Yes. Yes. I wanted to talk about a conversation between Terry Tempest Williams and Timothy Christopher that was written up in a writing magazine or excerpted. And Timothy Christopher is a person who... Would you mind using this so people could hear you better? Thank you. Tim DeChristopher disrupted an auction of Utah wilderness territory that was being auctioned off for drilling. And he went in, and when he saw the parcels being sold for $8 or $10, he started bidding up the price. And, of course, he didn't have a dime. I mean, he was not a rich man at all. He was not an oil man. And so he disrupted the auction.

[01:02]

And for this, he was placed on trial. And before his sentencing hearing, he had a conversation with Terry Tempest Williams, who is an environmentalist from Utah. And she's written books called Desert Quartet and Refuge, which was the story of I'm just so familiar with these places. Refuge is the story of the Brigham City bird refuge where she visited while her mother was dying of cancer. And it was a book about the combination of those two experiences. And so she's talking to Tim DeChristopher the day before his sentencing hearing. And she says, why are you so serene? They're going to sentence you to two years in jail tomorrow. And he said, I am so willing to go to jail for what I did. And so as the conversation went on, Terry Tempest Williams said, you know, my friends and family tell me that I am wedded to sorrow.

[02:10]

But she says, I am not wedded to sorrow. I just do refuse to look away. And I wanted to bring that story. It was in Orion Magazine and I read it online. Thank you for sharing that story. Yes, please come up and use the microphone. Hello. Hello. I'd like to ask you, can everyone hear me? This is weird. I wanted to ask you what you meant by imagination when you mentioned imagination in your talk. When I hear imagination, what comes to mind is kind of making things up or creating or fabricating a type of reality. So I was wondering when you used imagination, it seemed like you used the word with a type of openness as opposed to making something up.

[03:25]

So I just wanted to clarify that. Our life does seem to have a creative potential to make images in response to the ongoing living process. And so when the images sometimes come with a sense of that the images refer to something that actually is part of what often is involved with imagination but doesn't need to be.

[04:37]

And in some ways when you imagine that you're hearing the song of the mountains, you might be able to receive that image of the song of the mountains without thinking that there's actually a substantial thing called the song of the mountain that's out there separate from the image. That would be a liberated way of using imagination. So we can not only make images, but we can also make the image that the image refers to something other than itself. That's a mistaken imagination. That's a misconception. But in fact, our mind does render a life that isn't really heard or seen into visual and auditory images.

[05:43]

It does that. And that can be very useful to wake people up. But it also entails falsely appearing images too. So we must use imagination in order to free ourselves from imagination. We are, to some extent, trapped in our imaginative processes and we need to practice the imagination in such a way as to receive teachings about how we can become free of this process. But you have to use the imagination to become free of imagination. And one of the basic imaginations that's really troublesome is the imagination that what we know and the process of knowing are separate.

[06:50]

We imagine that. That's false. But it's not false that there's some relationship between mind as knowing and mind as what is known. That's not false. It's just that the appearance that they're separated is false. So, again, I'm saying that we need to, not we need to, but it is beneficial to study imagination to learn about imagination, to celebrate imagination, and also be aware of how it... And part of the study is to become aware of how it can entrap us and mislead us. Okay? Does that address your question? Yes. And then another question that immediately popped up for me was how does one...

[07:53]

How does one do that? How does one, I guess, cultivate that aspect of imagination? Which one? Which aspect of imagination? The receptive one as opposed to the... kind of reinforcing these conceptions, I guess. Well, if you wish to understand imagination in such a way as to become free of it, and when you're free of it, then be able to use it in a way to free other beings from it, the first thing to do is to be generous towards it.

[09:23]

In other words, practice generosity and welcome the imagination, even, you know, welcome whatever it is, welcome it. And you said the receiving side, so the receiving side is an important dimension of the practice of giving that you receive, but also that you generously give your attention to images that every image is an opportunity for the practice of giving, which is to receive the image and to notice if there's any stinginess involved in the relationship with the image that's being offered, and there's a generosity towards it. And this process, when it becomes full, is wisdom. In other words, when you are fully practicing generosity with images, you will become free of the images. However, it's hard to complete the practice of generosity without moving on then to work with the images of ethics.

