I wondered if anybody would come here on this cold morning. Pretty good. Last week, Tayo Lipscomb gave a talk here and he said that he schedules the talks, and he mentioned that Norman Fisher said that the way he prepares for a talk is that he looks in his calendar, his appointment book, and if it says Dharma Talk at the time that he comes and gives a talk. And Taiyo said that if he looks in his calendar book and there's nobody listed there, then he comes and gives a talk. But then he also forgot to mention that when he looks in his book and there's nobody listed there and he doesn't want to give the talk, then he asks me to give the talk.

[01:05]

And that's what happened today. He couldn't find anybody else. So he asked me, so this is what you call bottom of the barrel But sometimes there's some good stuff down there in the bottom of the barrel. Today is December 26, 1993. I guess in Canada they call this Boxing Day, right? So it's Boxing Day and it's a cold, gray winter day, a time of gladness and maybe for some people a time of sadness or maybe the other way around, a time of sadness and maybe a time of gladness.

[02:20]

A time of kindness and a time of compassion. And I gave myself the kindness the last few days of letting myself read a book written by a person named Charles Dickens, a person who was concerned with the suffering of this world. and has spent his life trying to draw people's attention to it in a way that they could stand. He didn't just bat them over the head with the misery of the poor people. He kind of tricked them to look at it by being kind of whimsical about it. And he wrote a book called A Christmas Carol. And he wrote that book exactly 150 years ago in December So this is the 150th anniversary of this writing of this book.

[03:33]

And this book is...this story is something that had a...it got to me when I was a little boy. I don't remember when I first saw it, but I first saw it like on TV or something. And I think I saw a movie version of this story. I believe the person who played Scrooge was Alistair Sims. And I liked the story very much. And I look forward to seeing it on TV every Christmas. It is a dark, a dark and scary tale.

[04:46]

And actually as Dickens says, I have endeavored in this ghostly little book to raise the ghost of an idea which I shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt your house pleasantly and no one wish to lay it. their Faithful Friend and Servant CD, December 1843. And when I was 11, we were going to put on a play called A Christmas Carol. And there were readings to try out for various parts.

[05:56]

And so when it came time for the part of Scrooge, various, in those days, young boys got up to try out for the part. And so they got up and read, you know. And I forgot how they read, you know, but they read something like, if I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried at the stake of Holly through his heart. So various young people got up and read that.

[06:59]

And then I read it. But having seen the movie, I had some feeling for the part. And I read the part with some nastiness and energy. And my teacher said, you're Scrooge. And I got the part. And I never learned the part. I actually just ad-libbed it from memory. And I had a good time. Now as I'm getting older and approaching the age of an actual Scrooge, I have to watch out and be careful and continue my practice of Zen to protect myself from slipping into the nasty and stingy ways of Scrooge. So this carol, this story, is still an inspiration.

[08:09]

But, you know, I never read it before, so I was surprised how it started out. It starts out kind of like this. He said, you know, Scrooge used to be in business with this guy named Marley. And the first thing that Dickens says is Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt whatsoever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was upon change. For anything you choose to put his hand to, old Marley was as dead as a doornail. And then Dickens says, mind? I do not mean to say that I know on my own knowledge that there is anything particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined myself with regard to a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.

[09:19]

But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically, Marley was as dead as a doornail. That's how he starts out talking about this scary tale. And then Scrooge goes, you know, does some mean things and goes home. And then Marley comes to visit him at night. The ghost of Marley comes to visit him and says some interesting things. He says that in this rolling year, this time of year is the time I suffer most, Marley said, Marley's ghost said.

[10:25]

And he said... Why did I walk through the crowds of fellow beings with my eyes turned down and never raise them to that blessed star which led the wise people to a poor abode? Why do we walk through crowds of fellow beings with our eyes cast down and not let our eyes lift up and see the star which leads us into the abode of suffering? Why do we walk through the world of suffering with our eyes averted from that suffering? Why don't we look at this blessed star which sends our eyes back to suffering? back to an abode of poverty. Marley says, you know, I was a pretty bad boy.

