April 23rd, 2017, Serial No. 04368
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Yes. Well, this is not really like an existential concern for me. It's more theoretical. The relationship between infinity and intimacy. Because numerical infinity is one thing. All these billions of beats. And then infancy, where we do something like communion. And we can have a lifelong relationship with the single person. And at its best, it's always bringing off different new facets of exchange. And then there's this, what you might call a mystical community, where you have this exchange or interface So I don't know if you had any thoughts about that or not, but it did seem to me that you were using infinity and intimacy, not interchangeably, but sort of at the same time.
[01:14]
So for now I would suggest that we have an opportunity to work on being intimate with finite beings. And we can feel more or less wholehearted about a meeting with a finite being. a more or less willingness to be intimate with a finite being. Like people tell me, I'm not going to be intimate with so-and-so. So they can feel that they're not ready to open to some beings. But they can maybe open to that they're not ready. And they say, okay, I think I could be kind to my not wanting to be kind to that person.
[02:46]
So by being responsible to our face-to-face meetings in the finite, we can become more and more responsible in those meetings, in those conversations with finite beings. And so I think you mentioned that with a given individual you can become intimate and open to new facets. But another thing is the wholehearted relationship is that the other, the finite other calls you into question. And you can... it's possible to learn to accept being called into question. If I can accept being called into question by a finite being, I can also accept then I can gradually open to be called into question by an infinite being.
[03:58]
This relationship with an infinite being and then things will come to come up in the infinity, things will be revealed to me, which I may or may not be able to then enact finitely, but eventually I may be able to. So my intimacy with finite, with finitude, is part of, I would say, the requirement to have a to realize the benefits, the potential benefits of actually having an ongoing living relationship with infinity, with an infinite being. And I understand that that being is not going to fit into my consciousness, but as I open to it, stuff will appear in my consciousness
[05:10]
which are very helpful maybe. Like a story can appear. I know it's a story, but I feel like this story is true because it's part of this relationship with truth. And I know it's just a story. Now this story is true because this story says that this story is otherwise from this story. And a lot of stories don't say that to us. They say this story is the way this story is, rather than saying this story is otherwise from the way this story is. somebody said to me, just recently said, that he's stressed because he often wants things to be otherwise.
[06:17]
And I said, well, actually, if you really want something to be otherwise, you really want reality, because this thing is actually otherwise. But if you want this thing to be Way, a particular way, that's delusion. But if you just want it to be otherwise, and otherwise is like there's no limit to otherwise. It isn't like just another thing which is not otherwise, it's this. So things are actually otherwise. I am actually otherwise. I am actually everything that's not me. I'm not me. And I am me because of everything that's not me.
[07:20]
So the freedom comes from realizing that things are otherwise. archetypes are otherwise in the sense that something like a Jungian archetype or label might emerge, like say the Scarlet Woman breaking off in there. But then all of a sudden, there's kind of mythological archetypal elements. Like the otherwiseness of that is The other wiseness is that she, the Scarlet Woman in this case, is infinitely connected to all these other mythological things. Is that other wiseness that you might countenance? That is an other wiseness which I would countenance, which I would countenance, which I would face.
[08:30]
I would face that. And then I would, in the facing of that, I was completely or partially other. Because I'm talking about a completely other, not a partially other. Things are completely otherwise, not just a little bit otherwise. So you guys are, you know, actually quite just a tiny bit otherwise than me, right? I mean, your genes are almost identical to mine. You're a lot like me, really. Like someone pointed out, you know, they have these movies like Star Wars. But really, everybody in Star Wars is really pretty much like us. They try to make them other, but they don't really go very far.
[09:36]
That movie, Arrivals, does a kind of pretty good job of like trying to come to meet the other. And still, the sense of other is strong in the meeting. Meeting requires language. you still need language to meet the other. You can't get out of your self box without language. Your self box is a language box. And so to meet something while you're still in your box and have a sense of like this is really other And yet still I'm going to use language and I'm going to learn that language. This is, I think, pretty good. Yes. Yes. It gives you a sense of being safe and what's the other thing?
