.

[14:07]

But you can fight it. And you can try to promote it. Trying to promote your small version to a bigger version is delusion on top of delusion. We have a deluded view of what's going on. If we accept that and open to that, we open to freedom from it. But it's hard to accept it. That's why we have these practices to get us ready. When we accept our limitation, we open to wisdom. But you don't get anything when you open to wisdom. You don't get freedom. You're just free. But you don't get to have the freedom that you've realized. You don't get to have your enlightenment. It's not that kind of thing. It's better than that. And worse than that. Thank you. You're welcome. I must say that you kind of gave me something. I kind of let it wash over me.

[15:10]

But I wanted something kind of graspable. And I kind of had that. But then it gave me some encouragement not to worry about grasping and graspability. Yeah. We don't recommend worrying about grasping or graspability. or non-grasping. We don't recommend worrying. We recommend compassion towards worry. But if there were no worrying, we'd have some other problems to work on. You don't worry about no worry. But in fact, we don't encourage people to be afraid or to worry. We encourage people to be compassionate towards fear and worry. So if you're worried about anything, it's an opportunity for compassion. If you're not worried, then you have some other stuff like ill will and et cetera to take care of. And if you don't have anything, well, then there's the rest of all the other people who've got some stuff for you to be compassionate to.

[16:14]

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Good luck. He did it. Any other questions about wisdom and compassion and ethical training? Yes, please. Do you want to come up? Well, I wanted to say that first I liked your answer to another person's question about what to do with evil people and their intentions. And part of your answer was that if the evil is too great, that you need to let it pass or need to cultivate more compassion.

[17:24]

And that also lends itself to the question that when you apply the same answer to other scenarios where, say, you have a very difficult child or a person that isn't mindful, do you have any suggestions as to either encourage that person to be more mindful, or how do you go about cultivating more compassion within yourself to Because perhaps you don't want to let that person pass. Perhaps you don't want to let that person pass, but you might want to ask that person if you could have a little break. I'll be right back to you later. Like, you know, just a mild example is when my grandson was younger,

[18:29]

I would sometimes say to him, you know, could I, I'd like to take a nap. And he would say, no, no, no, no, please, just let me take a nap, five minutes, and I'll be able to play with you better after that. No, no, no, just five minutes. I could take a nap, I'd come back, So, in a sense, I was intending to come back to him, but I need a little break. So, when I say let pass, I don't mean let pass forever, I mean just for a while. Eventually we come back to the difficult person. But for a time we have a little break, a little pause. But right now, you're too much for me, so can I have a little break? And you say, well, how long? How about five minutes? Okay. And then after five minutes, if I need five minutes more, I'll come back and ask for five minutes more. Okay? All right. So really we do say let it pass, but not forever. Eventually we want to come back and work with everybody.

[19:31]

But right now this person is too much for me. It's too advanced for me. It's too tricky. It's too challenging. And I accept my limits. And then that's for me. Now how about teaching the other person? I would like to teach the other person that I'm not in a hurry for them to become more mindful. I'm mindful of the wish that they would be mindful. But I wish that they would be mindful, but I don't expect them to be mindful. If they feel that I want them to be mindful and that I expect them to be mindful, that will make it more difficult for them to be mindful. If they feel that I want them to learn some skill, but that I'm not pressuring them to learn it, they'll be more likely to want to learn it.

[20:37]

But if they feel I want them to learn it and that they don't learn it, I'll be disappointed in them or I'll go away from them. That makes it harder for them to learn. Now, if they think, oh, he wants me to learn this thing. And I think maybe even if I don't learn it, he'll still love me. Well, they like that. But they just want to make sure. So they're going to postpone it to make sure that I'll love them even if they never learn it. Because wouldn't that be a great love? They'd rather be sure that the love is really high quality than learn this thing we'd like them to learn. Because that's the most important thing, that they learn the highest quality love, even though they're not going to practice it for a while. But if we want them to do what we think is a good thing, and if they don't do it, we think less of them, let's say, well, you don't respect me. I don't want to learn from you because you're...