[11:45]

Scrooge says, you were a good businessman. And Marley says, business? Humankind was my business. Charity was my business. Kindness and benevolence and the welfare of all was my business. But my trade, my business trade, is like a drop in the ocean of that business. Marley left and went out sort of like faded into the foggy night of London. And Scrooge saw out in the fog all these different spirits and specters flying through the air. And he could see in their screaming and misery the thing that bothered them most, their greatest misery, was that they wanted to interfere in the activity of humans.

[12:50]

in such a way as to be of some help, but they couldn't do it. The thing is that now we have this special ability. We have this amazing ability that we can actually share the workings of this world. We actually can interact in this world. We can walk among people and look at them and interact with them. And Marley also says that the duty or the opportunity of being a person is that you can walk forth in the world. You can go forth in the world among beings and interact with them and turn these occasions into happiness. We can do this now. However, if we don't do it now, we will... continue to wander indefinitely, however, unable to do it, because then we have no share in this world.

[14:05]

And it would be our misery that when we had a chance, we didn't use it. A friend of mine gave me a piece of paper a few days ago, and it said at the top, circles. And he says, I'm a circle salesman. I'm selling circles. And he makes circles. He paints circles, large circles with people. Some of you may know his work. And so he had on this piece of paper the circles that he'd already done with people, that he's painted around California and around the country, and proposed circles, which he's trying to raise money for.

[15:12]

And I thought that was great, to be a circle salesman. By the way, can you hear me OK in the back? And then he mentioned another friend of ours, a member of our community. who works with nails, or pins actually. And we talked about how you can repeat something, like he's selling circles now and doing all these different circles, and another friend of ours does nail art. And what he does is he takes a little grid and drops pins through the grid. Some of you may have felt his work at the Exploratorium. He drops pins through a little grid and then you can put your hands under the nails and play with this pin surface. And he's thought of all kinds of creative ways of working with these pins.

[16:13]

And the funny thing about these pins is if you took one of these pins and pushed it, it would hurt. But when you push on a whole bunch of them, they don't hurt. They feel you have this intense articulate experience, articulated experience. And it's really interesting to be a human being at that time. And I thought this morning that I also sell circles, but my circles are in the air. And so the circle I'm showing this morning is a circle which has a point in it called compassion. It's the point on it where you see how wonderful it is to walk in the world and have your eyes looking at people and not be afraid of them.

[17:18]

and be ready to give them whatever they want. Or at least whatever is good for them to have. But not be afraid to get into the negotiation of determining the difference between what they want and what would be good. To look at your teenage daughter in the eye when she wants to use the car. Before and after she has her license. To look at a person in the eye when they ask you for money and not be afraid of that interaction. Not be afraid of the pain that you feel and the confusion that you may feel of meeting someone who you can't quite tell whether they're you or not you. So a point in this circle is the eyes of compassion, the eyes which can look at living beings, that can look at them and be drawn into them.

[18:25]

And then another part of this circle is eyes of wisdom, Zen eyes, eyes that can see through the delusions that our mind creates. Eyes that can cut through our sense of separation and our confusion about who we are and who others are. We need eyes of wisdom to go with our eyes of compassion. Eyes of compassion without wisdom are Of course, eyes of wisdom without compassion do not really exist. Compassionate eyes lead to wisdom eyes. Wisdom eyes lead to compassionate eyes. It's because of compassion that we would be willing to do the work of opening our wisdom eye.

[19:29]

And once our wisdom eye is opened, our compassionate eyes are opened fully. for a little boy or a little girl to hear the story of Stingy Old Scrooge and see his suffering and to see the lessons he learned and the opening of his heart, to see that story, both the wisdom eye and the compassionate eye open a little. But when the story is over and the TV goes off, And the mind goes back to work, unguided by the story, unguided by the TV set. The mind starts generating new ideas, like my toys and my candy and my house. And if we let those ideas arise and believe them as real, without studying them, again, they take over and we don't

[20:31]

We don't find freedom from these ideas, from our sense of this is my toy and that's your toy. So how do we open these wisdom eyes? How do we open the eyes of wisdom which when opened cut through these delusions and let our human gifts flourish? Eyes of wisdom which let our human gifts fully flower. How do we open them? Well, in Zen the first thing we do is we sit still. And sitting still I noticed that I inhaled and now I'm exhaling.

