Would you like me to tell the story of the milk medicine? Can you hear me? Can you hear me now? Would you like me to tell the story of the milk medicine? Can you hear me? Would you like me to tell the story? About the milk story? You haven't felt this now. I'm checking to see if she can hear me. I think you just asked me if I can hear you. Yeah. Can you hear the story, the milk medicine story? Well, I do, but I have this thing that's burning for me. But I will listen to your story. You have what, a burning? Well, something that really came up that you said before this story. Oh, you want to talk about that? What's burning?

[01:01]

Yeah, do you want to tell me what's burning? Okay. It's a big issue for you. Yeah. Well, what a lot of people do, a lot of consciousnesses do, is they have self-esteem in their consciousness and then they learn to deny it. Well, for example, they have self-esteem, they're proud. We're naturally proud, is what this teaching is saying. We're naturally proud. However, sometimes people punish us for being proud. They tell us being proud is bad.

[02:05]

In other words, they tell us that the sickness of pride is something we should be punished for. So then we hide it. We hide the pride. And sometimes it's best if you forget where you hid it. So that if people come and say, where is it? You honestly don't know where it is. So like if you're trying to hide your anger, it's good if you don't know that you're trying to hide it. Are you angry? And you say, no. And you, you know, with a straight face. So pride is something which I think is discouraged. It's a cardinal sin, isn't it? In some traditions, pride is a cardinal sin. Yeah. It's considered a sin in some traditions. In this teaching, it is considered to be natural to unenlightened consciousness.

[03:11]

However, in society, we are often even punished and derided for appearing proud, arrogant, and so on. So then we sometimes try to hide it from others. And again, if you hide it from others over and over, you start to hide it from yourself. It makes it easier if you don't know you're hiding. So then we hide the self-esteem and then we're in another, maybe in a sense a worse situation, is that we're hiding our self-esteem. So becoming aware of self-esteem is part of the path of enlightenment. You've been working on becoming aware of self-esteem and as you become more aware of it, you become more awake to your normal human consciousness. So it is good to help people wake up to self-esteem because it's there. And then once they awaken to it, the pain that comes with it.

[04:22]

If I'm in denial of my self-esteem, I'm afflicted. If I give up on denying it and accept it and admit it, then I can feel the affliction. Then if I can listen to that affliction of self-esteem, of pride, I can open to the understanding of what actually is. And then I won't really be caught by self-esteem anymore. It'll become more like, you know, the wind or birds in the trees. It seems like self-esteem seems a good thing. I may be saying that it's like too much self-esteem, or being proud is... I can get out of hand. You can say you can get out of hand, yeah, you can say that.

[05:28]

But this teaching is just for you to consider that being proud is stressful. like to pick up the top of this teacup carefully and set it down without breaking it. That seems fine, but I could also be proud of that. And the pride is kind of like dispensable. I don't really have to be proud that I can do it. If I'm proud that I was, it just makes things a little better. to drink the water now is fine. And to be proud that I did it is kind of like, you know, it's stressful. And of course sometimes being proud is very stressful because it causes other people to, I don't know what, notice that I'm proud and have a problem with that and then me try to defend myself about that and

[06:30]

And then my pride can lead me to look down on them who are not able to pick up the teacup as well as I am because I'm really good at this. I'm one of the best drinkers on the planet. So I can think, oh, that was done well. It was good. I'm so glad I was able to drink that water. I'm going to have some more, actually. Mm-hmm. delicious. But a lot of people are proud along with that. The pride is basically overdoing water drinking. And walking, for example, walking is nice to do. You know, like when babies first walk, they're very happy about that and everybody's clapping. I don't know if they're proud, but they're very happy that they've succeeded in walking.

[07:35]

It's a beautiful moment. It's like celestial when they first learned to walk. And when I recently had a broken femur and I was able to walk again, it's like, oh, walking, it's so great. And to tell you the truth, I was not proud that I was walking. I was just so grateful and so beautiful I wasn't proud. Maybe the surgeon would be proud, but he didn't have to be proud either. So pride is, you know, overdoing it, basically. It's one of the overdoing things of our life. to try to get more, get more self, get more pleasure, get more money, get more fame. That more is the fourth affliction, the affliction of self-love. You want to just pile more and more onto yourself.

[08:36]

It's an affliction. I wouldn't say that that's good. It's painful. It's stressful. You can learn the difference between walking and walking with pride You can see the first kind of walking is light and more joyful than walking and add pride to it and greed to it. It's for you to contemplate. For you to contemplate. This is for you to contemplate. You're welcome. And for me too. Yes. As usual. Yes. You say the others are not an extension of ourselves, but you say also we're not different from them, so what are we?