[10:32]

So you could have images which aren't particularly bearing on ethics, like the image of a person or the image of a mountain. But then you also then, if you feel you're practicing generosity towards it, then maybe you could move on to notice, are you being possessive of the of the land or the mountains or the people? Are you being in any way dishonest with the situation? Are you trying to get something from the situation that isn't being given? Are you Are you thinking you're better than some image? Are you speaking about the image in such a way that you're not cultivating respect and so on? So it's possible to be generous, but these kind of sloppy and these ethical dimensions. So then you do those. And that's part of enhancing the giving. And you move on to be patient because some images are, you know, for example, the image of being enclosed or trapped by our story of the world.

[11:40]

and being rigid about it, it's painful. So we have to practice being able to be present with the discomfort of our imagination. And then we need to really develop a lot of enthusiasm for being diligent about all of our wholesome practices and particularly be enthusiastic about being very concentrated and flexible with whatever the image is. And then we're ready to receive the teachings about the nature of images. and then receiving these teachings in a state of tranquility and concentration and flexibility supported by these earlier practices, then you can see that the image is just an image and that everything that exists does not exist apart from an image or putting a word on it. It doesn't mean everything is a word, it just means things don't exist apart from giving them a word.

[12:45]

And that words don't refer to something other than the word. So you learn that and then you become free of words, images. And then you can use the words and images to encourage other people to study their imagination and become free of it. to use our imagination to hear that the whole world is asking us to care for it and sing for it and ask for the things that the whole world's asking for and to do that without trying to get anything. And when we have wisdom we can sing the song of all beings for the sake of all beings. But without wisdom we we're somewhat limited in our ability to practice the very practices which take us to wisdom. Once we realize wisdom, we can do the same practices of generosity and so on free of our ideas of generosity and so on.

[13:54]

So we're quite open when we're practicing generosity to people telling us how stingy we are. We can say thank you very much to that and really mean it. I think you are next. Yes, please come. The gentleman standing and now approaching the microphone. You first spoke about... Can I just sit down? Oh, sure. I'm a little nervous. I've been blessed to be involved with music for the Buddhist birthday pageant over many years, occasionally. Like this? Like this? Okay. What instruments do you play? I'm thinking about the flute, bamboo flute, the thing I've studied most. And I've also been playing the thumb piano and helping coordinate percussion and odd things here and there.

[14:59]

You talked about playing the soft pipe in your head. I didn't actually say playing it in your head. No. I said, I was just quoting Mr. Yates saying, therefore ye soft pipes. So he's looking at the urn, right? And he's probably seeing a picture of a person playing a flute. And it's a soft pipe. Not everybody can hear that sound. the tone. But the imagination can hear the tone that's being played by those flutists from 2,000 years ago. And please, please keep piping those soft tunes to the spirit to nourish my spirit so that I can sing this poem for eternity. endless generations of people to also hear the song coming. You know, you say the words of the poem, you know.

[16:03]

If you read that poem and memorize that poem, you're reading a poem. And while you're reading a poem, you can hear another poem. Or while you're reading the poem, you know, you see, you can feel the heat of a hot summer day in Greece, you know. You can see the people leading the heifer to the to the sacrifice, you can see the shimmering flanks, you know, and you can feel like you're in Greece. How did we get that? So he looked at the urn, he received this song with his imagination, and then his voice and his words sang that song for the urn. and for all of us to learn how to receive what our spirit can hear, what our imagination can hear, and then again to sing.

[17:05]

So you receive this, like you receive the melody which no one before it can be heard, and then you can make the melody come out for people to hear, and then they can, by hearing that melody, perhaps they can hear the other melody which they've never heard. I guess I'm thinking about, as I'm playing, what's a... I mean, maybe this is the practice. This is the practice to keep hearing in my own head and do my best to share that. There's some particular... Yeah. What? I think that's probably enough. Okay. Yeah. I'd love to hear more. I want to share... Thank you for singing your song with your pipe. Yes.

