Pardon? You'd like to discuss my singing? First sing and then you'll discuss. Heaven, I'm in heaven. And the cares that bothered me throughout the week seem to vanish like a gambler's lucky streak when we're out together dancing cheek to cheek. Yes? Want to sit up here and ask? Heaven. Here he comes. Yes. Hi. My name is Fabio. Your name is? Fabio. Fabio? Fabio. Did I get it right? Fabio? Fabio. Fabio. Fabio. There's an O at the end. Fabio. [...]

[01:04]

B. Fabio. [...] Okay, Fabio. Sir, I have a question. And it is about the point you raised towards the end and at the beginning of... This wish for more continuity in the capacity of being aware of the body and the breathing. And it is a question I had pretty much all along in my practice. And it's always a failure, right? It's always like waking up. And suddenly I realized that I forgot everything for an undetermined amount of time.

[02:10]

And then I realized that I'm there. And I think my question is about, is it possible to actually remember all the time? or, you know, to be aware all the time. I mean, what I notice is that awareness comes up and down, like, as it's, you know, it's not there all the time in the same way. Like, my state is not the same. And one thing I, you know, I used to keep myself in the butt a lot because of my incapacity of remembering. And... And one day I read this story that is in Zen Mind of Suzuki Roshi. And he was telling about going back to Heiji, the monastery, and to this big feeling he experienced at that time.

[03:15]

And he was comparing his experience as a person that goes back to the monastery after a period of time And he remembers how his life was there. And he's got this big emotion. And also he remembers how when he was living there, he found that living there was not a big deal. And the people from outside were the weird ones. And one thing that I heard there is that we're not there all the time. Like, you know, sometimes we're in the monastery, sometimes we're out. And then we go back to the monastery and there is this feeling. Like something wakes up and says, wow, I'm back at the monastery. And there is this, and it becomes an opportunity somehow because I get the, you know, if I'm in the monastery all the time, it's not a big deal. But when I go back there, something more comes up.

[04:16]

And so I was wondering, you know, Is it me that I'm lazy and so I'm making up a story about how good it is to wake up from time to time and realize that I was not awake and take that as an extra opportunity or is actually there is something there about the fact that my awareness is not always the same? Part of the skill of having continuity is the practice of renewing the sense of kind of a wonderful situation. So when you're in the monastery, you might not notice how wonderful it is because you don't return to the intention to be in the monastery and refresh your enthusiasm about being there.

[05:31]

But sometimes when you first return, you see that this is really what you want. and when you're there sometimes you're doing what you really want but you don't renew the energy to you don't renew the awareness that this is what you really want and it is normally part of the practice to repeatedly repetitively go back and remind yourself not so much that the monastery is a wonderful place but that you wish to be there to accomplish something wonderful. If you don't do that, you can lose your enthusiasm for being in the place where you really want to be. So, we really do want to be in the world of suffering, right? So we can help people, right? We came here to help, right?

[06:33]

But unless we remember that, it can get to be like, well, I don't know if I want to be here anymore. So people in monasteries sometimes, not only, it isn't that they just don't think it's a big deal, they want to leave. Because it's hard. They think about, when's this training program going to be done? And sometimes they go back and they feel really great. And then after a few days, they feel like, well, that was great, but I... But still this is kind of hard to be here and I wonder how much longer I have to be here. So it's wonderful to wake up again to that this is really what we want to do and we have to actually sometimes remember that the waking up, the reawakening to what we want to do is exercise. Sometimes it just happens automatically. You walk in, you see, like sometimes you come into a Zendo, you sit down and you say, wow, this is such a great thing to do with people. You know, particularly like if you, like if I make a trip, you know, I get in a car and drive through traffic and then I stop someplace and go into a room and sit quietly with people.

[07:46]

Then I go, this is a great thing to do. And the effort of making the trip kind of wakes me up to what a great thing, you know, that some people get together and sit quietly together and sit still and sit upright and breathe together. What a beautiful thing. But if I stay there day after day, after maybe five days or a week, I might say, well, what am I here again for? Well, that's okay. Then go back and look around and, oh yeah, now I remember. So we need to go back to our aspiration on a regular basis. Otherwise, the energy gets used up in the practice. And in order to be consistent, you also have to keep eating. spiritual food. And spiritual food comes from your inner wish, your deep inner wish. That's where the stuff comes from. And that comes from being aware of some sense of this is good to do, and if they don't do it, it's not so good.

