I just wanted to say that I got a big response from what we talked about last week. A number of people came up after class and told me that they weren't going to be here tonight. And some people called me. And also, quite a few people are at the session at Green Gulch this week. And Lynn Forster and her husband still haven't come back from the injury, but they're keeping in touch. So I really appreciate those people who made that effort. And Donald told me that he's asking that in his classes, too, and he's finding it really quite helpful to do that. Please continue that practice in the future, at least with me and Donald.

[01:06]

What is the practice I missed last time? Oh, you did? The practice of, if you're going to miss a class, to try to let me know beforehand. Try to let me know beforehand. you know, just a tiny bit beforehand also, as you can, just calmly leave a message. If that's not possible, then afterwards, as part of, kind of, as a form to enact our relationship. And to enact the, kind of, ritually enact the fact that you understand that If you don't come, it has an impact on me, and other people, too. Just like if I don't come, it has an impact on you. And it would be strange if I didn't come without telling you beforehand if I knew. And even if I... Like one night, during this class or last class, there was a hole in the San Rafael Bridge.

[02:18]

So... I never did get on the bridge because the traffic was backed up to Palo Alto or something. So I never got on the bridge, but I kept trying. By the time I got off the bridge and called, everybody was already at the bus, so I couldn't get a message beforehand. But I tried. So I appreciate all of those of you who did respond and let you know that the people who aren't here most of them told me the reason. And I thought I might just say a little bit more, another little aspect on this practice of learning how to in these outflows or these taints. And there's a number of items in this list in the scripture where it says, see, one of them is, and what taints or what outflows monks should be abandoned by using?

[03:40]

Here, a monk reflects wisely. uses robe only for protection from cold and mosquitoes and wind and sun and creeping things and only for the purpose of concealing the private parts reflecting wisely he uses palms food neither for amusement nor for intoxication nor for the sake of physical beauty or attractiveness but only for the endurance and continuance of his body for ending discomfort and for assisting the holy life, considering, thus I shall terminate old feelings without arousing new feelings. I shall be healthy and blameless and shall live in comfort. Reflecting wisely, he uses his resting place or his housing only for protection from cold and so on. Reflecting wisely, he uses medicinal requisites only for protection from arisen afflictions and for the benefit of good health.

[04:47]

And says, while taints, vexation, fever might arise in one who does not use requisites wisely thus... There are no taints, no outflows, no vexation or fever in one who uses them thus. These are called the taints that should be abandoned by using. And so to approach or approaching and seeing beings, human and non-human beings and things to approach and see them in terms of how you can use them to relieve a sense of inadequacy or incompleteness.

[05:55]

to see and approach beings and things in terms of how you can use them to get a relief from a sense of inadequacy or to get a sense of completeness. This is a kind of outflow. This plants the seeds for suffering. So when it's lunchtime or whatever, or dinnertime, when you look toward dinner or approach dinner, if you have some sense of inadequacy or incompleteness and you think and you approach dinner and eating the food to relieve that sense of inadequacy, then that way of eating or that way of using the food, you're trying to get something from the food which it won't give you. and that creates outflows. If you approach the food not for anything more than to sustain your ongoing practice to try to understand, for example, how to end outflows, then you're not using the food to counteract any feeling of incompleteness or inadequacy.

[07:23]

You're not trying to fill the sense of a hole in yourself. eating because you're hungry and you might not eat if you weren't hungry but the people often when they go to eat they're using the food not just for nourishment but to address a sense of inadequacy or incompleteness This, of course, is related to food eating disorders. The reason why we sometimes feel inadequate or incomplete, or like there's a hole in us, is because of the way we see ourself. When I see myself as existing independently of you, that way of seeing myself

[08:27]

gives rise to a sense of seeking something to complete. The inadequacy which has been created in me by ignoring what I am, namely, by ignoring your interdependent being, you feel like something's missing. You feel inadequate or you feel, you know, more than adequate. And to, for example, eat or get clothing or get housing or get transportation or have relationships with that feeling and to try to use those things to overcome that feeling just reinforces that feeling. It's an acting. It's acting based on the sense that you're an independent self.