[18:11]

So I heard you speak of John Keats and I heard what you said. And I had read that poem many times when I was in school. And I remembered everything I felt when I read the poem, but today heard differently, subjectively, personally, that I am suffering from my attachment to speak to my children and to be heard and understood. And I'm in that way... You have some attachment to being understood by your children? That's my baseline problem. Suffering is my attachment to being understood. So emphatically... It's something you really want. You want to be understood. Yeah, it's one of those human things. It's one of those human things. Yeah, it's one of those human things and we should be generous towards that desire and even generous towards the attachment to that desire.

[19:24]

I'm afraid to sit with that because it makes me really feel pain. The recognition and then the determination to be generous with it and sit with it, I'm afraid to sit with the recognition that I have a problem with my attachment to being understood. I don't want to want. You don't want to want? Yeah, exactly. Well, if you don't want to want, that's something to be generous towards. And if that drops away and you just want, that's something to be generous towards. If we can be really generous to our wants, there would be no attachment to our wants. But usually when we have a want, before we have a chance, we already attach to it. So usually we don't have a chance to be generous so quickly and so fully that we just want, 100% want.

[20:34]

So the teaching is that Even if you are attached to your wants in the fullness of the want and the attachment to the want, that's exactly the same as freedom from wants and attachment to wants. So we have to practice with our wants so completely that we realize there's no difference between attachment to our wants and freedom from attachment to our wants and freedom from our wants. In the moment, in the car, driving the kid to the jazz thing he's playing in the mission, I failed in having practiced a week of non-rebuttal when I was in a pressure situation. So I had a week of non-reactivity. You had a week of non-reactivity?

[21:35]

Uh-huh, I was celebrating a week of non-reactivity. Amazing. I know. Anyway, that's wonderful, but as I said earlier, if we wish to protect the great earth and all living beings, that is accomplished by noticing our, I said shortcomings, but noticing our failures. But noticing our failures is somewhat, you know, uncomfortable. But that's the work of really protecting beings, is to be thorough about noticing those things. Thank you for your talk earlier, Reverend Anderson. You're welcome. A phrase that sort of kept going with me was when you said, what shortcomings, what shortcomings?

[22:40]

that's a tricky place for me. I think you spoke somewhat to it in an earlier response to a question when you talked about sloppiness, sometimes coming up with ethical precepts and sort of a question of how mistakes fit into that and sort of Sangha practice. And I wondered if you might speak a little bit to that. Speak a little bit about what? A little bit about mistakes. Mistakes? And shortcomings. Well, you said sloppiness also, you know. And when you said sloppiness, I thought about, I don't know if you noticed when I first got up to sit, I was arranging my robes for kind of a long time. And I didn't think, oh, my robes are sloppy. I didn't think that about my robes.

[23:44]

But I did notice that they were kind of calling for lots of attention this morning. So I felt like in some ways, I didn't think this, but talking to you now, it might have been kind of sloppy if I hadn't actually... Received their requests to keep working at arranging them until they were kind of like happily settled in their usual position but they were like Much more complicated presentation than usual. So it took me a long time One I could say I could have the image that I would that I would have been sloppy if I hadn't listened to the and observed the calls and and the restraints and the limitations of the robe. Now I could have said, I could have gently said, dear robes, this seems to be going on for so long now, these people probably need to be, I need to talk to them about this.

[24:46]

So I probably would have said to people, do you want me to keep working on my robes? Do you want, did you come here for anything other than to watch me arrange this cloth? And the people might have said, you know, something like, no, go ahead, keep working at it. But I was, it was taking a long time. In other words, I was, I felt like I, I don't feel regretful about the way I took care and gave care to my robes. I felt like I gave them a really generous amount of time and effort. And I thought we worked things out quite well in the end. For me not to like notice that, I would have think I missed an opportunity and that in a sense would have been messy or sloppy. To not deal with messes, you know, without carefully negotiating not dealing with it is kind of sloppy. And I would regret that. If I set things down or pick things up, I regret if I don't do that wholeheartedly.