[21:39]

If you don't respect me, you're not very bright. But if you respect me even though you want me to learn this thing, then I want to make sure you respect me because that means if I don't learn it, you'll still love me and you'll still respect me, right? But I want to make sure, so I'm not going to learn it real fast. I'm not going to confuse the situation by, I'm doing what you'd like me to do and that's why you love me. I want to make sure you love me whether I do what you think is good for me or not. One way to find that out is to not do what you'd like me to do and see if you keep loving me. Not liking me, but loving me. Give me the same attention, the same compassion, even though I'm doing what I know you don't like. So the person wants to learn, most of all, do we love them? Do we have compassion? They know about like and dislike. They know we don't like them to do certain things. The question is, will we keep loving them no matter how long they do this thing we don't like?

[22:42]

They want to find that out. And when they find out, then they go away and do it, but without us watching. And then we find out later that they learned it. Because they actually learn it right away. They just don't want to do it in such a way that they can't tell if we love them even if they didn't. So they have to do it when we're not around. And then years later, we find out and they say, well, now I can tell you I did what you wanted. You're welcome. Yes, would you like to come? I wanted to ask a question regarding something that you touched upon earlier about the relationship between a spiritual teacher and a pupil.

[23:53]

Can you hear okay? Okay, the relationship between a spiritual teacher and a pupil. Could you elaborate on that? Let's see. I could, but is there any particular aspect you want me to speak to? Well, what you had mentioned was that we ourselves, being in the situation in life the way that we are, we can't actually come up with our own answers and our own guidance and direction. And so we need to work with a teacher. Along the lines of spiritual growth and development, And I think character defects came up, being able to work through those blockages. I'm having lots of responses, and I'm sort of trying to wonder which ones to offer first.

[25:04]

One thing that people sometimes say to me, would you be my teacher? And I say, what do you mean by that? So let's say somebody says, would you help me be who I am? For example. Would you help me, like, accept myself? I think I might say, okay. And I might say, any particular form that you'd like that to take? Say, yeah, I'd like to come and just meet with you and express myself and have you, you know, support me to look to see if I'm being authentic. And so if they said that, then I could say to them, you know, do you think what you just said was authentic? And then they could look and see what they thought. And they could say, ask me if I feel that they're being authentic.

[26:17]

So they tell me what they want to do, and then I maybe sort of watch to see, to check with them whether they're doing what they want to do. Like, you know, I often use the example, if somebody says they want to go north, They say, I want to go north. Could you help me? And I said, well, I think so. You'd have to walk in front of me so I can see what direction you're going. But if you walk in front of me, I can look to see what direction you're going. And then if you're going south, I can say, can I ask you a question? So I often, again, ask people if they want me to function as a teacher for them, I ask them, what's your aspiration? What's the most important thing in your life? Enlightenment. Enlightenment. Yeah. So if you say enlightenment, then I say, what practices would go with that? And then you tell me what practices you think would go with that. And then I watch to see if you do the practices which go with what you aspire to.

[27:21]

And you come and tell me about the practices which are enlightenment, and how they're going. And I watch you tell me about them, and then I give you feedback. And you give me feedback. And when you give me feedback, I might ask you, are you doing the practices that are conducive to enlightenment while you give me feedback? And you might say, well, actually, no. I'm sorry. Or whatever. Or you might come and tell me, you know, I'm not doing what I said I wanted to do. And I regret it. But it's a little bit different to say it to me, for example, than just to say it to yourself. You might not be able to say it to me unless you said it to yourself beforehand. Like you noticed, oh, I said I wanted to be generous, but I wasn't. Or I said I wanted to be patient, but I wasn't. Then you might come and tell me, I haven't been practicing these practices. And I might say, oh, okay.

[28:23]

But when you tell me them, it's different than when you told yourself. When you say it out loud and see somebody hear you, it's different than when you just say it to yourself. Saying it to yourself is good, but saying it to the teacher or to the Buddha is really different. It adds another dimension. Sometimes when you're confessing a shortcoming to the teacher, you realize that what you said was an abbreviation of what you did. Do you know what I mean? I do. So sometimes people say something to me, and I don't know what they mean, and then they tell me the rest of the story. But they were telling themselves in abbreviated version too, because it was, you know, it was kind of easier to say. But if you say it out loud, you realize it's kind of incoherent if the other person doesn't understand you. Like in a dream, sometimes things seem funny, and you wake up, they don't seem funny. So sometimes you think something's

[29:27]

This way, when you think about it yourself and say it out loud to your teacher and you realize, oh, it's another way too. So bringing your practice that you want to do and showing it to somebody, tell somebody, it gives you other perspectives on it. Also, you can also ask a person who's your teacher, you can say, I was thinking of doing these practices. Do they seem appropriate to me? I want to realize enlightenment. These are the practices I think would help. Does that make sense to you? The person might say, yeah, it does. Or they might say, I don't see it. And you talk back and forth until you're clear that you agree on what precepts would be conducive to what's most important to you. Then you work on them together. A lot of people want me to tell them what they should do. I say, what do you want to do? If I tell them what to do, then they can just basically resist what I told them to do. Which makes perfect sense that you would resist me running your life, right?

