This morning is April 1st. It's sometimes called April Fool's Day. Did you know that? Did any funny things happen today yet? Yeah? You can see in the back, but up in front are lots of children. And... this morning the program for the children I think is going to be considering the idea of new life. Is that right? And I wanted to talk with the children a little bit about being happy. And Some of you may not know what it means to be happy, and some of you may.

[01:04]

I don't know. Andrea? Do you have your little girl? Your son? Oh, yeah. Great. Do any of you know what being happy is? Any of the children? You don't know? Do any of you know anybody who's happy? You do? Who's happy? Who? Your father's happy? Oh, you're happy. Okay. And do you want anybody else to be happy? Do you want your mommy to be happy?

[02:09]

Wow. Do any of you kids want your mommy to be happy? If any kids want their mommy to be happy, would they stand up, please? One, two, three. All the kids who are standing want their mommy to be happy? Is that right? Not all the time. How many people want their dad to be happy? Stand up, please. Okay. Great, thank you.

[03:11]

Sometimes we, in this room, sometimes together we say, may all beings be happy. May all beings be free of unhappiness. May all beings be free of sickness and pain and fear. And I wondered, do you sometimes wish your mother and father would be happy? Do you wish that they would be happy sometimes? You want them to be happy. Do you sometimes say, I wish my mommy would be happy? Do you sometimes say that? Do you sometimes wish my daddy would be happy? Or my father would be happy? Do you sometimes say that? Do you ever wish that your grandfather would be happy?

[04:13]

Or your grandmother? No? Do you wish that your sisters would be happy? No. And do you sometimes wish that you would be happy? Good, good. But do you know what happy is? okay, I wanted to sing a song with you. But then when I looked at the song, the song is about, it goes, you know, it starts out by saying, if you're happy and you know it. And I thought, children don't know that they're happy. But I thought we could, even though you may not know it, maybe we could still sing it. But I did feel a little bit, well, I felt a little pain

[05:25]

about this song if some of the children don't know they're happy. I didn't want to force any children into singing this song, so I thought later we could do some different ways of saying it, but maybe we could start by just doing the singing. We're not sure if we're happy. Is that okay? Would you please stand up, children? Please stand up. Maybe you know this song already, so And the adults, maybe some of the adults know it too. So it goes something like this. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it. If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you're happy and you know it, clap your feet. If you're happy and you know it, stamp your feet. If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it.

[06:30]

If you're happy and you know it, stamp your feet. If you're happy and you know it, shout hoorah. If you're happy and you know it, shout hoorah. If you're happy and you know it and you really want to show it. If you're happy and you know it, shout hoorah. Now I'd like to do another version of this, another song, a similar way, and substitute for happy living. Okay? Do you want to do that? And of course, stand up and do that one. Want to stand up and do living? Okay, kids, want to stand up and do living? Okay, ready?

[07:35]

If you're living and you know it, clap your hands. If you're living and you know it, clap your hands. If you're living and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're living and you know it, clap your hands. Clap your hands. If you're living and you know it, stamp your feet. If you're living and you know it, stamp your feet. If you're living and you know it, and you really want to show it. If you're living and you know it, stamp your feet. If you're living and you know it, shout hurrah, hurrah. If you're living and you know it, shout hurrah, hurrah. If you're living and you know it, and you really want to show it. If you're living and you know it, If you're living and you know it, do all three. Hoorah! If you're living and you know it, do all three. Hoorah! If you're living and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're living and you know it, shout hoorah.

[08:39]

Hoorah! All right. Thank you, children. Now, is that enough? Thank you. You are our new life, please go do it for us. If there's anyone in the back who wants to move forward, there are four rows of Christians up here. Hi. Nice to see you. You're on mic. There's seats up in front if you want to sit in the front. Bye.

[09:41]

Okay. This song, which I was thinking of doing with the children, but I thought it would be a little shocking. But I would like to ask you to do it with me.

[10:55]

Would you please, those of you who can, would you please stand up? So we did happy, and we did living, and now I'd like to do dying. I don't know if it would have been good to do it with the children here or not, but I'd like to do it with you. If you're dying and you know it, clap your hands. If you're dying and you know it, clap your hands. If you're dying and you know it and you really wanna show it If you're dying and you know it, clap your hands If you're dying and you know it, stamp your feet If you're dying and you know it, stamp your feet If you're dying and you know it and you really wanna show it If you're dying and you know it, stamp your feet

[12:01]

If you're dying and you know it, shout hurrah. If you're dying and you know it, shout hurrah. If you're dying and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're dying and you know it, shout hurrah. If you're dying and you know it, do all three. If you're dying and you know it, do all three. Hoorah! If you're dying and you know it and you really want to show it, if you're dying and you know it, shout hoorah! Hoorah! Is that enough?

[13:06]

So please, enjoy your new life. I've been thinking about and meditating lately on on enlightenment. And in particular I've been meditating on the teaching that enlightenment is the silent bond among all beings. The silent bond among all of us but also between us

[14:09]

and the mountains and the rivers and the great earth and also the silent bond between us and all beings who have realized, fully realized, this silent bond. My experience is that most of us have not fully realized this silent bond among us. Most of us have not fully realized enlightenment. So one way that things are is enlightenment. That's one way that things are right now. And that one way is the way that you and I are bonded silently. in a way that's beyond anything we can say about it.