[25:47]

Some things are neat, so picking them up and setting them down may seem rather simple. Some things are very complex, so picking them up and setting them down is quite complex. But I wish to give my full attention to what I'm doing, and when I don't, I feel like, I'm sorry I missed an opportunity. I don't get... I'm not very mean to myself. Some people maybe wish I was a little bit more mean. But when I don't do things thoroughly, I often notice it and I often feel sorry and reiterate my enthusiasm for doing things thoroughly and carefully. That's kind of being generous with a shortcoming. So for me, it's a mistake if I don't do things carefully. Because I want to do things carefully, so I want to take things carefully.

[26:50]

I want to take things seriously, but not too seriously. So if I take them too seriously or not serious enough, that's a mistake for me. And I'm sorry about that. But I'm happy to be sorry. I'm happy to be sorry about what I'm not doing. when I'm not doing what I want to do. I'm happy about that. I'm joyful at this practice because I understand it's part of becoming free of shortcomings. It's part of becoming free of mistakes is to be kind to mistakes and notice them and be kind to them. Notice them, feel sorry because it's a mistake and it's not what I want to do and be kind to them in that way and then reiterate my desire to practice them. And then we get to the place where we become free of mistake. It's been proposed we become free of mistakes and also free of what?

[27:51]

No mistakes. Free of no mistakes and free of mistakes. And if you practice being thorough With your mistakes, that means you're generous, careful and attentive, patient with them, calm with them, and also you see their nature. And that will also apply then to non-mistakes, or as you said, this lady said, non-reactivity, is that what you said? So you would do the same with that, although we didn't ask you to do that. Thank you for your story and your practice. You're welcome. Yes? When you say free from mistakes, do you mean that the mistakes go away or that we don't attach to them? I mean that you don't attach to them.

[28:53]

You're free and happy and unconstrained by your mind. We accept the mistakes. I accept my mistakes. And your mistakes, yeah. You're free of getting tangled up in your mind, which has mistakes in it sometimes. Yes? So that's what you mean when you say being attached to our mistakes is the same as being free from Being attached to our mistake is the same as being free of them. Yeah, exactly. If you fully exert your attachment to your mistakes, you'll find that that's not the slightest bit different from the full freedom from your mistakes and also full freedom from your attachments to your mistakes. The world of making mistakes and grasping them is the world of birth and death.

[29:54]

And the full, wholehearted living of that world is not the least bit different from the full living of freedom. They're not any different. Neither of those two things, neither freedom nor being caught up in mistakes exists apart from giving it a name. It isn't like, you know, suffering exists apart from giving it a name. It's not like that. Suffering does not exist apart from giving it a name. Suffering does exist, suffering does have an identity, but its identity is just its name, just a word. But it isn't that freedom gets promoted above that. Freedom has the same status. It doesn't exist apart from the word freedom either. Of course, when I think about that, I think, well, that sounds like freedom.

[30:56]

That freedom wouldn't be something that exists apart from the word freedom. Otherwise, you could get freedom. Like, there's the word freedom, and then there's the real freedom you can get. No, there's no real freedom apart from the fake freedom, the imagined freedom. Okay? Looks like you're trying to get a real freedom. Even though a few minutes ago you were okay with a kind of a, just a kind of like a, you know, what is it? A what? A freedom you get a hold of. We want a freedom that we can grasp. But freedom is actually the lack of a basis to grasp anything. That's what freedom is. And the lack of a base of grasping everything, anything, is not the slightest bit different from grasping things.

[32:06]

And imagine that there is a basis for grasping things. They're not the slightest bit different. But from the side of grasping, they look different. From the side of not grasping, they look identical. Okay, but take it back to suffering. Suffering, yes. Yeah, take it to suffering. We're at suffering now. What? We got suffering now? Yeah. Okay, so what do we do with it? be generous to it, kind to it, ethical. Yeah, and when we're ethical and really ethical with it, thoroughly ethical, thoroughly attentive, thoroughly generous, thoroughly patient, and deeply calm with it, then we can see this suffering does not exist apart from giving it a name. And we can open to that teaching without thinking, well, if it doesn't exist apart from giving it a name, I don't care about it.