[08:53]

It's good to pay attention, it's good to be kind, partly because if you don't, it causes So I really, I actually aspire to do these things and then you think about it and the energy comes up and then you, comes up to a point where you actually do the practice. And that's great, but you have to eat again. There's, we eat in Buddhism, we eat before enlightenment and after. We eat before we practice so we can practice and then we practice and then we eat after practice so we can practice again. And when we eat in this room formally, we chant, we say, we eat this food so we can practice. That's what we're eating. We do this so we can practice the way of our unceasing effort to free all beings so they can live in peace. That's what we're eating for. And we say that, but even though we say it, we might not say it enough to really feel, yeah, this is great.

[09:57]

This once may not be enough. We say it at the meal, you know, and then we start eating and we forget, yeah, I'm eating. This is part of the unceasing effort to free all beings so they can live in peace. How wonderful. I really feel enthusiastic about this. It's like going back to the monastery right there at that moment and go, this is great, I'm so happy to be doing this. But you have to go back and say that again, otherwise the energy runs down. It's normal that it will run down and we'll forget. So consistency means you have to keep renewing your enthusiasm. That's a normal thing. I think people think, well, you're enthusiastic and that's the kind of person you are. well that's the kind of person you are right now but then when you do a lot of work then you get tired you have to rest and after you rest you have to remember what you're resting for and then you remember and you go oh okay and then you go back to work joyfully and it's like you've been away from the monastery but sometimes something will happen and it doesn't feel like you generated the enthusiasm but somebody just shows you something beautiful and you go oh yeah

[11:10]

But if somebody's doing that for you, say, thank you for reminding me. But if nobody's reminding you, remind yourself. So many people come to me and say, you know, they say that, they say, I know that, why did I forget? So I just remind them of what they already wanted to do. But somehow they need a reminder. And sometimes another person can remind you. But you can also remind yourself, so to speak, by going back to your aspirations. Without that, we're not going to be consistent. Because we don't have somebody reminding us all the time. Even though we have people reminding us, the people don't necessarily... Sometimes they remind us and we say, no thanks, I don't need you to remind me. So sometimes nobody else can remind us, even though they're trying. We need to remind ourselves. So others can remind us, and we can remind ourselves. The combination makes consistency. And so the Buddhas do teach that they... Buddha did teach, Buddha was, finally got consistent.

[12:17]

It says in the scriptures that Buddha was consistently mindful. And a number of great teachers have said, when I was 65, I finally became consistent. And that's for somebody who started practicing young. And some people even over 65, like me, are not yet consistent. But I aspire to be. Some may be I'll get some more chances. Yes, would you like to come up? Please sit here. Fabio introduced himself. What's your name? My name is Dominique.

[13:21]

Dominique. Dominique. Welcome. Thank you. You talked about the exhalation and inhale. You did not mention where the inhale, where it's better for the inhale to come through, the nose or the mouth? Oh, generally speaking, when we're sitting, we recommend through the nose. However, and also if you're walking but not too fast, I think through the nose. But if you're swimming, you might want to open your mouth too. Yes. Yeah, I think when I'm swimming I open my mouth. If I'm swimming, really easily I might breathe through my nose, but... I think when swimming, I usually use my mouth.

[14:24]

But when walking, I usually breathe through my nose. Sitting, standing, I breathe through my nose. But if I'm going faster and faster, I may have to open my mouth too. When doing yoga, a lot of yoga postures, they recommend that you, that, you know, unless you're moving quickly, that you breathe through your nose. But if you do like some, what do you call it, sun salutations and we start really doing them fast, you have to open the mouth, I think. But it's good to not do them so fast. And also we recommend breathing so that you don't make noise with your nose. Breathe gently through your nose. About 40 years ago, In a lecture by a Sufi person, I heard him say, be aware of every breath. And I thought, is he crazy or what?

[15:27]

I could not even do it for two breaths. and I'm 65 and I, and I'm shaking, but I have been focusing a lot on being aware of my posture and breath and where I find it difficult is when I talk so if I talk and I pay attention like if I teach then I can let it come through the nose and it feels really good but when I become excited or if I'm distracted in talking or if I become emotional then do you have any recommendation to keep the awareness even in daily communication The first thing that comes to my mind is that when I'm talking, I breathe through my mouth. When I'm talking on an exhale, then I'm breathing out through my mouth.