[15:12]

I can say something about it. I'm just kind of talking about it right now. But this bond between us is, my words will never reach it. Your words will never reach it. It's silent. The way we are in close friendship with each other and with all things, animate and inanimate, That is what I have been meditating on as enlightenment. And included in things being this way are beings who do not accept, do not understand that they're in a silent, close friendship with all things.

[16:14]

And these are called sentient beings, like most of us are sentient beings. We don't fully understand this. And so for us, that's the way it is. The way it is, is that we do not feel, we do not understand that everybody is our close friend. It's not everybody is our best friend, because there's no best or worst. everybody's close. And the way we're close is the way we are. And each of us is different, but our difference is the way we're close to each other. And another way I've been meditating on this is I've been thinking about and meditating on beauty. And another way to think about happiness, which led me to this song this morning with the children.

[17:25]

There is a kind of worldly happiness, which I think we may have some familiarity with. It's a kind of happiness which can occur when we get something we want or when people speak well of us or when we hear that people speak well of us. And we feel happy when that happens. Or when something pleasant happens, when pleasure happens, sometimes we get happy. In other words, we feel good about it. We get kind of... We feel about it and we feel happy. It isn't just pleasure, we feel happy about it. Pleasure is not the same as happiness. But sometimes when we feel pleasure, we feel happy.

[18:37]

And then there is also, that's what we call worldly happiness, the happiness that comes when we feel pleasure. The happiness that comes when we get something we want, or when we get something. The happiness that comes when people speak well of us, or we hear well of us. This is worldly happiness. And then there's worldly unhappiness, which is when we feel pain. Feeling pain is not the same as being unhappy. But sometimes we feel pain, and then we feel unhappy. And then something's taken from us that we want, and we feel not just that something's been taken, but we feel unhappy about that it's been taken. And sometimes someone says, speaks badly of us.

[19:41]

and we feel unhappy. And similarly, sometimes we hear that someone has spoken badly of us and we feel bad. This is worldly unhappiness. So there's that kind of happiness and unhappiness. But there is happiness which is the happiness that comes with realizing enlightenment. And when we have that kind of happiness, the happiness of realizing our close friends, then these other kinds of happiness pretty much, well, either they don't arise anymore or they really have almost no motivational impact So, in other words, you come to be a person when you realize this enlightenment or when you enter into this enlightenment process.

[20:52]

When you're on this path, you experience pleasure, but you don't get jacked up by it. You just feel pleasure. And then you feel pain, but you don't get pushed down by it. In fact, we don't get pushed down by pain and pushed up by pleasure. We get pushed up by pleasure because of the way we think about it, because of our intentions, because of our karma. But when we realize enlightenment, we experience pain, period, and pleasure, period, We experience gain, loss, period. We hear people insult us, period. We hear people praise us, period. That's all.

[21:53]

And we also aren't motivated to get people to speak well of us, having people speaking ill of us. And we don't get motivated to get more pleasure, and to avoid pain. We understand now that pleasure is our close friend and pain is our close friend. Pain is our close friend and loss is our close friend. All things are our close friend. Life is our close friend. Health is our close friend. Illness is our close friend. Illness is beautiful.

[22:55]

Health is beautiful. Person is beautiful. That person is beautiful. Realizing enlightenment is the same as being able to see the beauty of all things. To be single-mindedly focused on the beauty of all phenomena, of everything we experience, of every experience of everything. there are various paths leading to this various path leading to the path, the path of enlightenment, the path of being aware of the relationship with all things.

[24:21]

Various paths leading to the path the path of being intimate with the beauty of all things. There's various ways to enter that. One way is to train our love or our appreciation of something in a sense beauty. And it has been recommended from ancient times to train children, to train young people to love and appreciate physical beauty. Physical beauty of plants and animals

[25:26]

and human bodies. And I would suggest that each of us, as we begin our love towards appreciation, towards loving beauty, towards loving goodness, As we begin this, in a sense, we are young again. We are like children when we begin to learn this. But the childlike quality, the immature side, That we see at the beginning of the practice beauty in some physical forms. That's the child part of it.

[26:29]

As we proceed, we learn to see beauty in more physical forms. This is one path. And more and more. And then to learn to see beauty in mental forms. to see beauty in certain types of activity and certain types of study, to see beauty in mathematics and literature, music, in thought forms. And finally, to see beauty in everything, And the beauty which is in everything is the same beauty which is the bond among all of us.

[27:32]

That's basically a path to realizing enlightenment. This path, however, has certain difficulties in it, in that we experience the limits of what we can see as beautiful. Since we see the limits to what we feel is beautiful, the limits to who we feel is our close friend, and so on, the limits to where we see goodness, working with these limits of our vision is part of the path. Noticing that you sense that someone is not your close friend,

[28:48]

to be aware of that because you're trying to learn how it is that everyone is your close friend to be aware that you don't feel is a normal and almost always necessary part of the process. To notice that you don't think something is beautiful part of the process of giving up all your ideas of what is beautiful. So when you start to love beauty, when you start to appreciate beauty in some physical form, or some mental form, anyway some living form, and living forms are physical and mental, when you start to appreciate it, you have some ideas of what is beautiful.