[33:12]

Or other people's suffering doesn't matter and neither does mine. In other words, you can become nihilistic. But it isn't that we say it doesn't matter. We say, now that you've completely devoted yourself compassionately to the suffering, now you're ready for the teaching of perfect wisdom. which is this suffering does not exist apart from giving it a name. And this name does not refer to something other than the way we gave it a name. And the way we gave it a name maybe makes sense. The way I'm naming this, it makes sense to me that I would call it suffering. You know, that I would call being afraid, feeling separate from people, being impatient with people, trying to control people. All that stuff comes with thinking that people are something more than giving them a name.

[34:13]

That they exist as something apart from the language I use to imagine them. So I honor this suffering, but now I'm also ready for a teaching which is saying that this suffering does not exist apart from giving it a name. But I wouldn't give you that teaching if you weren't devoted to caring for all suffering beings and not stop caring about them when you realize freedom from suffering by this teaching. Okay? Yes? Thank you. Anything else today? Yes? Can I ask you a question? What's the name tag for? Thank you.

[35:21]

When are you leaving? Okay. I guess I have to go before you. Go ahead. It would have been me stumbling with my robes in front of a group of people. I would have probably given up on it and sat with my arm stuck because I would have been afraid that people would be impatient. They wouldn't care to watch me. And I value you talking about that because I see so many times where I rush over things because of that fear. I can imagine that practicing, taking my time in the face of other people and their potential There's an idiom called taking your time or taking my time.

[36:32]

and I'm not suggesting to change the idiom, but inwardly, I might say to myself, give my time, rather than take my time. So I gave my time to caring for the robes. Now I'm in a kind of, what do you call it, it's a word, the word is, privileged position, that when people come here for a talk, a lot of them understand that sitting and watching me spend a long time arranging my robes, that that might be as good a teaching as anything I would say. Whereas if you are, I don't know what the word is, there was this TV show when I was a kid called The Honeymooners, And one of the characters in the show was played by the actor Art Carney. I think his name on the show was Norton. And one of the things he did sometimes is that I think the other guy, Ralph Cramden, would sometimes get Norton into a position where Norton was supposed to sign something, sign some document,

[38:06]

And then so the piece of paper would be there and then Norton would be given a pen and Norton would pick up the pen and then he'd kind of go, you know, get ready to write his name. Kind of like trying to relax, you know, and then he'd go. And then he'd start to write again, do it again. And Ralph Cranbourne would You could see his impatient building, and finally he would just collapse in rage. So I was not trying to adjust his robe to see how long you could stand it. I was actually responding to the robes, you know. They kept saying, well, actually, no. you know, you're not going to be able to move your arm and you might want to do that later.

[39:08]

I thought, what if I want to go like this? I won't be at the robe saying, you won't be able to, not unless you figure out, you know, where we are and how come that doesn't work. So, it was actually between me and the robes and you. But in some situations, you have Ralph Framdon there who's going to just like, Kim, sign it. You know? So, I also thought of this, he was called, I think his name was Starets Ambrosi. Starets is a Russian word which I think is related to some kind of like probably Hebrew word which means sage. It's what they called the, they called this sort of the gurus of Russian Orthodox. And the Starets Ambrosi One time a man came to see him to talk to him about his cow, some problem with his cow.

[40:13]

And the next person in line was a Russian prince. And Starr Sambrosi just kept talking to that farmer about his cow for a really long time. And the prince was getting more and more angry at him. But Starr Sambrosi was not afraid of the prince. And I don't imagine that he was talking to the farmer just to push the prince's patience. So I need to feel that taking care of these robes is taking care of all of you. It's not that I'm taking time and keeping you waiting for me to talk. is that I'm taking care of you by taking care of my robes. And I know you might get impatient with me if I'm taking care of my robes for you because you may not agree that me taking care of my robes is taking care of you.

[41:23]

And for me to take care of my speech and for me to listen to the soft pipes for you You may feel like I'm not listening to your loud pipes, your voice which I can hear with my central ear. So we need, as part of this practice, we need to be generous and careful and patient and courageous that what we're doing is so important. That even though people don't like it, we accept that. And so to give what you're doing, what it's being asked for, it is the case that some people will be impatient with you. And somebody actually told me that was in his talk this morning, that he actually had a hard time with my timings.