[11:30]
Special. Special, yeah. and there's, you know, different from all the stuff that's out there. And so then when you said, you know, we all terminate each other, it was, there was kind of like a panic, like, well, when all the scary stuff's going to come in, and all the special things about me that I like are going to not be mine anymore. So there was kind of like a, and then, but it just went to me in this curious place of not understanding How is it that we are included? Because we seem separate. Can you say more about how it is that we are familiar with one another? And also I can say that through face-to-face conversations with, for example, one person
[12:33]
we can learn how to take care of the feelings that come up when we start to open to the completely other. So you're talking and so in a conversation we can help each other have the courage and do the practices which will help us be able to be present for the awesomeness of the other. And if we're not comfortable with the completely other, or even if we're not comfortable with the other we can start to have a conversation even before we're comfortable and the more thorough and wholehearted and responsible we are in our conversations the more we will open to this idea of all your specialness
[13:58]
pervading the universe, and all things that are not your specialness pervading you. So everybody has specialness, but everybody's specialness is powered by other people's specialness, not by your own. You're not made by yourself, you're made by others. And if we don't open to that, then the others, which actually constitute us, we can feel afraid of that which makes us. But by having conversation, we can get used to this and open to it. So the fact that you feel some fear or anxiety shows that you're actually kind of listening to this teaching.
[15:04]
Because it does have this scary consequence before you understand some of the implications, which is that you lose anything because you do not have anything. You are everything. You are everything and you don't have any of the things that you are. You don't have what you are. Because what you are is the entire universe. And if you feel frightened by that, and you can tell me that, this is the path to becoming unafraid of this. but not trying to get rid of the fear but by telling and I can tell you this that I welcome your fear of this and if you can welcome it we're not going to be afraid of it so yeah, so the fact that you actually you're letting this teaching in somewhat
[16:24]
And now, in order to let the teaching in more, we have to take care of some things about you. And you have let in the feeling of fear. The feeling of fear came in and you said, OK, you can be here. But I think we need to let the fear be here even more. not make more fear but just be more generous towards it and then again be more careful of it and more patient with it and more diligent with it so taking care of this gift of this fear which comes in relationship to this teaching you will be able to be at peace with the fear and open even more to the teaching and if you open to more of the teaching you might get a new kind of fear or a deeper fear or a deeper place where I am something in addition to the whole universe. People think that. They know that doesn't make any sense, but they think that.
[17:37]
To open to the way you are the whole universe is to open to the way you are otherwise. completely, which means you're completely otherwise, but also that you're completely everything that's other. So it's not just that you're yourself, which is true, in addition to that you are all the things that are other. And that's your infinity. And this infinity doesn't at all try to get rid of your finitude. So we really want to take really good care of finitude because we can take care of finitude. We can. And it's just great to take care of finitude. To take care of your skin and your fear and the earth.
[18:45]
All these are my finitude. and I am capable of being careless either by being inattentive or by trying to avoid or by holding on to something that I should let be. These afflictions which I've accumulated can distract me from really taking care of my finitude But when I'm really taking care of my finitude, I'm not trying to control my finitude. I'm not trying to make it stay or get rid of it. I'm taking care of it as an act of compassion, but also I have a theory that this compassion to the wisdom of otherwise. And again, losing our cycle, another wave of fear may come.
[19:51]
Well, no, I'll take care of that. And I'll also take care of not wanting to take care of it. So some people were telling me, thanks for the talk, and there's some things I'm not going to include. And I said, okay, I think you might be able to include that you're not including, that you're not being inclusive. And she said, well, yeah, I can include that I'm not being inclusive. Well, then you're starting the process of opening to what you're not open to. Obliteration. Yeah. Thank you. Or negation. So this other does not negate you.
[20:53]
It does not negate you. It would overflow you. It overflows you but doesn't negate you. It's alien. but not negating or obliterating. It's actually, it's your life. Other is actually other. And if you make your life yourself, that's okay, but that's an extreme impoverishment of you to make you this self. And we do that so that we can be kind to others and to life. And again, if you're kind, then you can again open to, oh, I'll be negated if I open to this teaching. Well, that thought naturally arises. That's why we mentioned it's other without negating.