[21:48]

So we sit still. We sit here and we let body and mind and breath become unified. I say, let them become unified. I could say unify them, but if I say unify them, then someone like myself or you may think, okay, you two guys get together there. Okay, body and breath, get together. Mind and breath, come together. And this kind of activity... may backfire. This is not a coercive, fascist program.

[22:57]

Body, mind and breath are unified, so how can we appreciate that? How can we sit still and notice how that breath is always nicely followed by the mind? we have the ability to feel, to perceive that breath and mind are separate and the mind can watch the breath and the mind can think of something other than the breath and therefore the mind can be brought back to the breath. This is part of what we seem to be able to see. This is part of our imaginative ability without fighting this imagination, can you study it and see that it can also tell a story of unity of body and breath.

[24:20]

sitting still with with heart and breath in intimate accord. Feeling your breath strumming strumming the chords of your heart. Feeling how your heart is sensitive to your breath. Using your heart to appreciate your breathing.

[25:38]

Use your abdomen, your abdominal area to feel your breath. Now I could just leave now and you could just stay here with your breathing and your posture. And I leave that work to you to do as much as you wish.

[26:50]

And I foreshorten this process of you realizing the union of body, mind and breath. I foreshorten that process to say that when they are united, when the breath and the mind touch and nicely, gently, mutually support each other, at that touching, the mind is there too, realizing that the mind is stopped, the mind is at peace. At that moment of touching, the mind is at peace it's not moving.

[27:59]

And I propose the tough message to you that you need or perhaps I take back you need and just say it is extremely useful if you can realize this peace, this tranquility, this unmoving quality of the moment that your breath and your body and your mind touch. That peace will be the ground upon which you can sit and look into the essence of your mind. And looking into the essence of your mind will lead to the vision which we call Eyes of Wisdom, a vision from which compassion will naturally

[29:25]

flow forth. It will be the vision of the union of all beings. It will be the vision of the union of your body, mind and breath, the union of yourself and all other beings. Then you won't have to try to be compassionate anymore. You won't have to fight your tendency to be a Scrooge. You will naturally enact kindness, you'll naturally do the work, the business of a human being, which is the welfare of all, charity, patience, giving, benevolence, and so on. The work that Marley did not do in this world, the work that he missed From this quiet realization of the peaceful quality of body-mind union, we can look at our human weaknesses.

[31:20]

And by clarifying these weaknesses, these very weaknesses turn into the qualities of awakening. by clearly observing our human frailties from a sitting still, these weaknesses are developed into enlightenment. The practice of the Buddha's teaching is to develop our weaknesses, our frailties our humanness so that our true human business can be realized. And that's how kindness comes. Kindness means, of course, generosity, sensitivity, kindness in the sense of benevolence and gentleness.

[32:34]

But kindness also means of the same kind. that we're the same, we're of the same family, the same race, the same kind, the same class. So first you need to get a seat and That's your work. And if possible, a seat that you can carry out into the street. A seat from which you can look up at people and meet them and study this wonderful thing called the dependent co-arising of existence.

[33:39]

where you can study how we create each other, where you can see this wild, magical, musical scene until all these forms turn to light. That you can look steadily, peacefully at something until you can start to see it brimming with brilliance and turning into light. Until your mind, your consciousness turns to wisdom. The wisdom which enables and protects compassion. Like a couple days ago, I might have a grown-up daughter who, in my opinion, or according to my principle, should have a job by now and be earning her own Christmas shopping money.

[35:14]

That's what I think. And I told her so. So she wanted me to give her money to go buy presents for people. I think it's good to go buy presents, and especially for certain people. I really approve of her buying presents for them. But I felt funny about me giving her the money to go buy the presents for the people. It seemed like she should get her own money and give her own money over to buying these presents. She agreed completely with me and agreed that it was ridiculous for me or anybody to be giving her money so she could buy people presents. She said, I agree, it's ridiculous. And I said, well, okay, good. And I stated my principle. And now I can let go of it. So that's what I'm doing around the world. I state my principle, and the more clearly I state it, for me, the more clearly I state it, the easier it is for me to say, okay, now I do the Buddhist part, throw it away.