[29:59]

Probably coming with your appreciation of this beautiful person. I would say you're right that everybody who you think is beautiful is beautiful. And you're right to think that and feel that. However, your idea of their beauty, which may be there, with the feeling that they're beautiful, that idea of their beauty is not their beauty. It's nobody's beauty. It's nobody's beauty. And in the case where you feel someone is beautiful, when you're enjoying someone's beauty, or you're enjoying some physical non-living thing's beauty, at that point you do . But the idea needs to be dropped.

[31:05]

because beauty is essentially free of all ideas of beauty. And still, even though we have ideas of beauty, we do some receive the blessing of opening to the beauty even though we have ideas. Sometimes our ideas let us feel the beauty anyway. Sometimes we even are allowed to feel beauty in relationship when we have an idea that this is not beautiful. Sometimes we don't get caught by our idea of this is not beautiful and we accept that it is anyway. So the hard part of this path is renouncing all of our discriminations of beautiful and not beautiful. of close and not close.

[32:12]

Recognizing and realizing that someone's your close friend is not the same as having the idea that they are your friend. But if you can give up the discrimination between close and not close, in that giving up, you will open to the closeness that is actually waiting there to be enjoyed. But it's not easy to give... between close and far, of course. We're highly attuned and tuned and geared and wired to sense close and far. It's a big adaptation we have. It's like an instinct. So this... But in a way, simple. So I'm meditating on enlightenment. I'm meditating on how all of you are my close friend.

[33:17]

I'm meditating on the closeness of all of us in this room and all of us in this room with all enlightened beings throughout space and time and all inanimate beings throughout the universe. I'm meditating on that and I'm also meditating on Any discrimination I have of close, near, and far friends. And I wish to study this feeling until it's dropped. Study this discrimination until I realize it can't be grasped. then I can let go of it and open to the actuality and learn to see the beauty in everything, to tune into that beauty which is the beauty of everything. And again I suggest that this related is the true beauty, is the beauty which when we see that beauty, all other beauties

[34:30]

which have in the past made us hot and bothered, made us have burning foreheads and parched tongues. Those beauties, although they might occur for some reason or other, just for fun, they may not occur anymore. What occurs is a serene, infinite, and happiness. And this happiness happens in a moment, but it can be practiced. The practice which allows it, that can be consistent. We can learn to practice continually, to be concentrated on this way of being, so that we can tune in to this path, even though each experience is fleeting. Everything I meet, every person or thing I meet is an opportunity to check, do I see beauty or not?

[35:59]

And at this point, if I do not see beauty, I consider it just a simple limitation of my wisdom. Not even my wisdom, a limitation on the wisdom of the moment, of this moment's wisdom. This moment's vision doesn't see the beauty and I generally that this is a low-grade wisdom. A wisdom which does not see the beauty clear, the Buddha teaches, is in all things. The beauty of each thing is not itself.

[37:13]

It is the way each thing supports all other things. And the way all things support each thing. That's the beauty of each thing. I recently read the birth of Eros, which can sometimes be translated as love. Eros, I thought Eros was Aphrodite's son. Greek mythology or Greek religion is not highly well organized. So there's lots of different stories about the gods and goddesses. So maybe there's some stories about Eros that he's Aphrodite's son, that he's the son of the goddess of love and beauty.

[38:22]

The goddess of love and beauty, the beauty of the goodness of all things. He's the son of her. But another story is he was born in her presence. and his parents were poverty, abundance. And one of the things about Eros, who is said by some to be immortal nor immortal, neither God nor human, One of the things about him which I thought was very interesting was that he was described as lacking all the things that surrounded him at his conception.

[39:25]

And I thought when I read that, we're all like that. We all lack all the things that surround us at our conception. Every moment that we're born, every moment that we live, we lack all the things that surround us at our birth. We lack those things because we don't possess them. We lack them. We do not have them. We are them. We are all the things that surround us every moment. We don't have the things that surround us. They surround us. They support us. We are all the beings that we are closely related to, and we are nothing in addition to our relationships.

[40:47]

And each of us have different relationships, therefore each of us is a different person. And we lack relationships that surround us. We lack all the beauty and goodness that surrounds us. And the way we lack it is the true beauty. And all the beautiful things that support us, their beauty, which supports us, is the way all things support them. This is why it's difficult, this is part, by the way I'm talking now is to open us to give up our ideas of beauty, but it's part of the reason why we want to hold on to some idea of beauty.

[41:54]

Because we want to hold on to some idea of what we are in addition to everything that surrounds us when we're born. Because we have some aversion to lacking everything that surrounds us. We think we're supposed to be something in addition to our total support system. This talk is in hopes of initiating us to an intimate awareness of true beauty, an intimate awareness of enlightenment, an intimate awareness of the silent bond between all beings.

[42:59]

with generous feelings, with a generosity towards our unwillingness to open to this practice. A patience with our unreadiness to do this practice, even our unreadiness to notice and be generous when we feel someone is not close to us and generous and we feel like we are something in addition to all the beings who support me. I appreciate your support but I'm something a little bit more than just your support. No? That's not true but if I think so I want to accept that I feel that way and notice what it feels like to feel that way. And the way it feels is that it's called suffering.