[16:36]

But I mean, when I'm talking, I don't keep my mouth shut usually. So I use my breath actually to make the sound. So talking, when I'm listening... I breathe through my nose. When I'm talking, I breathe through my mouth. Yeah, but the in-breath I'm talking about, of course the talking is on the out-breath. But I'm just saying, I'm just pointing out that the difference between listening and talking is that when I listen, I breathe through my nose usually. When I'm talking, I'm breathing through my mouth. That's just one thing I wanted to mention. The other thing is that when emotions come up, oftentimes we impulsively jump away from our awareness of our posture and breathe it. So we think, I don't have time.

[17:40]

I can't pay attention anymore. This situation is too dangerous. I can't be mindful. So we have to train so that we're confident that being mindful will take care of very demanding situations. That isn't like you're mindful when everything's calm and slow, and then when things speed up you lose your mindfulness. So, sometimes people say, Japanese Zen is fast. You know, some people, the Theravada mindfulness tradition, sometimes people think that's more slow, they move more slowly, talk more slowly. Japanese monasteries, they move very fast. But I don't think they move fast, they don't want people to move fast and lose their mindfulness. They want to see, can you continue to be mindful of your posture and breathing when you're moving fast? And it's harder. And moving fast is similar to breathing. quickly emerging emotions.

[18:42]

Can you learn to ride the emotions when they arise quickly and are very energetic? And it's challenging but that's what we're trying to do is to train the ability to be aware of posture and breathing so that we can also continue that type of ardent, alert contemplation even when we're dealing with very rapidly moving things. certain emotional events happen much faster than the breath does. Can we, like, be present with that and, you know... Okay. Gradually, gradually you can actually be kind of relaxed with something that's very fast, but requires training. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Welcome, Dominique. Yes. Please come. Your name?

[19:55]

Rebecca. Rebecca. And my friends often call me Reb. That's a good name. Your talk was very apropos for me today. My father passed away about a week and a half ago, but I was really blessed to be in his presence along with my mother and siblings as we actually watched his last inhale and exhale. And it was peaceful and quiet and beautiful. And now, so it was watching something very peaceful and quiet. But now there are the feelings and the emotions. And I don't have a fixed idea of what happens after that last breath. So I was wondering... And it's kind of like watching, like as you said, the water when it goes down the path and how it goes in all the grooves. It's like that last breath that my father's passing, very quiet and peaceful. And yet there's a part of me that wants to take it all in and grab it and wrap it in some neat package.

[20:59]

But I'm unable to do that. So it's the idea of being at peace with it. So I was wondering what your thoughts are on the final breath in this body as we know it. What are your thoughts about it? That I can let it go and I'm at peace with it. And it's funny, even your song, when you say, I'm in heaven, and the last couple of words my father said to my mother, he said, I'm happy. I'm happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I find the happiness I seek when I'm here together with my family, cheek to cheek. And so I have that with me. And the best thing to do with it is not dwell on it.

[22:03]

We want to not dwell on this great happiness. not dwell in great happiness and of course also not dwell in great misery we don't push away the misery we want to learn how to not dwell in it so now you have a great happiness and you can train now and just as you say thank you and let it go thank you and let it go not trying to get a hold of something not trying to get understanding from it just thank you and let it go and if you practice that way with this very blessed event this way of practicing with the blessed event opens the door to understanding what breathing is. But if you try to get what breathing is, and you dwell on that, then that becomes an obstacle to understanding. Yes, yes, you're welcome.

[23:10]

Yes, Max. I'm Max. Excuse me, Max, would you pull that cushion forward a little? Yeah. Four inches, thank you. Okay. So my question is just about meditation practice. And I really love the meditation practice of having the anchor of the posture and the breath. So wherever the mind's going, I come back. Yeah. And then someone gave me a practice of it doesn't matter what the object is, just stay present, mindfulness. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know what my question is. That one's actually harder, the second practice? I agree with that statement. However, to realize the truth of that, I'm recommending that you start by being mindful of your posture and breathing, and from that basic situation of the appearance of the body and breath, right here and now, that you're actually... contemplating that, then you can move on to see if you can be that way with whatever comes up.