[42:27]

Because the space between my words, in the space between my words, he realized he was having trouble being present between the words. That was really hard for him. So usually people are talking to him at a speed at which he's not aware of himself between the words. He's just keeping up with the words. But the pace of my delivery made him aware of how difficult it was to be present between the words. He noticed his mind was flying off between my words and he didn't like that flying off. Whereas if you're talking, if people are talking fast enough to you, you don't notice, it's not so easy to notice your mind flying off. Does that make sense? But he says he really tried to be present and he finally was able to be present during the spaces between my words but it was really hard for him and he didn't like it. But I didn't feel like I was taking my time I was actually trying to hear I was actually trying to hear what the earth and the mountains were asking me to say.

[43:38]

So I have to kind of be quiet to hear the unheard song. And if you're not on board to listen to the unheard song with me, you might feel like, well, I'll I'll go do something else then for a while. But I don't want to do that because I came here to try to be with myself while I listen to this talk. So I think, like I said, I sense that people actually are willing to watch this robe thing for quite a while and realize that you don't... Usually when people sit down, like if somebody's wearing a certain kind of outfit, like, I don't know, spandex tights or something, they sit down and there's no adjustment necessary, right? They just sit down, there's no cloth interaction to witness. And some people who sit down with lots of loose cloth, like women who wear skirts and stuff, especially many skirts, they do sometimes adjust them for a while, and at a certain point you might feel like it's nervousness

[44:54]

And then you have a chance to be generous towards their nervousness. But in my case, I didn't feel like it was nervousness. I felt like I had a job to do. And I think most people accepted that. But I was on the verge of saying, wow, this is amazing how long this is going on, just sharing with people. But I thought, you know, kind of we knew. I thought everybody knew that I was really involved in this cloth thing. And these materials that I have on now, I have less cloth on, so I have less request of me. But at a certain point I might say to somebody, I'm imagining that you might be wondering why it's taking me so long to get situated. And the person might say, you're right. Or they might say, no, it's wonderful. Please continue. So you might share it with people. You know, in the story I told about the honeymooners, I think his name was Ed Norton. No, I don't know. Anyway, Mr. Norton, he didn't say, you know, Ralph, you're probably losing your patience, you know, watching me take so long to sign whatever this thing you wanted me to sign was.

[46:06]

He didn't say that. But I was on the verge of saying that. So you can say that to people. And sometimes that helps them tell you, no, it's fine to... take your time and I often tell people people sometimes come and talk to me and I sense they're rushing and I say in this meeting you know I want to tell you in this meeting you do not have to rush if you ever go too slowly for me you know that would be like I would really be amazed if anybody could go too slowly for me usually people are rushing And I need to tell them that I give them my support not to rush, to move and speak according to your, you know, the voice of the mountains. Try to speak from there. And it's hard for people to wait to hear their cue.

[47:14]

from the unheard pipes. But they're there. And to speak from there, I really want to make a space for people to do that. And when they get ahead of that and speak before they hear that, I let them do it for a while, but sometimes I point out that they don't have to rush. They can wait until they hear when it's really time to speak. But it's, you know, you may feel some people are not giving in that space because they're nervous and in the space between your words their mind goes flying all over the place and they don't want to deal with that. So sometimes people ask me questions and then it is quite a while between the end of their question and my response. And then sometimes they tell me it's really, you know, they have a problem with that space.

[48:16]

And so sometimes I say, well, you can say speak if you can't stand it. And also if it would help you, I will tell you in that space, I'm thinking. Would that help you? And they say, yes. I say, okay. Thinking. Still thinking. Thinking. Thinking. thinking, okay, here's my answer. Because I don't want to take my time, right? If the person's having a hard time with the silence between the end of their question and my response, I would like them to tell me this is too long. I sometimes ask people questions too and they sometimes take a long time and I try to accept that space And, you know, the thought does arise, will we be spending the rest of our life here together?

[49:19]

Will this conversation never end? Because your answer will never come? Or, you know, but you might feel sometimes, do you need any help? Can I help you with the answer? It's a delicate matter. Yes. You're all right asking from there? The quotes from Shelley about the mountains? The mountain wilderness has a mysterious tongue. That's one quote from... Is that the one you're thinking about?