[30:33]

But when they tell me what they want to do, and they resist what they want to do, it's a different story. That doesn't make any sense. They're resisting what they want to do. And then sometimes I'm helping them do what they say they want to do, and they stop resisting because they think I'm telling them what to do, and I remind them, no, that's what you said you wanted to do, remember? Oh, yeah, right. And another aspect of the student-teacher relationship is that in this context, in this tradition, it's to help both the teacher and the student get over the sense of any separation between student and teacher. Because when they first meet, they probably feel like, oh, the teacher was separate from me. That's why I had to go to the teacher. You have to go to somebody who's not separate from you

[31:35]

who you think is separate to you. That's why you have to go to them in order to realize that they're not. But the teacher and student are not completely the same because the teacher is the teacher and the student is the student. But you never can have a teacher without a student and vice versa. So they're not really separate and they're not really different because they're both ungraspable, really. And their relationship is ungraspable, too. So I sometimes say that if the student knows how to play, then the student can come and play with the teacher. And where the playfulness between the two overlap is where the enlightenment arises. If the teacher doesn't know how to play and the student knows how to play, then the student should be a teacher to the teacher and teach the teacher how to play. And vice versa, if the teacher knows how to play and the student does, the teacher should teach the student how to play.

[32:42]

And then once the student learns, the student and teacher bring their play together, and the place they overlap is where they realize they're not different, they're not separate. We could go on, but that gives you a start. Thank you. You're welcome. Yes? You have such a pure essence in you that I feel a pure essence in me. Right, right. That's the idea. Yes?

[34:04]

Could you give an example of some of the other 58 precepts? Other 58? Well, one of them is, like I said, the 10 major precepts, the one about intoxication is not to intoxicate others. But there's a minor precept, which is not intoxicate yourself. Since the bodhisattva is devoted to the welfare of others, it's worse to hurt them than to hurt yourself. Also, I think another one of the precepts is... I must go back and read these 48 precepts. But I think another one of the precepts on the 48 is not to eat meat. It's one of the minor ones.

[35:09]

As with intoxication, as with the example you first quoted of, Yes. Yeah, maybe, it probably does, yeah. By the way, I should be even more clear that the major precept is not to intoxicate for profit, like not to sell intoxicants. So you give someone something that might not be good for them and you get something for it. And the other case is you use the intoxicant to get something for yourself, but you're using it rather than getting them to use it to get something for yourself.

[36:10]

And so one of the main points of that precept is to train ourselves at not trying to take something in to ourself. To eat without trying to get something. To eat as receiving rather than getting. To receive our food rather than take our food. To receive even something... Well, like food could be an intoxicant because it raises your blood sugar level and so does alcohol. But are you receiving a gift when you receive alcohol? Or are you trying to get something and change yourself into somebody else? In the same way you're eating, are you eating to take care of yourself Are you receiving gifts of food to practice, or are you trying to get something? And we look at that issue when we're eating.

[37:12]

So we're not taking something that's not given. And that would apply to the intoxicants, too. Are we trying to take something that's not given? So look at that. Yes? I know it's always a good time to be generous, but sometimes I have trouble knowing what is being generous in a situation. Is it sometimes more generous to take a nap rather than separate from my family or go for a walk or, you know, I mean, is that just sort of the pull-on to, you know, potential pull-on in life or trying to be avoidant? What is, what is the difference? Okay, well, so let's take the example of perhaps you're

[38:22]

Your family wants dinner, and you feel tired, so you feel that maybe it would be good to rest now. And maybe cook dinner later, and maybe not. But anyway, look inside, and do you think that cooking dinner would be good? If you think it would be good, would you like to give it? And the answer might be, yes, I would. I'd like to make dinner and give it to these people. I really would like to give that gift. Like my example with my grandson, I do want to take care of him, but I also feel that I would do better taking care of him, maybe, if I rested. And when I rest, do I see that as an act of generosity? And so I might feel like I think it'd be good to... I just thought of the example of if you're traveling with someone who needs your assistance, put your own oxygen mask on first. So it might be better to rest before you make dinner rather than making dinner when you're really tired and perhaps not cook dinner very skillfully because you didn't take care of yourself.