[09:31]

But when you feel like you're an independent self, you feel this inadequacy or this need, this incompleteness because of the way you see yourself. So to eat and buy clothing and get transportation and have relationships just towards reasonable doesn't pander to that misconception of yourself. And you're not expecting things from people and things that they aren't meant to satisfy. And by practicing this way, you actually start to change your attitude about yourself. And you start to feel more complete when you eat just because you're hungry. not to make yourself a better person or to feel more complete or to gain some peace of mind by eating you eat not trying to get that and therefore as you eat that way you do feel more peaceful about eating and the same with your clothing

[10:52]

That's another one, of course. People think, if I get these clothes, I'll be all right. If I get this haircut, I'll be all right. If I get this car, I'll be all right. And again, this goes very nicely with the market economy. If you get this thing, you will be all right. You will be a success. If you get this television set, your life will be good. And they even kind of joke like that. It's something to add, that this guy who likes... buys this huge television set without talking to his wife. Rather than say to his wife, I have this sense of inadequacy and I think if I buy this huge TV, I'll be okay, wifey dear. Now he keeps it to himself. He doesn't want to tell her that he's hoping that this purchase will make his life work. Maybe she has her version of that, too, that she doesn't want to tell him.

[11:55]

But if we were to confess this to the people we're close to, this would be an act, you know, it could be a ritual of admitting that we're vulnerable to each other and we're vulnerable to TVs and clothing and housing and medicine and food. We're vulnerable to it. And by admitting we're vulnerable to it, funny thing is, then we don't use it to complete ourselves. But when we think we're not vulnerable to things, then we feel like we're missing something. And then the very things which we're vulnerable to, we try to use them to overcome our rejection of our vulnerability. things are already affecting us and when we reject that we feel at a loss and then we want to use them to overcome that sense of inadequacy so one way to train then is to see if you're doing this right thing see if you think this meal will give me not just a certain level of blood sugar level and something but it's going to give me it's going to make me

[13:18]

a better person, a more complete person. And in some sense, it seems kind of, I don't know, hard to believe that people would do that. But as far as I can tell, they do. A lot of people do that around food, certainly around clothing, housing, status, and love. Getting love from people because you feel you're inadequate, and if you get the love, then you'll be okay. Rather, it comes from already cutting the person off, so then you want to get it back. Think that if you get it back, that you'll be okay. But you never lost them. So getting them back just reinforces the sense that you lost them. It's a testimonial to your separation when you try to get him back to overcome the feeling of separation.

[14:20]

The way the Buddha puts it, he doesn't get into the sense of this inadequacy, but it's right there. Just use these things. you know, to the extent necessary to let them perform their actual function. Housing, housing is basically for a religious person, for a spiritual person, housing is for like housing. It's not going to make you happy. It's not going to overcome your feelings of inadequacy. It's not going to overcome the hole in your heart. The houses don't do that. as you may have noticed. They do provide, however, shelters to some extent from rain and snow and so on, which is, that's a purpose. And people too, you know, people don't overcome your sense of inadequacy. Getting together with somebody doesn't make you complete.

[15:39]

Realizing that you're already with them, That actually makes you feel complete. But to try to get them to overcome that terrible feeling of a hole in yourself, that can turn into a horror. I knew this guy actually one time, and he was actually a wonderful guy and still sort of is. But when he got a girlfriend, He went from being a normal, I shouldn't say normal, but anyway, he went from being a suffering person to feeling like his life was like finally complete, finally perfect because he got this girlfriend and he was like, he was like, life was happening. But because she was, because she served this purpose for him rather than just being somebody he could relate to and

[16:43]

love and so on, but because she basically saved him from his suffering, because that's how he was using her, and it worked. If she did anything that would hint towards him not having her, In other words, if she showed the slightest change of her not being under his control because his happiness depended on her being in his possession, he would threaten her health. He would threaten her life. And he did this repeatedly. And these women would escape from him. Usually they had to leave town because if they were anyplace in town, he would find them because When he had them, he was okay, and when he didn't have them, he was like Mr. Hole in the Heart. And he would search all over the town for them, you know.

[17:46]

And they would come and talk to him, and he'd be like, I think you have to leave town, you know. Well, get a restraining order, but a restraining order, it's, you know, it's not a very good way to live. If you can leave town and have a, you know, find someplace else that's easier, it's crazy this way. Before he had a person, he was just another person who had this sense of inadequacy and looking for some way to cure it. But the way to cure it is to use things not that way. You have to use things. You have to have relationships. But to use them appropriately, start to cure. To use your relationships with people not to make you happy, but as an opportunity to to treat them properly, and that will make you happy. It's not the thing, it's the way you relate to it that brings you happiness. Anyway, this guy, he went to prison because of the way he related to these women for 15 years.