[21:58]
You are other without negating. What's negated is not you, but the idea that you are not you. No. What's is the idea that you are not not you. Because you are not you. And you're also you. So way in the back, Rookie. You're having a challenge. What's your challenge? Could you come up closer? Grasping concepts?
[23:01]
So a real-life example is a rookie Buddhist might practice sitting meditation. So they're sitting there, and they think they're sitting there, and they're making an effort to sit upright. And they think that they're making their body upright, that they're doing this posture, and that they're practicing this sitting meditation with their own power. The meditator might notice that she thinks that she's doing Buddhist meditation.
[25:50]
And she might actually wonder what it is, what Buddhist meditation is, since she's doing it. Oh, I think I know what Buddhist meditation is. This is it, and I'm doing it. So, I know what it is, and I'm doing it. And then she might notice that she's not doing it, because she knew it, and now she's not doing it. Whatever she thought it was, she'll find out
[27:08]
that she's not doing what she thought it was. At first she may think, this is what it is and I'm doing it. And then again she'll think, I'm doing what it is. I know what it is and I'm doing it. And she may do that for a while. Maybe for a whole rookie year she might do it. But eventually she'll notice that she's not doing what she thinks Buddhist practice is. Usually at that point she tries to get herself to do what she thinks Buddhist practice is because she wants to do it and she's not doing it. So then she tries to get herself to do it. So then she starts to feel uncomfortable because she's trying to get herself to do something that she's not doing. And then she does it a little bit and then she doesn't do it. Now this is all before she has a conversation with somebody like you're having right now. And she might go to talk to somebody because she thought she knew what Buddhist meditation was, or Buddhist practice was, and then she's having trouble doing what she thinks it is.
[28:20]
And so she's not sure if really she does know what it is. Because maybe it's not just her idea of it. So then she goes to talk to somebody about it who might know what it is. And then the person might say, well, what do you think? tell that person what it is, and that person might say, well, that's not what it is. And she might get angry and say, well, then I don't want to do it anymore. Or she might say, well, what is it? And the person she's talking to, they might say, well, actually, no one knows what it is. And you might say, I want it to be something that I know what it is. And that person might say, well, didn't you kind of know what it was before you came to talk to me? And you say, yeah, I didn't know what it was. And weren't you having trouble with doing a practice when you knew what it was? And you say, yeah, I was having trouble. I was kind of stressed because I knew what it was and I was kind of not doing it.
[29:26]
For a while there I knew what it was and I was doing it, but that got old. And I moved on to not being able to do it. I was trying to do something and being unsuccessful. And again, if you're in a conversation with somebody else who's trying to practice Buddhism, they might help you question your understanding of what Buddhist practice is, or what Buddhism is. And then so then you might ask somebody for a practical, did you say everyday example? So now I'm giving you an everyday example, and the everyday example I'm giving you, do you see it? This is an everyday example. And I wouldn't be surprised if you were having trouble grasping what I'm talking about.
[30:29]
And I also might not be surprised if you were grasping what I was talking about. But what I'm talking about is wisdom which realizes that there's no basis for grasping anything. But it's also part of wisdom to recognize that human beings do try to grasp things or even think that they're successful at grasping things. For example, you could try to grasp what Buddhism is. or what Buddhist truth is. You could try. But it's more than just saying over and over, we got a truth here, we have an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect truth, and you can't grasp it. That is said quite frequently,
[31:39]
it's said along with a lot of other stuff because people can't stand just to hear you can't grasp it, you can't grasp it, you can't grasp it I mean most people can't stand that over and over so then we say well here here's a seat place to sit here, here's some dishes to wash here, here's a story so you ask for a story and I'm telling your story, which you maybe don't even notice I'm telling you. So you seem to be doing pretty well at not grasping right now. But you seem to want to grasp. And maybe when you get out of this room you'll be able to grasp something again. Because you're a human, and humans are good at grasping. What humans are not good at should say humans can get good at realizing that although you're grasping something there's not there's no basis for the grasping so it's not that we stop grasping it's that we realize that we're there's no basis for grasping you can't even say grasping nothing because to say we're grasping nothing is giving a little bit too much basis to the to the grasping
[33:09]
So we do grasp, yes, but there's no basis to it. It's just something we do. Story I tell over and over. The man goes to the psychiatrist and he tells the psychiatrist, my brother thinks he's a chicken. And the psychiatrist says, oh, why don't you tell him he's not? He said, I need the eggs. so we do grasp and we get something out of that. Our consciousness is a grasping realm and it's very powerful and very useful at the place of stress. And when you start noticing the stress you might want to get some help about how to relieve the stress.