[44:05]

the world of suffering is the world where we do not accept our close relationship with all beings. In that world all the kinds of happiness of that world will be frustrated. And in that world we will be — here comes the fire and brimstone — in that world we will be driven with voracious desires and lust. We'll be driven to try to get more of that same kind of happiness which will not satisfy us. And we will be driven in this process as long as we don't accept enlightenment. One way that things are And it's one way that we can resist.

[45:09]

And we can resist. And it's called the world of suffering. And this world is the worst of all possible worlds. But in this worst of all possible worlds, where we have not yet accepted this teaching of enlightenment and this practice of enlightenment, we can still start to practice enlightenment. We can still start and admit, I'm trying but I'm not, I'm still holding back a little. That means I'm still feeling like so-and-so is not my close friend. I'm still feeling like so-and-so is not beautiful. I'm still caught by some idea of beauty which I'm holding on to. that makes it hard for me to see this person as beautiful or to see the beauty which all things share, the one beauty which all things are sharing every moment.

[46:13]

I can't see that now. And if I admit that, I'm on the training program to learn the practice of enlightenment. although I may not be very far on this path, just that I notice some beauty, or even if I don't see any, at least if I notice I don't see any and I accept that I don't see any, I'm on the path of seeing it everywhere. I propose to you that the path to realizing Buddha in this world, to realizing enlightenment, is to meditate on enlightenment. That enlightenment is available, that it is the way we are related to each other right now, and there's a practice of enlightenment.

[47:23]

And then again, opening to it usually involves being aware that you're not completely open to it. And becoming aware of that lack of openness and revealing it, disclosing it, and using that as a way to return to look again to orient again and bond towards the beauty of all things, towards the goodness of all things, is a path of happiness and harmony in this world. I guess that maybe that's clear.

[48:31]

Is it kind of clear? Based on that I'm saying that anyway? And maybe we can have some discussion a little later. And I don't know what song to sing at this time. Old Man River. Hmm? Blue sky. Blue sky. Nothing but blue skies. On a clear day.

[49:37]

People who need people. People who need people. Row, row, row your boat. I can see clearly now. Once I had a secret love. I don't mean to keep on saying it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do it. I'm in complete control.

[50:42]

Don't need anybody else. Got a mind of my own. I got a... No, I can do it. I'm in complete control, don't need anybody else. Got a mind of my own, I'm in complete control, don't need anybody else. Gave myself a good talking to, no more being a fool for you, but then I see you. Remember how you make me want to surrender to Buddha way.

[51:47]

You're taking myself away, good away. You're making me want to stay, good away. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I wanted to tell you about something which I mentioned the other night in Berkeley. And afterwards John Sheehy said something to me about it. I mentioned that in Finland they have a traffic

[52:58]

policy of the giving tickets taking into account people's income. So they take into account people's income and the severity of the traffic violation. So like a big speeding a lot, you get more of a ticket. Like they do it here too, right? So a multi-millionaire will get charged more than a person who doesn't have much annual income. And the people who give the citations have access to the person's taxes. So they calculate on the spot what the ticket will be. And so very wealthy people, if they're speeding quite a bit, will get a very large traffic fine, which of course will be large enough so... And people who make very little will get a smaller one, but enough to make them uncomfortable with speeding, as a consequence of speeding or whatever, they have a little discomfort with that person.

[54:14]

But they try to make it about the same. And And I mentioned after I told that story that there, actually the way I said was that, I said, but there was no reduction in the amount of violations, of traffic violations. But I looked at the article again and what it said to show that there's a reduction in violations, in the number of violations. which means they maybe haven't studied it yet, or the inconclusive research on whether it reduces the number of violations. And afterwards, I think he said something like, well, he had some problem with the number of violations going down. And I thought, What we might make possible is a society where people live in harmony with other violators.

[55:28]

It isn't that we make the laws so that people will stop violating them. People probably will not stop violating them because basically we're all violators. But there's a way of relating to our violations to promote a sense of working together and suffering together equally. Continue to be violators, living with violators, rather than be non-violators living with violators. Even while still being violators, we can have, perhaps, peace and harmony and happiness together before we get old. So I think that in the path of the Buddha it's not so much about eliminating evil

[56:37]

It's not like eliminating evil, like eliminating people who are not enlightened. It's not about eliminating people who make mistakes, big mistakes and little mistakes. It's about realizing enlightenment. It's about realizing that the people who make mistakes, which might include us, are close friends, so that we can be in peace and harmony with each other Now, rather than after everybody becomes perfect, which I don't know when that will be. Rather than after evil is eliminated, you know, after we get rid of the evil people and just us good people are left. Have you heard about that scenario? We're the good country, you know, and we get rid of the evil countries. Whoa, wait a minute. Having peace now with people who do not have wisdom and therefore if you don't have wisdom you're more or less going to violate some law.

[57:54]

You're going to violate the law of interdependence if you're not enlightened to a certain extent. Until you're enlightened you're going to at least a little bit go against the law of your close relationship. The law is, the Buddha's law is we're closely related. That's the law. If we don't understand that, then we have trouble living in accord with that. That's a violation. But we can work towards peace and harmony even prior to everybody becoming enlightened. So the world can be transformed without, we say, without moving a particle of dust. Nobody can be better than what they are right now And we realize that all of us, the way we are right now, are as close as close can be. That people who are confused, animals that are confused, are just as beautiful as animals that aren't confused.