[19:01]

And then when he got out of prison, came back to Zen Center, but this time Zen Center said, because of what happened before, and because we can't put a sign on you, we don't have a sign on you saying, what do you call it? What's the word? Huh? No, but beware. What's the term they use for convicted sex offender? You know, newly released from prison sex offender, we don't put signs on people like that around Zen Center. So if people meet him at Zen Center, they think, well, he's at Zen Center, he's probably, you know, he's probably a Zen student, so I guess, you know, if he wants to have coffee with me, no problem. But we have to tell people this person has this background, but we can't. So we said, you can't come around Zen Center now.

[20:03]

And he accepted it, fortunately. But before, he'd go to prison, come out, and we'd try to help him rehabilitate, and then something would happen. But finally, after several tries of helping him come out of prison from this pattern, which also involved drugs, But the drugs, to a great extent, were just pacified that sense of longing, that sense of inadequacy, that sense of incompleteness, the pain of that. And or, another thing that happened, actually, he would get clean from drugs. And he'd be suffering, because we all suffer to some extent until we get over this. But he would be dealing with it. And then he would get involved with the woman. And then the pain would get much stronger because of this, like, potential of the solution, right? And then she would, like, start being a human being and not under his control, and then the pain would get stronger.

[21:08]

Then he would start taking drugs because the pain would be stronger. And then, of course, he would abuse the relationship more, and then there would be a pattern over and over. And it comes from the sense of, I'm incomplete, she completes me. which is, you know, if it were true, wouldn't it be wonderful? But you're not incomplete. I'm not incomplete. We're actually already interrelated with everybody. We're already, like, totally supported by everybody. We're interconnected with everybody. And so we don't use people to prove that. We more don't use people for that purpose, but use our relationship with them to verify that relate to people in such a way that we we don't try to get something from them to make ourselves feel complete but we use our relationships to celebrate that completeness which means i'm happy to see you i'm not trying to get something from you or i'm not happy to see you and i'm not trying to get something from you and because i'm not trying to get something from you

[22:25]

If you want to, I can tell you that I'm unhappy to see you because I'm not lying to you because I'm trying to get something from you to make me okay. That's why another way of looking at a number of these items here where the Buddha's talking about how to use things. And so is there anything you'd like to discuss tonight? This is the last class. Any outstanding questions or problems with some of the things we've been studying during this class? Can you help me a little bit with the word outflow again? What is that? How do outflows work? uh... if you see uh... life if you look at life and see it in terms of gain and loss that's the way you see things like i don't know like right now if you're listening to me

[23:52]

and you see that you're gaining something or losing something right now and that way of seeing this conversation if you saw it that way and got concerned with trying to avoid losing something or trying to get something just that way of relating to me right now would be this outflow way of relating outflow way of seeing and relating and that plants a seed for seeing another moment like that and and it keeps you tied into constantly trying to maneuver and meddle with what's happening rather than observing what's happening and learning about what's happening. You're not primarily trying to see what's happening.

[24:54]

You're basically trying to get something to happen, which is a normal, animal thing. We're trying to avoid losing something. And that basic perspective is what keeps us tied into the cycle of suffering and the afflictions that arise in that way of relating to things. because of seeing things in terms of gain and loss you're always disturbed by everything that happened and so everything like either flows into your flows out of you because you're into gain and loss so things are changing all the time but you're you know and you could go with that but if you see it in terms of gain and loss you you start to um you know, resist and tense up and fight or submit rather than sort of dance with it.

[26:00]

Because you don't just see this as something to dance with. You see that you're going to gain something from it or lose something. And then you can't dance with it. When you don't dance with it, you get pushed around. and get puffed up or depleted by seeing it that way. And that's uncomfortable, especially when it's over and over. It's not peaceful. And, of course, it's going to perpetuate itself. It sets a pattern to do it over and over. So that as it's come up in this class, it seems very difficult not to see things that way. Another way to deal with this is to try to start seeing things in a different way. In other words, not to see yourself as cut off from people, as separate. Not to see yourself as acting independently.

[27:07]

Start teaching yourself to remember to see your activity in terms of how you're acting together with other people. Which again, when you start to see how you're acting together, then gain and loss is less easy to see or easier to see how that not is necessary to see it that way even in people who are competing like tennis players or football teams if you see them as practicing together then you don't so much see it in terms of gain and loss even if you're on one one side of the game and if you are watching it you don't take this one side Because you see the side playing together and you see them playing with you and you see you playing with them. That overall way of seeing it, there isn't this kind of like gain and loss. But each little part of it, when you see it by itself, is a closed circuit.