[24:19]

Okay. So the Buddha taught, later on the Buddha is basically saying, okay, can you do the same mindfulness with this and [...] this? And maybe the answer is yes. And if not, go back and check to see, all right, you know, you could be, maybe you were able to be fairly steady and present and happy to be contemplating the breathing body. Based on that happiness and that peace, now maybe you can move on and open up to being that same way that you are with the posture and breathing with unlimited types of objects. And if you get carried away by them, get lost in them, then probably it's good to come back to the more basic one. You can think of the future and get really distracted, but sometimes if you're well-grounded, you can think of the future and be present in the thought of the future.

[25:24]

If you're losing your presence there, then probably say, okay, maybe this meditation is too advanced. I'm not really mindfully contemplating this, I'll go back where I can. And then again, so again, like, if you're balancing somebody and you don't have your feet on the ground, you say, well maybe come down in a second, I've got to get my feet on the ground again. Okay, let's try it again. But we want to eventually expand the things we're practicing with more and more and more so we can handle all kinds of difficulties and great things without dwelling in them. So it isn't that we don't give up our basic practice which you're enjoying. You keep doing that while you open up to this other instruction of do the same thing with anything. But there's some things that are too advanced. And too advanced means you feel like you're getting kind of lost and anxious and worried.

[26:27]

Okay, that's okay. Fine. Come back. And then this stuff oftentimes will just drop away. It might not drop away right away. Sometimes it does just drop away right away. You're back here. And then, are you ready to try again? Yes. Try it again, and maybe now you're ready. Okay, so that might be the continuousness you're talking about, just mindfulness with every... Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Like I've told this story quite a few times, it's a fairly recent story. I had a hernia operation about, I say fairly recently, it was like 12 years ago. And after the operation I felt fine. I was still under the influence of anesthetic. And some nurse came to see me and she said, well, when the anesthetic wears off, you probably will experience some pain.

[27:37]

And so we're just going to let it wear off and let you experience the pain. So then we'll give you another milder pain medication. And then we can see if it works. They had to let the other one wear off before they could see whether it would work. So they left me there for a while and then I started to feel, you could say I started to feel the anesthetic wear off and then I also started to feel something else started to come. And it was like, it was some discomfort. But it wasn't particularly intense. And then it got a little bit more intense. And then it got a little bit more intense. And then I thought, it's getting more intense. And I thought, but I have a feeling like this is just a very small percentage of what actually could come. I felt this sort of implication.

[28:38]

My mind extrapolated. And I thought this huge possibility was coming. And I thought, well, when's the nurse going to come back and try out this medication on me? And then it got more, and I started to feel like, gee, I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to relax with this. I was kind of like just contemplating it and noticing my mind trying to figure out how bad it could get, how intense it could get. And I was starting to feel like, yeah, I could imagine that if this went on much longer, I might actually have a hard time. I was okay with it, but I don't know how much longer I'm going to be okay with this. It probably would be good not to go much further. But I had the feeling like I probably wouldn't be able to handle the full menu here. I never did get to that point to find out that I couldn't, but I had that sense.

[29:39]

that I might not be able to just be mindful. Okay? Pain. I'm just mindful with it, like I am with posture. But the nurse came before I lost my ability to be present. But I was humbled, like I thought, there's probably a limit on how I can be present with it. It wasn't like, well, you can just turn it up as far as you want. I'll be fine. I can handle it. I didn't feel like that. I felt like, hmm. I've got some work to do in this patient's department. And I think I do. And I'm working on it. Because I think there are some big pains coming that there might be no medications for. So I want to develop. I want to develop on it. the ability to be present with huge pain the way I am with the body and also so that I can be present with the huge body.

[30:45]

There's a huge body that's also we can open up to if we can open up to huge pain. Well, we want to open to the huge body so that our ordinary mundane pains are opportunities to develop our capacity for reality, which is more of a shock than big pains. Is there anything else? Yes. Oh, excuse me, that gentleman back there was next. Do you want to come still? And your name? My name is Peter. Peter? Right. I did Zen meditation for a long time, mostly not in a monastery like here, but for myself. And then I changed it.

[31:48]

It came by reading some Christian mystics, and I started concentrating more on my heart. than on the breathing itself. And I felt a radical difference in that meditation. I would say a stream of warmth, a stream of that compassion, and a different kind of connectedness. But I could also do the Zen style in the sense of having it more, well, how to say that? Nüchtern. Sorry, I'm German and I just asked my wife.