[34:13]
And you might think that the stress would be released, relieved, something to grasp. But the stress is coming from grasping. But again, we don't try to get rid of the cause of the stress, which is the grasping. Don't try to get rid of the cause of it. Be kind to the grasping and be kind or be kind to the stress and be kind to the grasping And you'll realize, without stopping the grasping, and without getting rid of the stress, without touching the stress, or manipulating the stress, without taking some, I don't know what, to make the stress go down, go up, without trying to stop yourself from being human, like, don't grasp, don't grasp, see this? Don't grasp, grasp, don't grasp. You see? Don't grasp. A lot of people try that, but it doesn't work. it just makes things a little more complicated because now you're on top of grasping and on top of grasping which again is normal so people come to Buddhism grasping things and stressed out and then they want something in Buddhism to grasp to get free them from their grasping and so I've given you some stuff to grasp
[35:38]
Even if you do, and even if you don't, there's no basis. And when you see that there's no basis, without tampering with the grasping or the stress, you're free of the grasping and the stress. You're at peace. Without human beings at all. Because human beings already didn't need to be changed, because human beings are already completely otherwise. You cannot change people any more than they are already not what they are but you can resist the way they are and the way they are is usually they're grasping and they're not allowing themselves to see there's no basis to it but we can learn to allow ourselves and one of the ways to allow ourselves is to that teaching and remember it Yes?
[36:53]
I think that's something I've struggled with a lot. I feel since she was young, she's had a strong connection. She said, since she was young, she's had a strong connection. She said, since I was young. I thought she said, since I'm young. Yes, you are. But since she was younger. When I was younger. And now, you know, conservation. work to protect the environment. And that grasping is still very strong, even though, as you said, your desire is a good desire. It's OK. But I feel somehow my desire to do good work It's causing suffering. Just somehow I'm grasping. It's not your desire to do good work. If you don't grasp it, then it's fine.
[38:02]
And if you do grasp it, it's stressful. But if you're kind to your... You're grasping of your desire to do good is like this person who told me they don't include this person. So you may not be able to stop grasping your wish to do good, but you can maybe start not grasping the grasping. You say, well, I'm grasping doing good and it's causing me stress, but I can accept that I'm causing stress by grasping. And I don't understand there's no basis, but I do understand that that's causing me suffering. And I'm going to let myself be that way. That's not grasping. That's generosity. You don't understand why there's no basis?
[39:07]
You don't yet understand that, but if you... The reason you... So you want to do good, but there's no basis in wanting to do good. There's no basis in good for grasping. And you're wanting to do good, there's no basis in the wanting to do good for grasping. And if you don't understand that, you probably will grasp. But if you grasp, you can notice that, and you do. And if you really love... Grasping of the doing good and grasping of the good, if you really love it, you'll realize there's no basis for the grasping. But you have to love this thing that you think actually is offering you a basis to grasp. You have to love it thoroughly. You're going to see that it's offering you no basis for grasping. It is offering you a basis for love, though. And love doesn't mean like or dislike, it means generosity and being careful and patient and diligent with your wish to do good and with whatever good is.