[28:12]

And there's gain and loss there. When you see the whole picture of some event, there's no gain and loss in the whole system. But if you look at part of any interaction cut off from the surround, then you can see gain and loss. And when you see it that way, then you're tying into the view of a part of the picture of your life. You're tuning into a view of an incomplete picture of your life, which of course is prone to cause disturbance because you're going with part of the story. And you're not in touch with the whole story, so there's stress. There's stress in the system, but you're not opening to the whole system. When I was Abbott at Zen Center, I had this vision of my job.

[29:17]

And I sometimes put my hands together and make a triangle with my two hands to give a picture of my job. I thought my job was sort of like this triangle. and I worked hard to try to do all the activities in that triangle. But I couldn't quite get into all the corners of the triangle. I could do quite a bit. I worked hard and I did quite a bit, but I couldn't exhaust my view of the job. And then somehow I was given the gift of seeing that my job was not this triangle, but was Actually, like this. My job is like this. And then I could see, well, I'm not going to be able to do that. So I stopped overworking. I kept working, but I didn't overwork because I knew there's no point to work harder and harder with the hope that someday I would completely do everything that my job involved. This huge job, that's your job and my job, is not a job that you or I can do by ourselves.

[30:30]

We make a contribution, but there's no limits to our responsibility. So we're not going to be able to do it all by ourselves. But by working together with everybody, we realize, not finishing the job, but we're just in accord with the immensity of it, with the unlimited responsibility we have. But gain and loss in such a huge field of responsibility doesn't make much sense. An activity has occurred, but it's not really a gain. It's just an activity. It's kind of silly to keep track in that perspective of whether you're gaining or losing. But that small-scale view is the outflow view. And then that small-scale outflow view, which is painful and disturbing, then to try to do things in that context doesn't really solve the problem.

[31:45]

It just perpetuates that false view. And this is, in some sense, the most basic type of defilement that keeps us hooked and that perpetuates itself. Greed and hate and delusion, or greed and hatred and confusion, are derivative of that and closely related. But this is even before you're greedy in a way. This is more looking at things in such a way that you're prone to greed, prone to hatred. You want what will give you gain and you hate what will disturb your gain. Are you susceptible anyway to that?

[32:51]

And there's many practices you can do to try to protect yourself from being too greedy or being too hateful. And if you do those practices, then that sort of lets you move back to face the basic problem. If you're being really hateful, you don't have time to look at how you're at the basis of that hatred. There's some kind of gain and loss going on from your point of view, and that you've gotten caught up in it. You have to sort of like even stop, practice patience with the discomfort. As long as we're deluded, there's going to be some discomfort to practice patience with, but then you can start looking, well, what is the view here? How do I see things? I'm seeing things. The way I'm seeing things is uncomfortable. The way I'm seeing you I see you as insulting. I see you as being negative about me. I see you as not being appreciative of me. That's the way I see you. The way I see you, I feel uncomfortable.

[33:58]

If I saw you differently, I might feel comfortable. But even if I did feel more comfortable, like I saw you as being respectful of me, still if I have this tendency towards gain and loss, then I might feel like that was a game and then be afraid that you stop respecting me. And then maybe try to do something to keep you respecting me. And then that would make me uncomfortable. And then if I don't practice patience with that discomfort, then I can perhaps become enraged with you if you don't continue to respect me. Or even I could become enraged with you at the potential of you disrespecting me. I don't see that. Yeah. So anyway, that's... Yeah. Michael and Dorit? I think we're going to have to try to pick up more goals without being attached to the desire to have them.

[35:08]

But I think this question is more, what's the kind of goal that the base of that goal Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's part of it, broadening perspective. So I like the expression of Buddhas are born of great compassion. In other words, the Buddhas do kind of have a goal or a desire. They want people to be free of fear and pain and, you know, of fear and affliction and misery and so on. They want that. But there's no seeking in that.

[36:10]

Their happiness is related to it, but they feel happy wanting people to be happy. And if people are being real slow about becoming free, Buddhists are somewhat uncomfortable with that. But they don't actually want people to be different from the way they are right now. They realize that they have to be the way they are. And they still want them to be happy or happier than they are if they're not happy. That is their goal. But they're not seeking anything other than what's going on. Because they can see, partly because they can see that this is the way the person has to be right now. They have to be this way. The causes and conditions are coming together to make them like this. And they have the potential to become happier, and I want that. But I'm totally patient with this, and I don't feel incomplete being with somebody who is not happy.