[32:49]

Nüchtern. Sofa. Sober. Yeah, sober. So I found these two styles of meditation. Which one is the sober one? This one. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's, you start with sober. And if you're sober, then you can move on to ecstasy. Right. If you approach ecstasy when you're intoxicated, you can get in big trouble. So I think you maybe associate Zen with this, I consider it a complement to a kind of sober mindfulness of posture and breathing. And that's okay to associate Zen and Buddhism in general with that. First we sober up. But then as Max was saying, then we open up to other objects like the heart, like huge warmth.

[33:56]

But if you go right to the huge warmth without being sober, people get really messed up. And that happens sometimes. There's some spiritual tragedies in ancient and modern times when teachers show or someone stumbles upon the warmth but does not have the sober base to And they become intoxicated by the bliss of the warmth, of divine warmth. And there's a number of, I know a number of tragedies in modern American history, like among the beatniks, of people who tapped into the warmth, of spiritual warmth, but they didn't have enough grounding, sober grounding. And a lot of them became alcoholics. in association with the... they couldn't tolerate they didn't have the grounding so a story that could be told is that you did this Zen meditation and it prepared you for this heart meditation but I wouldn't say the heart meditation isn't part of Zen if you read more in Zen literature you'll find some Zen people have these great heart opening ecstatic experiences and sometimes sometimes

[35:14]

they are not able to handle them because they're not sober enough. And other times, they are able to handle it and then it's a very happy story because they're grounded. So, you know, sometimes Zen is also associated with down here in the hara. And actually someone once watched me and another teacher teach and she said, it's like you were coming from here and he was coming from here. You were coming from the hara and he was coming from the heart. But I think we want to come from the hara and the heart. And I think maybe your story is that you had enough hara, you had enough sober lower body presence Because the breathing, you know, is down here. And that you could have this wonderful heart experience. I have one more question with that. When I do the heart meditation, I'm not sitting, I'm lying down very often.

[36:21]

I'm just lying down and have my hands on the heart. And I felt that helped for the relaxing of the body and the streaming energy that is going through. Streaming? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think reclining is... up one of the postures that we meditate in. Say that again. Reclining, lying down, is one of the postures where we practice. We practice lying down, standing, walking and sitting, and every other posture. So each one has its advantages. Lying down has the advantage of stability. Stability. It's quite stable, which is nice. Stability is nice. Sitting has the advantage of stability also. Standing is less stable than reclining or sitting. It's less stable, but also easier to stay awake.

[37:21]

than sitting or lying down. And walking is really easy to stay awake, but it's quite unstable. So the different postures have different difficulty of staying awake and different levels of stability. So all four of those have their different advantages and challenges. All four are opportunities for meditation. And then everything in between them is also opportunities for meditation. And a lot of us actually do pretty well sitting and lying down and standing. But between lying down and standing we miss that opportunity often. Be mindful of your situation when you're reclining, but it's hard to stay present as you move through the many postures from lying down getting up into standing or sitting. If you notice that, check it out. Because they're just a moment of each one, right?

[38:27]

If you're lying down, you have many, many moments of lying down. If you miss a few, you still get a few. But as you're moving, you miss a lot of opportunities, and you can notice that. I wasn't quite there, you know? But then I was, and then I wasn't. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. David. David. I'm experiencing some difficulties with mindfulness, some resistance to it. And it centers around a feeling that I have that when I'm practicing that, it feels rigid and kind of stilted.

[39:32]

I've noticed when I do kin-hin, I feel like I'm almost robotic about it. And I'm wondering if that's part of the process or if I'm just not focusing on getting over that and getting to the natural rhythm? It's part of your process. Okay. It's part of your process. And you're not the only one who has that feeling. People don't usually associate the word boogie with kin-hin. Kin-hin is walking meditation. People don't say, well, let's get up and boogie It's a rather formal and somewhat, what's the word, solemn way of walking, slow. So the robotic image could arise in the mind, and robotic may not have positive valence for you. So some people maybe think robots are really cute and that it's great to be a Zen robot.