[59:06]

Confused grandchildren give off a great light. They're beautiful. But they're confused and they're frightened and they can be violent. Highly evolved meditators who are not afraid anymore and not violent, they're also beautiful and they give off the same light as the confused people. So we have confused children and we have some mature practitioners in this world. They're closely related and right now we can realize this enlightenment without anybody, without turning down any kinds of violations. Now if one realizes become free of violations, yes. Once you're enlightened you probably won't speed anymore when you're driving.

[60:12]

Unless perhaps it would be very helpful to everybody, which it might be sometime. It might help somebody for you to speed to get them to a hospital. Possible. It's, you know, it could happen. But usually we're speeding out of fear. and violence, usually. So that kind would drop away. So anyway, it's kind of an unusual perspective, I think. Usually people think, you know, we're trying to eliminate evil. Even if we don't go for the most gross evil that we hear on television and stuff, still there's some tendency to think, well, if we practice we'll eliminate evil, but that would be like eliminating children. of little people are usually not very enlightened. They're usually very scared and confused and beautiful.

[61:16]

So it's nice that we see their beauties so that we don't try to hurt them when they're violent, right? You know, they're so beautiful we just hesitate to, like, eliminate the little murderers. But if they were being strong, they would kill people. My grandson really used to like to hit me with hammers and throw rocks at me. You know, so it was a delicate process of disarmament. So now he comes at me mostly unarmed. So we're working with that and it's going quite well. I just thought I wanted to mention that because I think it was for me a nice insight to see around this traffic thing. You know, maybe they don't have less traffic violations in Finland, but I think it's a more harmonious situation. And 80% of the people go along with it.

[62:18]

And I don't know whether 80% are the rich or the poor. I don't know about that part. But 80% is pretty good. I once got a ticket in San Jose, a parking ticket, and one time recently I got it, and I was actually completely happy. It was a wonderful experience. It was a beautiful experience. I'll tell you about that if you want to hear. But it looks like we have a question from Jerry. Oh, I just had a comment. In this country, we do have something that's sort of equal in community service, because if you're sentenced to community service, like I think Paris Hilton... Community service, well everybody's the same in community service, doesn't matter how much you do. No, that's nice. Except that some people are so rich that there's no problem for them to, you know, be off of work for a week. And other people, if they get community service, their family really has a hard time if they don't go to work. So still, you can do community service plus several hundred thousand dollar fine.

[63:23]

So this guy, one guy got a $204,000 ticket for speeding. 170,000 euros. But, you know, he's a billionaire. So for him, that was like us getting, you know, $100, $100 or $50. And if we're poor, it'd be like us getting $10. So... We don't know what that guy said when he got the ticket. Finland's a great country. I love living here. I'm a happy billionaire. Yes? So are you part saying about this kind of story that justice is a means by which we express ourselves? Yeah, justice is a means to express and realize our closeness. Exactly.

[64:28]

The point of justice is not just justice. It's to realize beauty of all things. Some things, not just the beauty of the judge, or the lawyers, or the defendant, or the prosecutor, is to realize the beauty of the whole situation. That's justice. Justice is when everybody feels like, yes, you know, when both sides of an argument feel, you know, peace and harmony with each other. It can happen. You can be arguing with somebody and come to harmony about it. In peace, it's possible, even though you're both violators. And peace and harmony doesn't usually occur when one side's right and the other's wrong. And some people feel like, well, if that's the price of peace and harmony, forget it. I'd rather be right than have peace. Well, I'd rather have peace than be right.

[65:30]

I'd rather be in harmony and in love than be right. Although being right, if I don't have harmony and peace, I'll take being right. Just kidding. Actually, I think if I don't have harmony and peace, it's better for me to be wrong. So I'll be motivated to not get right, but realize peace. And I think, actually, when I feel like I'm wrong, I'm usually a little bit more open to than when I'm right. I don't have to be peaceful, I'm right. And I don't like that. Is there anything else you want to bring up? Any feedback for me? Yes? When you're talking about people who violate the law... When I talk about people who violate the law, yes. Yeah.

[66:33]

Yeah, right. Believing self-centered thoughts, being caught by self-centered thoughts is a kind of violation of your non-self-centered... In enlightenment, self-centered thought is close friends with non-self-centered thought.

[67:33]

Those who are not caught by self-centered thoughts are closeness and close friendship between them and the people who are caught by self-centered thought. That's enlightenment. It's not that enlightenment is over on the side of those who have realized it. Enlightenment is actually the closeness with those who have not. That's what I'm suggesting. I'm not putting enlightenment over on those who understand. It's not theirs. And they don't think that way. People who are not enlightened sometimes think that enlightenment is theirs. People who, yeah, they're caught by that idea that enlightenment is theirs. People who realize enlightenment are not caught by the idea that enlightenment's theirs or not theirs. That's part of their realization. And they also realize that those who do not realize it, and they can see who has not, and a lot of people who have not, and they'll tell you the reason why they know they have not is because they think they have it.