[09:38]

So what are we? What are we is like... What are others? What are others? Yeah. What are we? What are others? That's more like the Buddhist teaching, that question. Exactly. The answer, well, in a way, the answer was that you said, what's the answer? You asked another question. That was an answer. Okay? And then question that. Question that it doesn't feel like an answer. Are you saying the sound itself is the answer? I'm not saying what the answer is, but I said that your questions are teaching.

[10:41]

It still doesn't sound very satisfying. It doesn't sound what? Satisfying. I don't understand what you're saying. Okay, so you said, number one, it doesn't feel satisfying. Okay, that's something that you are feeling and you told me about. Right? Yeah, and I heard you. I say to you, the Buddha might say to you, what is that dissatisfaction? But now you're saying that. And then the Buddha would say to you, what is that dissatisfaction? The Buddha didn't teach you dissatisfaction. Yeah. Then the Buddha said, what's that feeling? It's some mind, I guess.

[11:55]

And then Buddhists say, what is mind? It's what is. The Buddha is teaching you, right? The Buddha is asking you questions. I can't answer that question. You don't have to answer it. The Buddha didn't answer it. If the Buddha doesn't answer, you don't have to answer it. Why should you have to answer if the Buddha doesn't have to answer it? Yeah. There's the cries and the listening. So you cried, I think, you said dissatisfaction. Yeah, I heard you cry. Yeah, but I heard you cry. Maybe I'm wrong. You're telling me you didn't cry. Okay? Okay. Yeah, I understand. And I'm responding to your wish to understand. Okay?

[12:57]

These are my responses. How about call? You called by saying, dissatisfaction. You told me about the dissatisfaction. I thought when you told me about that, that you wanted compassion. You don't want compassion. Yeah, so what I'm saying is, the teaching to you too, okay? I'm saying that you're calling for compassion all day long. I know you said that. I got it. And when you say I'm not, I'm saying that's calling for compassion. And if you want to know who you are, you need compassion. Well, I'm saying to you, you're not going to know who you are unless you get some compassionate response to that. Compassion... From who? From everybody, including you. That's not true.

[13:58]

I feel... Pardon? I feel knowing who you are doesn't necessarily require compassion. Why would you... Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. You said that, and now you want to know my response? Yeah? Did you say yes? Okay. I'm saying, I'm offering you this this assertion for you to contemplate, okay? In order to understand anything in a true way, Because compassion embraces what the thing is. For example, Louis Pasteur practiced compassion towards certain diseases and understood them.

[14:59]

If you practice compassion more, you will realize what you want. What I heard you wanted. What I heard you wanted is you want to understand. I just want to know myself, but I don't have the idea that it might require compassion. What if it does? What if our nature is not compassion? Well, then I will never find it. What I'm saying to you, if you want to understand yourself, then you need compassion. You cannot understand yourself without compassion. That's what I'm saying to you. If you disagree, that's fine. But what I'm saying to you is, wisdom requires, understanding yourself requires compassion. Wisdom grows out of compassion. I mean, the universe is wisdom, but also everything else is not wisdom. If we think ourselves as wisdom, then how can we figure out that we also was not wisdom?

[16:18]

If you want wisdom and not wisdom, then you need compassion. You're not going to understand anything without compassion. For example, compassion involves welcoming whatever. You can't understand something unless you welcome it. Compassion also involves being careful and gentle with yourself. So to understand yourself, you need to welcome yourself, allow yourself to be, be careful with yourself, be patient with yourself. You want to understand yourself. Once you realize your nature, that nature might not be compassion, it might be something else. Once you realize your nature, realizing your nature means realizing the way your nature really is.

[17:27]

And your nature isn't compassionate or not compassionate, it's neither. But you need compassion to realize that. I see that. You don't look like you're sure about that. And I am sure of that. I understand. But are you also not... That helps. It helps not worrying about... So I hear you don't understand that yet. And... Curious is kind of compassionate as long as your curiosity isn't trying to get anything. To me it feels like we're compassionate towards something else.

[18:35]

And that's You can be compassionate towards yourself. In order to understand yourself, you need to practice compassion towards yourself. You can also see yourself as a giant monster who needs help. It is a separation. In order to get over the separation, you have to practice compassion with the separation. Exactly, but you're not going to realize there's no separation without compassion. When you first start practicing compassion, it is sort of like compassion towards something. That's right. Towards another or towards yourself. It is kind of dualistic at the beginning. But in order to get over the dualistic compassion, you have to practice dualistic compassion. Maybe you might just see that there's no separation suddenly, and then you stop.

[19:39]

If you realize there's no separation, then you have compassion which is not dualistic. You have compassion with no separation. Yeah, you're just yourself then, exactly. It doesn't feel like anything special, that's right. Then you have to practice compassion with a person who doesn't feel like himself. Those stories may be not appropriate for you at this point. If you can't see compassion in them, just put them aside for the time being and work on compassion. So you're actually quite seeing that when you think of compassion, it's kind of, there's separation in it.