[40:18]
Or you say, with whatever your wish is and with whatever your wish for good is and whatever the good is. All these things, everything offers no basis. However, if you're not kind to your which are coming from a belief that there is some basis for grasping, you're just going to keep believing that there is a basis. But turning around, the happening is if you're really kind to your ignorance that there's a basis for grasping, you will become free of that. you will realize perfect wisdom. You will realize there's no basis for me to grasp the good I'm working on. And you go right ahead and work on the good. So you will be more successful and you'll be more successful developing good when you don't grasp the good.
[41:25]
and you'll be more successful at not grasping the good, which you're working on, when you realize that you can't. Or I should say, that there's no basis. You can go right ahead and do it and realize there's no basis. It creates what you really want, which is good. Everybody really does want good. Really, in reality, we want good. What is good? Good is peace. Good is freedom. Good is that we're helping each other. That's what everybody wants. But if we don't realize there's no basis for grasping all this good stuff I mentioned, then the good is twisted, distorted, confined, even though it cannot be.
[42:33]
Yes. A few days ago, a couple of us were out filming a car full of sick guys, and they come out and they grab our cameras and drive off with them. I managed to get one back. And I'm finding, I'm just having so many emotions. Self-preservation, people need to see my camera. You're in a fountain of emotion. Yes. Yeah. Easy. I think I probably would be too. So then, at the moment like that, what's the practice? What's the practice? Oh, the intimate face-to-face.
[43:40]
Where is that? Or you have face-to-face with all your emotions. You have all these emotions that are coming up in your face. So you can do... All these emotions are pervading you. and you're pervading all these emotions the opportunity for reality is as good now as it was in the past it was good then in the past there were good opportunities for awakening and there are right now and right now the emotions you're having are a little bit different than they were an hour ago but you seem to have plenty still, right? so all these emotions are calling out for you to meet them. And they're calling on for me to meet.
[44:44]
And if we can meet the emotions we have right now, this is our work to develop the ability to meet the next set of emotions or the next set of robbers. Our robbers, until we understand that we are pervading them and they're pervading us. And we are not only pervading them, we're pervading everything and these emotions are not just pervading us, they're pervading everything. Until we understand that, we have to keep training. We have the opportunity, the training. And I said until we understand that, but even until we understand that, the training goes on. The training never ends. Once we realize there's no basis to grasp in the emotions you're having right now, then the next moment comes to offer us another chance to realize that.
[45:58]
Well, you could say that, or you could say, it looks like somebody's going to hurt my wife, I want to protect my wife. Of course, I always want to protect my wife. I always want to protect the person who seems to be hurting. Goodbye, rookie. Do I also want to protect the living being who might hurt her? Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know what I would do. I remember that I want to protect both. I don't know what I would do.
[47:09]
I might say, you know, I might say, Kim, I want to protect you. You might say that. You might say to the person who's going to hurt you, Mr., can I talk to you? There's not usually much time for that. There's not usually much time for that? No, I mean, when people come and attack you, they're pretty much hell-bent on hurting you. There's never any slow attacks? Not that I know. Well, I have maybe more experience than you do. But sometimes people attack me slowly. They start talking to me before they attack me sometimes. In the streets, if you go out in the streets, you'll find some people often like are checking you out before they attack you. They don't always just hit you suddenly. They sometimes start talking to you. Not always. But the attacks sometimes have a, there's a process. And if you're more aware of the process, you may see more opportunities to say, you know, can I talk to you about this?
[48:14]
But the option, if it is fast, and there's no time for anything, then what are you going to do? And so look and see what you do. And then after you do what you did, then see how you feel and see what you do. It's always like, how do you feel, how do you feel, what do you do? And that's very sudden. But sometimes even when you're like, here comes something, what do I do? Here comes something, what do I do? Here's a meeting, how am I meeting? when there is a tendency among we're not really there to then spend time thinking about it afterwards instead of like handling the new situation which is thinking about it afterwards is not really thinking about it afterwards.
[49:21]
It's like right now this is what you have to do with it. This is your life. Can you now be with your thoughts about what happened the way you were not able to be with yourself when it was happening. And if you were able to be with yourself, I'm saying that you'd be at peace with what happened, that you'd feel like you did what you want to do under such circumstances. What I'd like to do all circumstances, is I'd like to realize peace. Some people, while they're being attacked, realize peace. Some people, while they're being attacked, realize peace.