[68:47]

And they know that's stupid, but still that's the way they are. And they don't understand how they're not separate from the other people. They don't understand that, and they admit it sometimes. Those who understand that understand that they're not separate from those who do not. That relationship is enlightenment. So enlightenment isn't devoid of people not understanding. It is the way those who do not understand are close to those who do, and the way that those who do not understand are close to those who do not understand. It's the way... They might if it would help people, but they wouldn't do it by compulsion and obsession. They would do it just relating to someone that it would be helpful to have that thought for. They would do it creatively. But they wouldn't be stuck, they wouldn't be caught on it.

[69:49]

They would just offer it up like, okay, I'll try on self-centeredness so I can argue with you about whose breakfast this is and demonstrate to you that I can have a self-centered thought without being caught on it. That could happen. But again, they don't feel separate from those who do, so having someone close to you who is involved in self-centeredness is just as good as you yourself having the thought about your own self-centeredness. It doesn't matter who's got it. Everything's close friends. And the picture is not a big deal. But you are someplace in the picture and you accept it, but if somebody wants you to change places, you're willing to do it if it would work. So there's flexibility and fearlessness and creativity. Does that make, like, perfect sense? I think maybe you were next, and then... Yes? This discussion makes me feel very uncomfortable on the side of a little bit angry.

[70:55]

She said this discussion makes her uncomfortable on the side of being . Yes. Because I feel that we are sitting here discussing this with one another and talking about how we relate and what we're doing, And there's an entire different of the way the world works among people who have a lot of power and a lot of money. And these people don't seek enlightenment usually or often. And they do think it's actually torture other people. or give directions to people in our position to torture other people. And I really am having... I think this is a very, very passive way to think about... The only thing that I can... Can you hear her?

[72:04]

The only thing, the only really extreme, and there's many, many, many degrees... But the most extreme thing is, well, number one would be torturing other people and number two would be wrongfully throwing them into jail when they haven't committed the crime that they are convicted of. And there are prosecutors who work to do that and they know that they're doing this. They will tell you, they will admit that to you sometimes. The prosecutors will admit that they're doing that. Sometimes. Pardon? Almost never. No, I'm just saying, you said they know they're doing it. They know they're doing it. Yeah, and what I'm saying to you is they will sometimes admit it. In other words... I've never seen one admit it. Oh, I have. Oh, okay. So I'm just saying, I agree with you. They not only know that they're... It's not just that you know that they're doing it, they will tell you that they know they do it.

[73:06]

People have confessed to this. And sometimes they confess with no remorse, and sometimes they confess with great remorse. Anyway, I'm agreeing with you, plus. But they don't confess during the trial. Usually they don't. I'm going to convict this person of committing this crime. It's very rare. So I really have trouble, and it makes me kind of annoyed to see people who are saying, Folk here who have minor incomes and are trying to get a lot in the world need to see the beauty in torture. So you have a problem with that? I do have a problem. And you expressed it? Yeah. And I heard you. Okay. And now you want me to say something about that? Yeah. I, um, when you say you have a problem with people saying, I'm what? I have little income and what's the other thing?

[74:07]

Oh, no, I don't have a problem with people saying you have a small income. I'm having trouble with the people in our position sitting around in a group saying there's beauty in all things. Absolutely. Okay, and I accept that you do. And I still say, not so much that there's... I don't say there's beauty in all things. I say all things are beautiful, but not in themselves. but in the way that everyone sees it. That's what I'm saying. And I'm not saying you have to see it that way. I'm just saying that if you can see it that way, you will be part of realizing enlightenment and you will be more effective in helping these people who you're speaking to. You will be more able to help them wake up and realize enlightenment. But if you look at the rich people who are contributing to cruelty towards other beings, if you look at them and you don't think they're your close friend, the vision of them as not your close friend will block you from being able to most effectively relate to them and come to a non-violent understanding

[75:31]

harmonious relationship with them and helping them then be less violent and harmonious with other people. That's what I'm proposing. That if I really can see the beauty in a rich, powerful person who is contributing to violence and cruelty, if I can see that, I will be unafraid of the person, I will be able to be more creative with the person, I will be able to go up to when the conditions are right and wait for the conditions to be right and fearlessly go up to them and talk to them with the understanding of my closeness to them and there's a chance that they will actually be able to see that I see that and they will listen to me perhaps and in that relationship there's a possibility of arriving transformation which is of the type you were hoping for that this person would change and stop contributing violence and cruelty among beings. That's my proposal.

[76:35]

And when I say this, I irritate some people. If I would say it in some other group, I would irritate some people. So what I'm saying is, in some sense, shocking to people. To say that you're close friends, actually close friends with these people you're talking about. But if you actually could realize that, you could walk up to them and interact with them fearlessly and nonviolently. If you don't understand your close friends with somebody who is really different from you and really disagrees with you, it's pretty hard for you not to be afraid of them, especially if they're powerful. But when you're really close to someone and you realize that, I should say when you are, when you realize that you are, you won't be afraid of these powerful people and you will be able to go to them and meet them and realize beauty together with them and that will bring, I'm suggesting, will promote peace and harmony.