[36:31]

But I must do the sort of, not exactly non-Buddhist, but anyway, the human part of it. Namely, I have an idea, I have an image, I have a fantasy about the way the world should be. I have a dream. And that dream should be clear. And that dream is my weakness, in a sense. It's my limited view. I have to have one. You have to have one. Everybody's got to have a dream. And that dream is a limitation, though. Our human eyes can only see a certain limited dream. But once that dream is clear, then comes the part where you can give it away, where you see the big light behind the little dream, the big light. It starts to come around the edge and say, are you kidding? Do you know what you're doing? Look at that. And that turns your idea, turns your dream of the world into wisdom.

[37:35]

But I must admit my dream, admit my fantasy, and admit my fantasy is a fantasy, and that's why I can give it up. It's not reality. Most of what we think, most of our human mental activity is indeed fantasy. And the road to wisdom is not to get that fantasy to match reality, because it will never match. The road to wisdom is the, you might say, relentless recognition of error. Or you might say the ruthless perception of error. rather than the direct perception of truth. Our mind constantly produces images.

[38:43]

Images are not errors. The error is to think that the image is real, corresponds to reality. But if you can see from this quiet place, if you can watch your mind generating world upon world, in minute detail, if you can watch this creative process, watch your human weakness in action, dancing and singing wildly, and see how it works. In the clarification of that weakness of your mind, the light will dawn upon you And you will be relieved of your dream. And then you can donate your principles on the spot to all sentient beings.

[39:47]

This is what I think we should do. And here. This is what I believe. Everyone will enjoy you dropping it. It's not that people want us to be without principle. They want us to have principles. We must be principled because we are. Everybody's got principles, and that's necessary. It's necessary because we do have them. The question is, do you know what principles you have? Have you clarified them and developed them to their fullness? And if you have, then you're ready to do this thing called dropping them. And then a principle... is manifested which is not my principle or your principle. It is the principle of our common welfare. It is the relief of my principle.

[40:49]

Scrooge was a principled person. He had principles upon which he did not let his assistant have any heat in his office. He had principles by which he felt that it was good that people were in debtor's prisons. Have we no debtor's prisons? Have we no poorhouses? That was his principle. But he wasn't able to drop it. And I'm not telling you to drop your principles as an act, you know, to take them and drop them, because if you drop them or I drop them, that's not dropping them. They drop naturally at their fulfillment. At the full exertion of your principles is when they drop, when you realize how silly it is. When you can play it out all the way, you will see the joke. But to push them away and drop them before you see that, the eye of wisdom is not yet opened. and the eye of compassion is thus not protected so be a fool to the hilt and if you want to know what to be foolish about just whatever you think that's what you should use that's the most appropriate thing to use because that's what you believe now what I believe

[42:21]

It's not what other people believe, but it's what you believe. Now, some people think, okay, I'm going to get a whole bunch of people to agree with me, and they put pressure on people to say, oh, yes, they agree. But basically, everybody's got their own view, and they think it's true, and they try to get other people to confirm it. But in Buddhism, the truth you try to get people to confirm is ultimately the truth that you have actually given up your truth. Teacher, I have finally given up my truth for the benefit of all beings. Get confirmation on that. But don't get confirmation before you think you've already realized it because if you don't think you have, you're right. This kind of thinking can be called living thinking or loving cognition.

[43:37]

Get in there with your thinking, get in there with your opinions, get in there with your principles, and really get in there with them, because these are your babies. The human mind is what you call autopoetic. You know, poetic means to make. We auto-poeticize ourselves. We create ourselves and we create others. We do this all the time in enormous, basically infinite variety. Look at it. It's going on right now. This is your mind. This is your baby working. Love it. Get in there with it. Enjoy it. Admit it. Open your eyes to others. Open your eyes to the others which you create. Enjoy the world, this cold, gray, winter day that we have created. I say that.