[39:39]

So here we have making dinner for the other people, taking care of yourself so that you can take care of other people. In both cases we want to watch, am I addictively taking care of myself, or am I addictively not taking care of myself so I can addictively take care of others? So you look at that. Okay, in this case, I think I actually don't need a nap. I can cook dinner. I'd like to have a nap, but I don't really need it. And I would like to take care of others, and I really would like to take care of others, but I don't have to. I don't have to take care of them. It's not absolutely necessary, but I'd like to. But I actually feel like I could make dinner with them, not as a habit. but as a creative act. And I could take a nap, not because I have to, but because as a creative act. So I'm going to take a nap. But not because I have to.

[40:42]

I don't have to. I could cook dinner instead, but I'm going to take a nap. Or vice versa. In fact, you probably don't have to take a nap, and you don't have to make dinner. The world's not going to blow up. People are not going to become deluded because you don't do one or the other. But they might become enlightened if you did one or the other. in this way, this non-habitual way. For you to non-habitually take a nap as a gift, not just a gift of the nap so you can rest and help, but as a non-habitual way of napping. When giving is really full-fledged, it's not a habitual thing. And the same if giving is full-fledged, the cooking dinner wouldn't be habitual. You have to look inside and see, is there flexibility here? And you also said, how do you know? When you're really practicing this way, you do not know. The habitual thing is to know this is helping others, this is helping me.

[41:47]

And this is, you know, the habit is knowing. The non-habitual thing is, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm weak. Maybe I'm strong. I don't know. I don't know. All I know is, I don't know. So in this exploration, you're not grasping. This is generosity and this is not generosity or vice versa. You're wondering, what is it? I have a circle that this is generosity and the ocean is generosity. I have a circle that this is generosity. I wonder... So you take a nap and people say, that wasn't very generous. And you say, maybe so. Or you cook dinner and they say, that was really generous. You say, maybe so. Or you cook dinner and they say, that wasn't really generous. You should have taken a nap. You're so crabby. We'd rather have nothing than you. You should have taken a nap. That would have been really generous to us.

[42:50]

And if you're practicing generosity, when they say, you know, whatever they say, you say, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Or even if you don't say it, you feel it. But that doesn't mean you know that what you're doing is generosity. It means you're welcoming whatever. So we don't really know. We don't really know. But we're open. This could be generosity. And also, I wish to be generous. I do wish to be generous, even though I don't know what it is. I wish to take care of all beings, even though I don't know who they are. I wish to care for beings who I can't control into happiness, even though they won't get happy even though I'm helping them. They're resisting all my good works that are trying to make them happy, and I keep trying, even though they're not going along with the program. But that's what I want. I want to keep being devoted to them. Whether I am effective or not, I want to keep trying. How's that?

[43:53]

Yes. Hi. Hi. I want to be... generous and kind of practice my fearlessness and ask a... Thank you. That's a very nice gift. It's a little tough. Ask a question. Would you like some more? Can I have some? Yes, you may. Would you pour it for me? Sure. Thank you. Thank you. So my question that is hard to ask is one of friendship, family as a type of relationship, and reciprocation.

[45:01]

Friendship, family, and reciprocation. Specifically the situation that I'm pointing to that has been difficult for me in the last few years is making peace with my family. About a year and a half ago, my brother pretty brutally assaulted me. I dropped charges against him. I've tried to bring my family together. I've offered an olive branch, but now We no longer are in our family home at the same time. It's very heavy. You and your brother. Yes. When he's there, you're not there and vice versa. Exactly. Even to the point where I'm doing practice parade at Zen Center.

[46:02]

So I go down on Monday night. I stay till Thursday and sit and do program. And then he comes on the weekend. And I sit there thinking, How does one remedy a situation? Like this? Like this. Oh, yes, I've been... So you practice generosity towards this pretty painful situation, it looks like. Seems pretty painful, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, so you welcome it. That's the beginning of the remedy. If you wish peace, want peace? If you want peace, embrace war. Don't make war. It's just that when there is a war, or whatever you want to call it, division, disharmony, if you want peace, embrace it.