[50:23]
Like someone's coming to attack them or attacking them, and they come back with a peaceful response right at that moment. It doesn't nullify that the attack still counts, but they meet it with peace. They practice peace with the attack. But it doesn't mean that the attack doesn't have consequence. And then also, does the attack count for the attack? So as the person's approaching, does that count also? Well, they meet the approach to the attack with peace too. So somebody's coming to attack me, I want to meet that with peace. I want to love that. I welcome that. Now they've arrived, I want to welcome the arrival. I want to, but I can get distracted.
[51:30]
If I welcome the approaching violence, the approaching violence, I'm doing what I want to do. It isn't possible that if I'm welcoming this approaching violence, that the person is going to hurt him. It is possible. It is possible that if I welcome violence, a person will hurt Kim. Like if I see somebody coming to hurt Kim, it's possible that if I welcome that... But if I hit him with a baseball bat... I'm not there yet. If I welcome it, it's possible that he would hurt Kim. And then if he hurt Kim, it's possible I could welcome that Kim got hurt. And Kim and I could be together with her being hurt. And she could be with me who's being peaceful with her being hurt. Now it made it easier for me to say, if somebody's coming to hurt me, and I welcome them coming to hurt me, and then when they hurt me, I welcome that, and I'm with Kim, that Kim and I are together while I'm welcoming me.
[52:39]
But from my perspective right now at this moment, me welcoming me being hurt when I'm with Kim is very similar to me welcoming Kim being hurt when I'm with Kim. In both cases, I'm with Kim and I'm doing face-to-face transmission with Kim of what? Of peace. I can't protect Kim from all harm, but I can... do face-to-face transmission with her. And then Kim will be fine with whatever comes. And it's also possible that if you welcome an attack, the person will not attack Kim. It's also possible that if somebody wasn't intending to, somebody was not intending to attack Kim, but you thought they were, and then you were violent with them, then they would attack Kim and you. But they weren't actually going to. When you accuse them of wanting to attack Kim, you say, well, then I will.
[53:46]
That happens quite frequently in the street. That, again, people are like talking away and then somebody accuses them of something. And they say, oh yeah? And then they do the very thing that the person accuses them of doing, which they might not have been intending to do, but also they might have been teasing the person that they were going to do it. There's a lot of that. So anyway, you had this interaction with the situation and was Kim there? Where were you? You were there. So did you get physically hurt? A little bit. A little bit. I grabbed my camera and... Yeah, so... And I don't know what... how things would have gone if you were more welcoming.
[54:48]
I don't know. They might have taken the other camera too. Well, I don't know that. I don't know if they would. You know, most people say, if we voted here, we'd vote for you and say yes. He was going to get into the car a bit and then stop. Yeah, but you could have stopped him, as you say, you could have stopped him as an act of generosity. And he might have given you cameras. I don't know. People say that's quite unlikely. Huh? People might say that's quite unlikely. Yeah, you say very, very unlikely. And I think a lot of people would agree with you. So if you're working on miracles... then you accept that what you're working on may seem unlikely to people if you're working on transmitting peace to robbers that seems like a miracle that when people in the process of robbery that you could transmit because they're they're not necessarily in like a meditative mood you know like really I'm coming to get these cameras and actually I also want you to transmit the peace to
[56:19]
So it would be a miracle, he could say, if you could transmit peace to these people while they were robbing you. It would be kind of a miracle, wouldn't it? Yeah. So I guess I'm a miracle worker in the sense that I can work miracles, but I would be more like a peace worker. We say a peace worker, but we don't say that peace workers can make peace, they're just working on it. So I'm not saying I'm a miracle worker like I can do miracles, but I am working on miracles. I'm working on how to, in a situation like this, encourage people to be generous and not stale. I'm working on that. And then if some of you would start to try to rob me, I would like to work on that. I aspire to work on the miracle of transparency when I'm being robbed. You would do that rather than extensively defend yourself.