[20:45]

And I'm saying to you that being compassionate towards that separation is the path to realizing that there's no separation. And if you don't practice, if we don't practice compassion towards the we'll just keep seeing that appearance. We won't understand it. But if we're really wholeheartedly compassionate towards the feeling of separation, we will become free of that feeling of separation, which is not real. But we have to be kind and compassionate towards separation, because the separation is part of the natural affliction of mind, of consciousness. Separation is also mind. The separation is also mind, but it's mind in the form, mind can take the form of delusion. Separation is... What? Yeah, so mind takes the form of delusion, and it needs the mind in the form of compassion in order to become free of the delusion.

[21:48]

Yeah, that's right, it's just the mind. You won't understand it if there's no compassion, because there is compassion. Like I'm telling you about compassion and you say you don't see it. And you say you're not asking for it, and I see you asking for it. Yeah, I'm just telling you, I see something that you don't see. You see something that I don't see. Like if I said I wasn't here, you might say to me, but you are. And I might say, no, I'm not. And I would say, I'm saying I'm not, and you say I am. You say potato, I say potato. I say tomato. Potato, potato, tomato, tomato. Then we say, let's call it off. But actually, that's where it's at.

[22:49]

Is you say tomato, I say tomato. You say you don't see me, I say I'm here. But I see that you say that I'm not here. You say you're not asking for care, you are. So that's what we're doing. You see things like you see that you're not asking for compassion. That's what you see. I hear you saying that. And I disagree. I think you and everybody, including me... What? That's what I just said. You disagree. You disagree when I say you're calling for compassion. You disagree. And your disagreement, according to me, is what? What do I say that disagreement is? You've been listening. I do. So you're learning what I'm offering you. You don't agree, but you're learning. That's what he thinks. He thinks I'm calling for compassion. He's wrong. I am.

[23:52]

I am. I am. I'm calling for it. And I'm calling for it from you. That's right. He said, if he sees that he is me, he doesn't need compassion. Yeah, I agree. But you're not going to see that I'm you without compassion. When you practice compassion with me and yourself, you will see that I'm you. But you're not going to see that compassion. That's what I'm saying to you. I want to see that you're me, and I want you to see that I'm you. And this vision, this wisdom will come when both of us are practicing compassion.

[24:54]

That's what I'm saying. And I really appreciate your great compassion. You're welcome. And you were listening to me, and you learned what I was saying, even though you don't agree. That's great. Yes? Yes? I'm wondering what role you see in... Excuse me, you said, what role do I... Yeah, I would say, meta, so there's meta, so there's the four divine abodes, meta, karuna, pramudita, and upeksha, which is loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity.

[25:58]

And... compassion are Zen meditation. And I would say that in the tradition, in the East Asian tradition called Zen, that was assumed as basic. Meditation, they're practicing loving kindness and meditation. That's basic. And so basic that they don't mention it. And when it's transmitted to the West, the Western people, sometimes many people come to me and say, is it okay if I practice metta in the zendo? And I say, yes, it's okay. Matter of fact, loving-kindness is real Zen practice. Compassion is real Zen practice. But it's so basic that we don't mention it enough. So now lately I'm mentioning it to this is basic [...] practice meta meta meta corona corona all the time and we have this chat which maybe you know it's called the 10 verse 10 verses on listening to the cries of the world and at the end it says moment of

[27:19]

listen to the cries of the world. Day and night, that's a Buddhist chant which is done in Zen temples. But it's so basic, people just, they sometimes forget it. So now I feel like we need a remedy, a remedial course. Zen meditation is loving-kindness, is great, great, vast loving-kindness. Zen meditation is great, vast compassion. And then all these other stories are about seeing how that works in a conversation. So Zen stories are so interesting that we study what these people are doing is putting love and kindness into a conversation. Thank you. Yes? You want the milk story? Okay. Okay, here's... It's in the Nirvana Sutra, which is, in some ways, one of the latest Mahayana scriptures.

[28:30]

After a certain point, they stopped making sutras. They said, the sutras are done. And stuff that came after sort of like when history caught up with Buddhism, they had to stop saying that Buddha said this a long time ago. Anyway, so one of the latest and most influential great vehicles of the Nirvana Sutra. And in there, there's a section called Milk Medicine. And I haven't memorized this story in detail, which is maybe good for you because you don't have to sit here for a long time. So I'm going to give an abbreviated version of the story of Milk Medicine. You are excused. Okay.