[37:12]

And their happiness isn't going to make me complete. Although I will be happy if they... I'm happy to be with them, I'm happy to care about them, and I will be happy if they become happy and they become free, but my happiness isn't depending on them becoming free. Well, it does in a sense. I'm happy now and I'll be happy... I'm happy now with them unhappy and I'll be happy later with them happy. And their unhappiness now dents my happiness. I heard that the etymology of the word karuna, which means compassion, is dented happiness. So you're happy, but there's a dent in it. But you are happy. And you're happy also because you're patient with the dents in your happiness that people make on your happiness. But you don't... It isn't that you want to get dents taken out of your happiness...

[38:15]

We actually want the people to be happy. Yeah, you can say the goal, Buddha's goal is that we become wise, that we become wise. That is their goal, that's their purpose, that's their agenda. But there's no seeking or craving in it because they don't feel incomplete. Because they feel, in fact, they feel totally complete in their connection with us in their work with us. Their work is to work with us to help us. Just like, you know, a doctor, you know, could feel incomplete that the patients aren't well, but if the patients were well, there would be no doctor. So the Buddha is totally full of us suffering beings. We are the fullness of the Buddha. But Buddha's not afraid of losing her job by us becoming well, matter of fact, Buddha wants us to become well.

[39:17]

But not so that the Buddha then will feel okay. Just that, you know, same with the, I don't know anyway, same with everything. That you can want to have lunch just to have lunch and you can want people to be happy just to be happy, not because you're expecting that you're going to get something out of it, that you're going to gain something. So Buddha can see us as moving from less to more wise without seeing that as a gain. Seeing it as a gain will cause, will plant the seeds of suffering. So seeing your goal, seeing achieving your goal as a gain That would be if your goal was to be happy, that would be antithetical to your goal. Wanting to be good to get something is antithetical to good. Wanting to be real to gain something is antithetical to being real.

[40:22]

It's just a dualistic way of seeing things that creates gain and loss. And to play along with that perpetuates the dualistic way of seeing things. But to want something just because you want it, period, and to deal with that you want it, period, then you can look and see if there's any gain involved in the want, and maybe there isn't. If it's an enlightened wish and the enlightened desire, there's no gain and loss around it. So the Buddha's not seeking to get anything. This is just the Buddha's goal. It's like a woman may wish to be a mother, and she could have a gaining idea about that, or just feel like, I'm built to do this, and I want to do it. And then when the baby comes, they don't feel like they gained anything. That would be the enlightened response. But if the mother does feel like they gained something, rather than just fulfill the destiny of being a mother,

[41:30]

then we got a problem. Because then, you know, sure I was, and now I'm complete. And then what if you lose the baby, or the baby grows up, or whatever, you know? Then we have outflows. We have a book of emotions arising because of seeing it as a gain. Or, and also sometimes mothers see it as a loss, right? Whenever you become a mother, you lose your non-motherhood. Every time every woman becomes a mother, there's no more little girl. She's out the window. Bye-bye. You lose it. But you don't have to see it that way. Okay? Marie? Okay. I don't think it would be .

[42:53]

I don't think it would be . I don't think it would be . I don't think it would be . Yeah, well, again, I think the dictionary definition of vulnerability is... So we're able to be hurt or open to being hurt. And we are open to being hurt by various things. It isn't that we're not vulnerable. We are vulnerable. When you open to your vulnerability and can, you know, not just open to it for a second and then shrink back from it for ten years, but on an ongoing basis feel your vulnerability...

[44:04]

then gain and loss doesn't make much sense. Because if you gain something, you're vulnerable to being hurt. And if you lose something, gain and loss is kind of in terms of ignoring vulnerability. Like you could gain protection or gain something which you could keep for a while. But everything you gain is going to be taken from you. But that's not because exactly you're losing it, but just because things change. And you're vulnerable. It doesn't mean you will be hurt all the time, but you could be hurt by every change. And to be aware of that, I'm suggesting, as you become aware of it and open to it, and and learn to be patient with it.

[45:12]

It isn't because you don't care that you become more stable and at ease, but more because you do care. Because you do care if people hurt you, and you do care if you hurt other people. Also, vulnerability means you also understand other people are vulnerable to you. So when you're in this very tender situation, gain and loss is kind of like a little bit too gross to get involved with. You're into something a little bit more basic than gain and loss. But you do care. You do care that people can hurt you. And you do care that you can hurt people when you're open to this. But you look like this...

[46:19]

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