[57:31]
There might be an instinct to defend myself, but that's part of miracle working, is that you're aware of your own instincts. If you want to do a miracle, you're aware of your own instincts. And your instincts might be self-protective, So I'm basically saying that I think miracle workers are encouraged to be self-aware. Because the miracles that I want to do are not the miracles of violence, but I want to do the miracle of non-violence. So many of the stories that turned me to Zen were situations where people would quite likely have a violent response and somebody had a non-violent response. And the non-violent response under some circumstances is a miracle. How do they get to be able to do this miracle of being non-violent under those circumstances? I wanted to learn that. I already knew how to be violent when I'm attacked.
[58:33]
Some people need to become a professional boxer. I was an amateur at boxing. I did that kind of stuff for fun. And to me, boxing isn't really a miracle. It is kind of a miracle, but it's a miracle of violence. I wanted to learn how to be non-violent in a boxing ring. I would like to learn how to be non-violent when being robbed. I would like to not hate when someone attacks me. And in order to accomplish that, I think if my instinct of self-preservation arose, I would have to deal with that too. So there would be the attacker and my instincts. I would have to handle both of those. And I have actually, in some cases, I have been in situations where people were going to attack me or my friends, and I felt a self-protective thing when they were going to attack.
[59:53]
And I said to the attacker, I said, wait, no, no, you don't want to do this, really. It's really a problem. And I didn't want them to do it either. And I could also feel my instincts to protect my friends. And those instincts were not good. They would cause a lot of trouble. And I explained this to the attackers, that there's these instincts you don't want to see. And I don't want to show them to you. It would be a waste of my time and your time if what I'm starting to feel started to come out. So I think it'd be really a good idea if you'd leave these people alone. Are you following this? And it was like something, it wouldn't do me any good for this to come out. But it was starting to come. And I said to these people, I said, you know, I'm wearing a suit, and this is my best suit, and I do not want to rip this suit.
[60:58]
And you do not want to do if I rip my suit. You wouldn't want to see this. It would really be not good for you to see. And it wouldn't be good for me to do. I don't want anything to do with this. And believe me, you don't either. That's what I said. And they knew that that was like, yeah, this is not going to help if this guy turns into what he's feeling himself turning into. That's what I did. And they walked away. But it was good that I was aware of my own feelings, because these were not good feelings. And they did not come out and hurt them, but they warned him. Now, what about not even feeling those feelings? Well, that would be another situation. But to get to the situation where somebody is attacking me and I don't even feel these things, I would probably have to do it a million times before I didn't even feel them anymore.
[62:03]
and I may never get there. I don't have to get there. If I'm really kind to my feelings of self-preservation, the miracle of non-violence can manifest when being attacked. That's what I'd like to learn. I aspire to that. And in your case, sounds like you did pretty well. You didn't attack those guys. And you're just saying, well, But what if they were going to attack Kim? Then it would even be more difficult not to be violent." I said, yeah, probably so. So do you want to do this miraculous thing of when being attacked to come back with non-violence. And non-violence can sometimes... It isn't like if you're non-violent then they're more likely to attack.
[63:04]
Sometimes non-violence stops the people in their tracks. Which is nice. But even if they don't get... if you're non-violent, is still a wonderful thing. Even though they go right ahead and do that. Like Gandhi was doing his prayers when he was shot. But he continued his prayers after being shot. He didn't switch from his prayers to like a damning. He was blessing everybody and then he got shot and blessing everybody. But it didn't stop him being shot. And so if I'm blessing people all day long and I get attacked, that may happen. You can bless people and still get attacked. For example, you can get attacked by cancer while you're blessing everybody.
[64:06]
You can get attacked by a broken femur when you're blessing everybody. You can get run over by a car while you're blessing everybody. You can get robbed while you're blessing everybody. And if you're really good at blessing people, you might be able to continue the blessing process through the attack and beyond and still have these self-preservation feelings come up and bless the self-preservation feelings. A person is attacking me, I want to bless. My own feelings of self-preservation, I want to bless. but it's hard sometimes. But I think you did pretty well.
[64:58]
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@Score_87.39