[29:31]

Yeah. It's 12 o'clock. So thank you so much for your questions. Thank you for having the courage to be who you are. Yeah. You have to leave too? Okay. So milk medicine. So once upon a time there was a kingdom that had a king. And the king had a ill physician. And this physician prescribed milk for all illnesses, no matter what it was. And, yeah. And then there was a skilled physician who somehow found out about this physician who prescribed milk for everything.

[30:33]

And he already understood that milk is not medicine for all illnesses. He understood that. And he understood that this illness was like that, that illness was like that. He understood the nature of the different types of illnesses and also the nature of different types of medicines and which medicines went with which. He was a skilled physician. The other one didn't know anything about medicine or illness, but somehow he presented himself as a physician and got hired by the king and prescribed milk for everything. The skilled physician came, saw the situation, and he didn't go up, he didn't accuse your quack. You know quack? Quack means like a fake physician. A person who sort of like says, I'm a doctor and doesn't know anything about medicine. And maybe has a fake document saying he's a doctor.

[31:36]

And somehow this quack got hired. So this new, the new skilled physician came not to the king, but to the quack and said, could I study with you? And the quack said, and the sutra says, the elder said, yeah, you can study with me and you can learn from me. But first of all, you have to be my servant for 48 years. And if you serve me and do everything I say for 48 years, I'll tell you about my, I'll teach you about my medicine. And you can be in this court of the king as a visiting physician, like a visiting professor. And the skilled physician said, okay, I'll be your servant and I'll be a visiting physician. And he didn't tell the king anything bad about the senior, the elder physician.

[32:49]

he just talked to the king about medicine. And he pointed out to the king the nature of different illnesses and the nature of different medicines and how they go together. He was careful about diagnosing and careful about making medicines. And the king could see, in the way he worked with illness and medicine, he could see the brilliance of his medical wisdom. And the physician said, this teaching, which you're seeing, can be used to cure various illnesses and also to govern a country. And the king was just awakened to how great this teacher was, this physician was. all the details of medicinal practice, but he could see this was a great practitioner. And he could also see that the other one didn't know anything and was actually harmful.

[33:53]

And he immediately banished the other physician. The visiting physician did not tell the king he's a bad person and get rid of him. He didn't say anything bad about that person. He just showed him real skill. And the king was totally inspired to see this great skill. And he could also see that the other king had none. And because he had none, he indiscriminately prescribed this medicine. And again, The visiting group teacher didn't say, nobody drink milk. He said, don't use milk for medicine. That's prohibited. And so the king made a proclamation, nobody can use milk as medicine. And then, yeah. And then the visiting physician became the physician and he went to work on his wonderful concoctions of all the different kinds of medicines for all the diseases and things are going along.

[35:09]

But after not too long, the king got sick. And lo and behold, what did the physician prescribe for the king? Milk. Milk. And the king said, are you mad? Do you have a fever? And the physician said, no. In your case, milk is the right medicine. And he took the milk and became well. But the king still didn't understand completely. He said, well, how about the previous doctor who prescribed milk? You know... What about him? And the physician gave the example of, well, it's like a worm burrowing through wood, leaves little cuts in the wood, incisions in the wood, and sometimes the incisions could look like letters in the alphabet.

[36:20]

like an A or a C or whatever. But the worm doesn't know they're making an A or a C. And so this other physician did discover milk, but he didn't know how to use it. I know milk, and I know when to use it, and in your case it was appropriate, but for most other people it's not appropriate. And the king even more realized what a great physician this was. So this leads up to the story of the Buddha. At first Buddha gave, Buddha saw people, everybody was drinking milk. Milk was being used indiscriminately. In other words, people were using their own understanding of self to cure their illness. by their own lack of understanding, to use their understanding for everything, and it's not appropriate.

[37:27]

So then the Buddha taught, no self, in other words, your ideas of self is not medicinal. Stop that. So Buddhism kind of banned self, saying no self. So in order to straighten out sentient beings' minds, the Buddha said, teaches no self, just like the physician taught no milk. But then after people got over the no milk, sometimes he could prescribe and he knew when to do it. So then that's why the Buddha taught no self, for the illness of misunderstanding self. And later, when people were free of their addiction to the misunderstanding of self, the Buddha taught no self. For some people, medicine, but they have to be in recovery from milk first. We have to be in recovery from our misunderstanding of ourself in order to receive the later teaching, which is like milk, at the right time, for the final, for the cure of that special disease that even after you no longer misunderstand self.

[38:44]

So first of all the Buddha has to cure us from our misunderstandings in order to offer us the highest truth. And then the Buddha offered the highest truth. Okay? That's the Milk Story. Thanks for staying for the Milk Story. And thank you for your questions and your calls. And thank you for listening to my calls for compassion. I don't have to thank you. Can I thank you for doing what you wanted? Well, maybe I'll retire from thanking you for doing what you wanted.

[39:45]

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