[47:07]

How do you embrace it? You're generous towards it. You're gracious towards it. You say welcome. You say thank you. Is that easy? Probably not. Even if you succeed one moment, the next moment is difficult. Then it's not. Then it's difficult. So that's the first step, is somehow work on welcoming this great challenge. If you can embrace this with profound generosity, that will remedy. That is the remedy. That is the remedy. Not will, that is the remedy. That will bring great joy, even while the pain's still there. But then there's, you know, as I said, there's deeper levels that we can articulate about the generosity. Namely, be careful. Be careful of the situation. Make sure that you're not looking down on him. Making sure that, you know, that you don't have any ill will towards him.

[48:09]

Check it out. Are you being honest? Making sure that you're, etc. Look at all those precepts as ways, as guidance about how to be careful with this Situation which, if you're not careful, then the peacemaking will be hindered. And then be patient with the pain of it. Be patient with how long the healing process takes. And then again, now, check out your enthusiasm. Do you feel enthusiastic about these peacemaking practices? If you don't, then check your aspiration. Do you really want to have peace? you know, you want it enough so you're willing to do this really hard thing called welcoming a very difficult situation. And the answer might be no. Okay, well go back and look at your aspiration again. Look at what it will be like if you don't do these practices.

[49:10]

Look what it will be like if you meet this this disharmony with disharmony. Just contemplate that for a while, and you probably then will... I do aspire to peacemaking, even though it's really difficult. And you aspire to develop great concentration, great calm, great flexibility, great openness, and great wisdom. And if you do, then work on the wisdom practices which you're receiving at the Zen Center. But again, to receive these wisdom practices... You have to do these other practices. And I guess the reality is that no gaining an idea means I may never get an apology and I may never get my family back. Well, that's one reality that's possible. But in a way, it's actually fairly likely that you're not going to get your family back.

[50:17]

You're going to get a new family. Your old family, you're not going to get back. It's gone. But you might get a new one, and a new one, and a new one. And you might be ready for the new family you get. Because your old family is gone. But there is a new family. But if you don't do these practices, you might not be there to receive it. Because you're kind of like, can I have my old family back, please? That was a nice family. I want it back. I want my old brother back. But you can't get your old brother back. But you are going to get a new brother. As long as there's a brother, you're going to get a new brother. Every day you're going to get a new brother. Are you up for the new brother? I wouldn't mind going out and having a pint with him. Seeing how he's been. Yeah, so you have to do these practices so you're ready to receive the new brother and the new family. Because you do have a new brother and you do have a new family.

[51:19]

But you have to train yourself to be ready for this, the reality of the new family and the new brother. And if you're ready for it, you can have peace with it. But you have to be really skillful to be peaceful with certain kinds of beings. Like we're saying before, you know, certain people who have certain problems, if you're not really skillful, it's not time yet. So you just go away and work on yourself until you're ready for it. I've run into some challenges that I was ready for. It was great. I've run into some other challenges which I wasn't ready for. And sometimes I said, I'm not ready for this. And that was good, because somebody else could take care of it. And some other problems I wasn't ready for, and I took them on, and it was a mistake. So maybe at this point, you could be ready for your brother, but not necessarily in the same form that you used to be able to have with him.

[52:20]

But that's your new brother. That's the new relationship. It has a different shape. And you can be at peace with that if you're ready for that new shape. And then if you're ready for that, then another new shape can come. And it may not be what you had before, but it may be even more intimate and more loving than ever before. Who knows? But the point is you can have peace with whatever it is if you do these practices. That's what I propose. Thank you so much for the lovely day. Thank you. If you came here to help me, thank you. And if you didn't, please in the future come and help me. I came here to help you and I invite you to come here and help me. And now I invite you to go out and help everybody.

[53:22]

And that's my intention too. Thank you very much. Well, there's one more thing I want to say. And that is, when I said for the welfare of the world, I just want to point out that in the realm of reality, there's no world. Worlds are like enclosures where unenlightened people live. And in those enclosures called worlds, those beings need help. because they're trapped by their idea, their circle of water. They think it's reality. So we want to bring welfare to them so they can realize that their world is not solid enclosure and open to reality. Thank you.

[54:17]

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