[77:42]

And I encourage you to keep telling me if you're irritated with the way I'm talking. I want to reward you for that, even though you weren't trying to get a reward. Yes? Cultivation of love. Yeah, it's cultivation of love. And when love enlightens me, suffering is compassion. What you were talking about is compassion. Yeah. From the point of view of the Buddha's teaching, rich, powerful people who are using their power for unwholesome purposes are objects of compassion. Buddha feels compassion for these rich, powerful people who are unskillfully using their position. Well, they're coming from suffering. Their suffering comes from a lack of wisdom and compassion, which most children are lacking.

[78:50]

So they grow up with fear and violence, and some of them become very powerful as a way of defense from the lack of wisdom and compassion. And they are, all along the way, they're objects of compassion. However, some people do not receive enough wisdom and compassion to help them evolve to be nonviolent adults. So then we have violent adults who we are closely related with and who are objects of compassion. Violent people are objects of compassion. And if we feel close to them, our compassion is not hindered. But you can be compassionate from somebody at a distance if they're going to hit you. But not because of fear, but because you just feel like you can talk to them better when they're not hitting you. So if they can't reach you, it's easier to say, I love you, and keep it up.

[79:55]

But if you get close and they start putting their fist in your mouth, it's hard to say, I love you. So distance is sometimes a good way to negotiate with somebody who you're close to. When we're not enlightened, we are objects of compassion, no matter how unenlightened we are. I love this conversation, and I love what you brought to it, because it's one way to hear, and it's so verified to it. So, I mean it. I thought it's very important that she brought this, I don't know your name? Jan. Jan, that she brought this discussion in, where it's messy and hurtful. Relax into it. It's one way to hear concept. And I think we're dealing with it all day. Just what I want to do offer is, when I've heard you speak and heard about the pain in it, I've thought to myself, well, where is it that I'm not separate from the person you talk about? And the closest I can come to for myself is as a mother.

[80:58]

You know, I don't put my... but I may have put him into some timeouts for something he may not have ever done and caused some of that suffering on some minuscule scale that you're talking about when it's so big and bold, it's just so hard to carry with all of us. And it really is carrying all the suffering all the time, I think, that that's what... Oh, yes, excuse me, you were next, that's right. Valerian? Valerian? I didn't quite say that enlightened people weren't caught. But I could say that enlightened people are not caught by self-centered thoughts. Like you could dial in self-centered thought into their mind and they would go, oh, where'd that come from?

[82:06]

Cool. But they wouldn't like say, oh yeah, it's true. And then become real afraid because they're holding on to that. They would see it as an illusion, which it is. There's no independent self. They understand that. Therefore they can see beauty in everything. It's a little bit difficult for the other people now to understand, but we talked about the score in the practice period. And my understanding of it was that enlightened people have a cause and effect. So they can have this... That's your understanding? That's your understanding? Well, are you going to be around this spring? Later? Are you going to be in Green Gulch? Until August? Okay. Well, we'll study that koan. If you want to study that koan, we'll have a class on that later this spring.

[83:09]

And you can come and tell about your understanding. Okay? If you haven't turned into a fox before that. But I think it's hard to talk about that with the other people. They don't know what you're talking about. Most people who do not know, know the Fox Con. So can you wait and bring it up with the people who do know? Actually, it would be great if you did, if you still came to the class. So if you can program yourself to show up no matter what form you're in, that would be good. Yes, I think Lee may be next. I had an actual experience in which some of your teachings came to me, but I wasn't as skillful as I thought I was. I was going to a Christmas party. I was all dressed up. As Santa Claus? No. Okay. Yeah, pretty soon.

[84:12]

And... As I drove up and parked my rather large truck on someone else's rather large truck, our two rear view mirrors touched. Really? Yeah. Rear view mirrors on large trucks are now designed to sway away at the touch. Very clever. Incompassionate designers. It made a sound. And as I got out, my door also touched. It didn't hit, but it touched. And I got out to a stream of four-letter words that were coming at me faster than I could really actually hear them. So I apologized. I said, I'm so sorry.

[85:15]

I don't think I did any damage. Certainly, I hadn't scratched anything. But the other being was like, I don't know where they were, but they didn't hear what I said. They said, or the response was, no, you're not. You're not sorry. ...about anything. And my internal, my mind said, complete irrationality is facing me. Whoever I'm seeing must be in a haze and not know what's going on here. Because my perceptions of reality here are part of the field of the subject being. So I simply closed my mouth pulled my coat up, shut the door, scooted kind of by this exploding demon.

[86:19]

I sort of saw him. I took my friend's hand, turned my back, and walked away. And that worked, except that when I came back to my truck, the windshield wiper had been sprung. I felt very fortunate that all of it happened. Because I knew this terrible anger was definitely worked out somehow. So I didn't feel like calling to the situation. And I thought, perhaps in some cases, the judgment might be Oh, this is a completely irrational something, basically. Perhaps I shouldn't make the mistake of trying to be a dialogue. Can you comment on this case in the context that you're speaking here?

[87:27]

It sounds like you did quite well. And I think that... I need to be generous towards myself about my level of skill as it's presently manifested. And if I couldn't think of anything more skillful than what you did, and I'm not feeling that that was terribly skillful, I think I'd say, well, I'm having trouble seeing this person as my grandson. and I accept my limitation and I feel generous towards myself being kind of limited and humbled by this particularly challenging situation. I would like to be more skillful but I wasn't terribly skillful at this time. I feel good about letting myself be just the way I am. Even though the way I am I don't feel so good about.