[44:39]

Maybe some of you don't think it's a cold, gray, winter day, for all I know. I said that, but you don't have to agree. Matter of fact, you don't. You may agree with the words, but when you get down to it, you have a slightly different version of this world. And some of you may have come from out of town, up north, and think it's warm here. People from down south are visiting. They think it's cold. You know, get with the program. You know what program that is? Your program. Get with your program. Get with your creation. Get with the world that you're making. Gently, lovingly, creatively catch up with yourself. And when you've done that all the way, then I won't even tell you to drop it.

[45:40]

You will be able to. You'll see that that's the thing to do. Now, if I keep at this a little longer, well, like several more hours, I'll get to the place where I have expressed myself fully. But since some of you are very polite, I won't put you through that. I'll stop. Soon. This is just a sample of me talking. Which is why Tayo invited me to talk. Because he knows that I'm willing to do this. Which is basically me talking myself into being myself. So I can forget it. You all are really good at being yourselves. I'm good at being myself. What we need to do is we need to know how to talk about it. You need to talk yourself into being yourself.

[46:43]

Because if you don't talk yourself into being yourself, you're going to talk yourself out of being yourself. And that's a lost person. That's a ghost. Every moment you're there, but if you're not completely there, at that moment of not completely being there, a ghost is born. But the good news is... that if you can one moment completely be yourself, one moment there will not be a ghost created. And if that ghost that's not created, if that person you become at that moment is thorough enough, it releases all the ghosts of the past and future Christmases. If you can be yourself completely in one moment, there's no ghost created at that time. But we need to talk ourselves into it.

[47:49]

We need to use the language that's in our head to encourage ourselves to be here and be this person and sit still and see what she's creating. To think vitally to lovingly cogitate. The truth cannot be perceived. All you can perceive is delusion. But to understand that is the perception of truth. human beings are built very well for fantasy. And they're constantly fantasizing.

[48:52]

But it's not a fantasy that you're fantasizing. To think that your fantasy is reality is an error. But it's not an error to understand that it's an error. Understanding can transcend our perceptual process. And it transcends the perceptual process by studying it. And the way you study it is to get a good seat. Now, it doesn't have to be in the front row. You can pick it whatever distance you want. The important thing is to be still and steady and devoted to the study of yourself and how you create the other. I'll keep working on this.

[50:16]

So don't worry about me. And I'm not exactly worried about you. I'm not exactly worried about whether you're going to sit still and look into the essence of your mind. I'm not exactly worried about that. I'm not even approximately worried about it. Worry is not my thing about this matter. It's more like I'm really enthusiastic about you doing this. I'm really hot on you getting to know yourself. And if anybody's not hot on getting to know herself or himself, you're welcome to come forward and state your case.

[51:35]

And I'll try to talk you out of it. and I'll try to talk you into yourself. I will. I'm actually dedicating my life to that. And when I talk somebody else into being herself or himself, simultaneously I'm talking myself into it, so it's not wasting my time. So I actually appreciate those who have the courage to stand up and say, I don't want to do that work. I want to be somebody else. There's quite a few people like that, but very few are willing to admit it. So the song about this is

[52:46]

I'm a little teapot, short and stout. This is my handle, this is my spout. When I get all steamed up, just tip me over and pour me out. Happy Boxing Day. Something's ruminating in my mind with regard to your talk, and it had to do with... referring to wisdom as being... as paying attention to our weaknesses and not necessarily the truth. Now, wisdom isn't paying attention to things. Wisdom is the full flowering of your ability contemplation is to pay attention to your weaknesses. And if you pay attention to your weaknesses fully, wisdom will be born from the thorough recognition of your weakness.

[54:00]

So you need to sit quietly, peacefully, and look at your weakness. And as you get it very clear, you realize your weakness is not a weakness, and it's not a strength either. However, weakness is born of strength. There's no weakness without strength. Please give me an example of a weakness that doesn't have strength involved. Pardon? Getting annoyed. Getting annoyed. So that's a good example. That's not a good example. That's a proof of what I said. You have to have strength to get annoyed. If you're really weak, only weak, you can't get annoyed. You have to have some juice to get annoyed.