[50:28]

The mountain wilderness has a mysterious tongue. And the second question, I've been thinking about your teaching about suffering... Not existing outside of the world. And I'm thinking about my grandchildren here visiting and watching them grow up. And they definitely suffered before they had the words for it. And part of the job of their parents seems to be giving them some language for that. So if they can identify it, they can say what it is that they're suffering about. Maybe the parents can't do something about it. It'd be unnecessary to put that in the picture. So I imagine they definitely have a concept.

[51:30]

You know, I want something, but I don't have it, so I'm suffering. Before they can actually say it. So I was just kind of looking at that in terms of . So there's kind of suffering before. Yeah, people often bring up pre-verbal children, children who don't have, have almost no words. So the little granddaughter I have now, I think maybe her first words were like this and that. But she knew how to point before she said the words. So this and that in very many languages correspond to this. So she had that before she had the word.

[52:34]

And also, I don't know. She had that before they had the word. So you offer this thing, you know. She had all these gestures, all these communications, and so the thing doesn't exist apart from, you know, you could say, well, the thing doesn't exist apart from those gestures. And then you might say, well, those aren't really words, but I don't want to force this exactly, but I just give it a little bit more chance here of saying that the way that this works and that works and this works, all that stuff works, that's the way words work. So even if you don't have this particular word of English or Chinese, you actually have the way the word works. Huh? No, I'm talking about that the existence of desires, the existence of them, doesn't exist apart from giving it a name.

[53:50]

And the meaning of the desire doesn't exist apart from the way language works with the desire. So that the way the child works with the desire where it's suffering is they think the desire is real and has some reality aside from the way that their mind is working with that image. And the way people are maybe not coordinated with that. So this little child who can't speak seems to be able to convey with her body that the situation of her life has become just like couldn't be worse. You know? She kind of goes... You know? It's just like, as much as I can tell you, this is like the most hopeless... the most terrible thing... Well, as far as I know, it's the most terrible thing I can imagine what just happened.

[54:59]

Very complete, and then they're ready to move on. In the fullness of that expression, in some sense, they verify that freedom is not the slightest bit different from it. And also that the freedom only exists... in, again, giving that a name. So we're watching, giving it names. We're saying she is so frustrated and the freedom is right there in the fullness of her frustration. But she doesn't necessarily see that. So the next time she's frustrated, she doesn't necessarily appreciate that freedom is close at hand. And she's actually heading for a development where she'll become probably, like most people, less able to so fully be frustrated as she is now. Because, like, when she does that, you know, most people... they would need several people to hold their body so that they could do that without getting hurt.

[56:06]

Because she just throws herself into infinity with the suffering. But we're holding her so she can really go through these amazing contortions because she's so flexible. And somebody's holding her so she won't fall on her head when she goes down. And so as we get older, people say, well, you know, we can't really support this kind of drama anymore. Now they have, you know, where she goes to play, they have these really soft, cushy places around the slides and stuff. So when the kids throw themselves and fall, they don't get hurt. It's very nice. But as they get older, they have to somehow restrain themselves in their expression. And then the obvious... intimacy of freedom and bondage is not so easy to see. Because they don't express themselves fully, society asks them not to express themselves so fully as they did when they were young. But I think I would say that the existence

[57:10]

the existence of the thing that they're suffering does not exist, certainly apart from these images. And these images seem to make sense according to grammar. The grammar that whatever these images are seems to be the grammar of language. So in that sense I think they're using language. And so maybe for a child saying that things don't exist for them that freedom and bondage don't exist for them apart from the words, I would say that, yeah, that maybe they don't know freedom and bondage yet. Maybe they only know the whatever it is that they're expressing by their physical gesture of frustration and definite preference for this over that, all these things. We don't really teach them that. I think they can learn these things. All they can do is be around us and they seem to learn these things. I don't know.

[58:15]

It's imagination, yeah. It's all imagination. That's the way things come to exist. Without imagination, things don't exist or not exist. But since that's where we're living, so now we're trying to use imagination to liberate beings from imagination, which is what encloses us. Okay? Is that enough for today? Thank you very much.

[58:45]

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