[40:42]

Some people might like that. But a lot of people think, no, Zen robot's no good. So... And also people could think that it's robotic when they're sitting. Also that idea could come up. So part of what makes this practice work is that you have a generous attitude towards your opinions about the practice. And a generous attitude towards your opinions about how you're doing. So if I think I'm being robotic, in order to be enthusiastic, about the practice which has been called by robotic by somebody, I need to welcome the comment robotic. I mean to say, welcome. Welcome not such positive reviews of the practice. Yeah, the same thing applies to even awareness of breath and posture.

[41:44]

I feel like it's very hard for me to do that without merging into controlling it. Right. When I become aware of my breathing, I go, okay, there it is. It feels like I slip into control too much. At the beginning instruction from the Buddha is, he doesn't say... For example, he doesn't say sit upright and control your breath. He doesn't say that. He says sit upright and then the one who is practicing this meditation knows when he's inhaling and he knows when he's exhaling. He doesn't say he controls his inhale and controls his exhale. He doesn't say that. He says he knows what he's doing. That's how it starts. However, if you do that practice, in fact,

[42:45]

you might think, well, I'd like to get some control over this. That thought might arise in you. For example, when you notice you're not doing what you're trying to do. You're trying to pay attention and you're not doing it. So you think, well, I should control myself into doing that. That controlling attitude is not on the list of instructions. He says, to contemplate the breathing To ardently contemplate the breathing. In other words, you warmly want to do it. And then you're alert to it in the present. He doesn't say control yourself into doing it. But we have a lot of history with trying to control what we're doing. So, there it comes. And in order to be able to continue this effort, when these controlling impulses come up, we have to learn how to deal with the controlling impulses, which we're not actually being asked to deal with yet, but they're coming anyway.

[43:48]

So we need to be able to be kind to them. If we're kind to them, then we can still, even while controlling impulses may come up, we can still then say, well, okay, there's some attempt to control here. but I'm just going to go back and pay attention to the breathing now but part of the process is to learn how to handle the distractions from the meditation before you're able to do it you already need to know how to handle the distractions when you're meditating on something you're not actually being told to think about all the distractions from it but there are a lot of distractions you need to sort of handle You need to learn how to handle the distractions before you're ready to focus on something. So if you want to focus on something, you have to learn how to be kind to the distractions before you can even get there.

[44:54]

And once you know how to handle the distractions, then when you get there to focus, then when the distractions come, you know how to deal with them. namely you let them be basically you're generous and then but also you're careful of them and you don't bad mouth them or bad mouth yourself and you're patient with them these practices of generosity ethics and patience precede focusing on something and another thing that precedes it as I said before is you actually have thought about that you want to do it and you feel energy to do it and now you do it so those four practices generosity, ethics, patience, and enthusiasm, they set the stage for this contemplation. And they deal with all the distractions that precede the entry into the practice and deal with the distractions after they arise when you're doing the practice. If you're focusing on something and a distracting comment or a distracting impulse to control comes in there and disturbs everything,

[46:05]

if you say welcome to it, you start to come. It pacifies it. Not hold on to it, not I like it, just you can be here. To let a distraction be here, it's not really a distraction. If you generously let it be here. But if you fight it, basically the distraction is winning. Okay? Okay? Okay, we have time for one more. Yes. I'm Clark. Claude? Clark. Clark. And I wondered, really two questions. Where do you locate the mind? You said earlier on the mind is in front of you. And the other question has to do with what you said about when you step into reality, what I interpret it as when you step into reality, what exists just before you came in.

[47:20]

You'd spoken about that and I just am confused about it. Well, consciousness Consciousness is the appearance. All appearances are consciousness. So the world that appears is consciousness. So actually the Buddha says that the meditator puts their mindfulness in front of them, establishes mindfulness in front of them. In other words, you're mindful of appearances. This is kind of recognizing the nature of mind is that mind appears The way we know the mind, the way we know is, you know, basically we live in a realm of appearances. That's the way we know things is as appearances, but the appearances are actually consciousness. But consciousness looks, is an inner state that looks external. So we practice mindfulness with that. We pay attention. Oh, there's the body and the breath.

[48:21]

Or here's the body and breath. So that's acknowledging the nature of consciousness is to see that it's in front of us. Consciousness appears in front of us, and it looks like it's not consciousness. So we start with that, and then with the body and the breathing. Any questions about that? Okay, and next question? When do we step into... You had said something about when we step into reality. Yeah, reality... Pre-existence. Reality is... Yeah, reality is before you were born. Birth is in appearance. Death is in appearance. These are things that appear in our consciousness, in our conscious world. In my world, there's birth and death. And these are very important appearances. And we want to practice with them, not just so that we can develop compassion, but so that we can develop wisdom.