[88:36]

but I feel good about being able to let myself be that I don't feel so good about. I don't feel actually good about myself being less than my potential, but I feel generous towards myself when I'm less than my potential. I feel generous towards myself when I'm not feeling good about missing a great opportunity. And so I look forward to the next one. So I think that's how I feel towards what you did. I feel generous towards your story, and I think it would be good for you to feel that way, too. You're welcome. Yes? Yes? So, we're dying. We recently had someone request to die. Would you both like to come up here?

[89:50]

I feel funny talking way across the room about this. Is that all right? If you could sit here. You lost someone recently that you love? It's the beauty of the process that I am able to, at times, truly realize and embrace. And in that I find peace. And beauty just feels, it just is. Yes, right. That sounds good. And so I do really experience that. Yes. it disappears. Yes. And I'm left with just the weight that just... It's just... Yeah.

[91:02]

It's just... Yeah. Oh, this sounds normal and good. I was just... After the talk, I went... Actually, her partner had an accident and this afternoon at 2 o'clock they're going to stop the life support. And I talked to her about how trying to, how to be of this moment with him, the beauty of the last moments of life, of living, and the beauty of dying and the beauty of death. But I also said that usually there's some resistance to losing the life of someone you love.

[92:05]

And that resistance, that clinging, blocks the vision of the beauty. And sadness or grief, that heavy feeling, if you can accept that heavy feeling, you're down. Don't resist. we're resisting the change and then the heaviness is a kind of another offering. And if you can feel the heaviness and let it take you down or feel it going down and feeling that heavy grieving thing, that will open you to the beauty again. And then that's a momentary opening, and then more heaviness may come to address another form of resistance to the change. It will help you open to the beauty of the process. But it happens in a moment that you open, and then you go back to the practice, which will be grieving for quite a long time, probably.

[93:18]

like a year, because like each season offers different opportunities, different ways of caring, different associations, different dimensions of your bodily relationship with the person. So the grieving, the heaviness goes with the opening process, which is the beauty of, the beauty is your relationship with this person. And the whole natural process. And the whole process. And it's your relationship to the person, and it's your relationship to everybody, and everybody's relationship to this person. People feel it's unfortunate that death has to be the occasion for opening to beauty. But sometimes because of that, we open in situations where we wouldn't open before. The power of grieving opens us. So the heaviness, if you can accept it, which we usually don't want to accept, but now if you accept it, this will help you open to something which under ordinary circumstances you may be too busy to open to.

[94:32]

So the heaviness is not contradictory to the beauty, it's an offering. Then in the accepting you open to the beauty again. So it's kind of a normal dynamic. Accepting the darkness, you open to the light. Resisting the darkness, Because when we lose someone we love, we feel dark. If we accept the dark, we accept the light. If we resist the darkness, that's our normal situation, is we resist the darkness. But sometimes when the darkness gets so strong, we accept it more. And then we open to something which we usually are closed to. I don't know what it is. Anyway, it's kind of ironic that people sometimes feel most alive at funerals. And most sexy at funerals.

[95:34]

Because somehow when we open to the loss, we open to the life. We would feel more alive when someone we love dies. But we're not more alive. We're open because, you know, so... We're present, too. Yeah, we're present. You stop. You stop, yeah. You slow down. Open. So it sounds like you're doing well. Thanks. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks for coming up here. I didn't want to yell this. We'll take our place. Okay. There. Okay. Anything else you want to bring up today? Yes. I believe that for the most part, I come to my work and to the people that I work with quite with equanimity.

[96:56]

Can you hear her? She says she comes to her hospice work, her hospice nursing, with equanimity for the most part. And so many times I'm walking into aversion. You're walking into the people feeling aversion in the room? Yeah. The loved ones have aversion, but also the dying person may have aversion. Yeah, that's normal. So that's one of the great challenges here, is how you can not have aversion How you can be generous towards the aversion. Again, like you'd be generous towards a child. You know, see the beauty of these people who have aversion. It's beautiful.

[97:59]

It's radiant. These people who have aversion. The whole universe is coming together to create this aversion person. And you can see that. And if you can see that, that light quietly pervades the room. But it's there. And you seeing it, the people can get ticked off without even stopping their aversion. They still feel their aversion, but somehow they feel your equanimity towards it and your generosity towards it. And your They feel that. And then they can tap into that too. And then they can see the light in this huge transition. For everybody. And it's not just one person's transition. It's everybody's transition. That's what's so radiant. Everybody's changed by one person.

[99:02]

And if you can be generous and patient with their aversion, you can help them realize the radiance, which, wonderfully, people do often get a glimpse of every time where you're concentrating. So that's the great thing about your work. But we all can do this, all of our work. It's not just in hospice work that we can do this, because every situation is created that surrounds it, by all the goodness and beauty that surrounds everything. But we have to be mindful of this and cultivate this, otherwise we could miss it. But it is possible to realize in the worst possible, in the worst of all possible worlds, we can realize enlightenment.

[100:11]

And if it's not the worst of all possible worlds, then we can do it there too. I think I'm supposed to stop now, aren't I? Pretty much? For lunch or something? Is that enough for today? Thanks for singing the song.

[100:34]

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