[49:26]

And practice saying, be kind and present with birth and death sets the stage to be able to enter into our life which is before birth and death. So we actually have a life and then our life produces appearances Our light produces representations of our life, and we know these representations. If we're kind to these representations, we become free of the represented version of our life and enter the actual reality of our life. All these representations never really contact our life, but our life supports them. Our life supports us being these fantastic imaginators. We are really splendid imaginers.

[50:29]

We can imagine a world and then the world looks like actually it is a world rather than it is our imagination. But it seems like various people are discovering that we're really looking at our imagination And we should respect this splendid achievement of life and do these practices so that we can become free of this splendid achievement and, you know, not dwell in it and realize freedom with it, not destroying it, but freedom with it through understanding it. Is the tree outside the imagination? Is the tree outside... No, you're not imagination. For me, you're not imagination. The tree's not imagination, but the tree for me and you for me, you are my imagination for me, not for you.

[51:32]

You're not my imagination of you. I think you're a kind of basically inconceivable mystery. that no one really knows, except by imagining something about it. The way I know you is by my imagination. But you're not, you're not the way I know you. You're free of the way I know you. Pardon? Yeah, and for you too. And that's my and yours reality. The reality is that we're unknown to each other. That's our reality together. We use the image of an ocean. We are an ocean or we are oceans. And if you go out into the ocean, away from the coast, and you look around, the ocean looks like a circle of water. But the ocean isn't a circle of water.

[52:36]

If you look down at the ocean from another place, you don't see a bunch of circles of water. All these people out in the ocean, each one is living in a circle of water, but you don't see any circles of water. There's no circles of water in the ocean. But all the people out in the ocean think there's a circle of water. That's what it looks like. And that's the way, that's our experience of everybody is actually, our actual experience of everybody is an ocean. But we don't know the ocean. We just are living, we are, you know, and the ocean is unborn. But we make a little circle of water in the ocean, and in the circle of water there's birth and death, and we know it. And we have to accept we live in a circle of water. I shouldn't say we have to accept it. If we accept it and we practice compassion with it, we will understand that the circle of water is not the ocean. And then we'll exhale into the ocean. and the ocean will be purified of all the affliction that lives in the ocean because of people holding to the circles of water as being the ocean.

[53:42]

Holding to the circle of water as being the ocean causes stress and that stress causes, you know, fear and then based on the fear there can be all kinds of unwholesome activities and all those unwholesome activities affect the ocean. So, we're trying not only to open to the ocean and enter the ocean, but also change the ocean by being kind to the circle of water. And being kind to the circle of water is also kind to the ocean, it's just that we don't know that. All we know is the way we're kind to the circle of water. And kindness to the circle of water transforms the whole ocean. And the whole ocean supports us to see another circle of water. And in the circle of water we practice contemplating a body that's breathing. And also doing other wholesome activities so that we can contemplate the body that's breathing. If we're not kind to the circle of water, if we're not generous to the circle of water, if we're not careful with the circle of water,

[54:45]

If we're not patient with the circle of water, if we're not enthusiastic about contemplating the circle of water, we won't be able to contemplate the circle of water. And then if we don't contemplate the circle of water, we have a history that will go on of believing that the circle of water is the ocean. Unless I practice contemplation of my circle of water about each of you, I have a tendency to believe that my circle of water about you is you. but it's not. You are all oceans, inconceivably vast, ungraspable oceans. No one, even the Buddha, can grasp you. No one can grasp your practice. But anybody can make up a little story about you and believe it, and then we have stress. But that's not the end of the story. If we practice these practices with this stressful little circle of water, we can become free of it.

[55:50]

And even before we're free of it, we transform the whole ocean by our compassion towards the circle of water. So the tree is not my idea. The tree is an ocean. My idea of the tree is a little circle of water of the tree. And that's why we put our hands together like this and bow to people because we're bowing to the inconceivable person we're meeting far beyond our little story that they're a nice person. Thank you very much for your great attention. I had a little circle of water about your intention but I'm thanking your ocean of intention too.

[56:33]

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