[55:04]

What about self-confidence? What about it? Is that a weakness? Okay, make it a weakness. Make it a weakness. It takes strength to be self-confident. You can't have weakness without strength. But you can have no weakness without strength. That's fine. You can have no weakness and no strength. But if you've got weakness, you've got strength. Also in the definition of weakness you have strength. There's no way to understand it as a concept without strength. It's relative. Yes, what about it? Dishonesty also. There's no dishonesty without honesty. Couldn't follow that? Let's do one. No, no. We have to do one at a time here. He doesn't get that. Okay. So what do you get?

[56:05]

Do you have some dishonesty that doesn't have any honesty about anywhere in the neighborhood? No. What I'm asking is how does... I don't see the strength behind dishonesty, or the strength... You should think of a specific example of dishonesty and tell me about it, and I'll show you. Deal with specifics, and I can show you. That's what I mean by, you know, you have to get into the full expression of whatever it is. In the full expression of an act of dishonesty, in the precise expression that it is at that time, you quietly, calmly, diligently, thoroughly study that little chunk of dishonesty.

[57:09]

You look at it. And the more you look at it, the more you realize that the dishonesty is made by many things. One of the things that makes dishonesty is honesty. There's many other things that make dishonesty, though, and you will see them. And each example of dishonesty will have a different pattern of causation. And everything is like that. The very fact of the way a thing is, whatever it is, in its precise appearance, is exactly why it isn't what it appears to be. But you have to take a particular example in order to study it. The general principle is the fact that honesty is honesty is precisely why honesty is not honesty. There's no such thing as honesty. There's no such thing as dishonesty. There's no such thing as good and there's no such thing as bad. There's no such thing as Buddha. There's no such thing as delusion. There's no such thing as anything.

[58:10]

Everything lacks inherent existence. Everything in its fullness in its thoroughly being itself everything is liberated from itself by being itself. And anything you study thoroughly you will appreciate that the very fact that thing is completely what it is is precisely what liberates that thing from itself. And the way you are in any given moment precisely how you are is sufficient cause for why you can be liberated or how you can be liberated from yourself. But if you're approximately yourself, then you can suffer the consequence of being approximately yourself basically forever. If you're sort of in the neighborhood of yourself, you'll always feel miserable because you'll never share

[59:13]

in the world that you can actually participate in, because you actually participate in the world through yourself, as you are at a given moment. Not sort of as you are, but precisely as you are. You always come from your body and your mind at this moment. And you are always liberated from yourself every moment. You always move on. You always move on from yourself and become a new one. And the way you move on is through yourself. And it is through yourself, being yourself, that you're liberated from yourself. In order to experience this liberation, we must join this situation. And that, for so many reasons, involves paying the price of feeling pain. But it's painful to be honest and it's painful to be dishonest.

[60:16]

Both are painful until you completely exert honesty and dishonesty and then you're liberated from that pain through that total presence. When you say exert, what do you mean? I mean, well, to lovingly think, to intimately, thoroughly be present with what you're thinking right now. And in order to be thoroughly present, you need to be stable so you can slip on the glove of yourself. And you must learn and study yourself inside out. Like study yourself from the inside of the glove that fits you. Because actually the whole universe is the glove that fits around you.

[61:18]

But in order to feel this glove, you have to be your hand. And you can't like roughly push yourself into your hand. You have to gently, lovingly get yourself into yourself. That's why you need to be quiet and peaceful and careful and gentle, to fit yourself into yourself, to become so intimate with yourself that you cannot become any more intimate. And as soon as you're completely intimate with yourself, you'll forget it. And this forgotten self is the self that is naturally compassionate. It's not that there's no self, it's that the self has been forgotten through intimacy with itself. And this person Doesn't have to think about being compassionate. This person is compassion. Because this person has forgotten the self. In other words, this person is, can't be separate from other beings. So you don't have to work at being gentle and kind to people. You don't have to work at being generous.

[62:20]

It comes not, it just, it's like taking care of your own eyeballs. Okay. Yeah. I was thinking about what you said about really getting to know your principles, an aspect of what you're saying right now. Yes. And I was thinking about it in terms of common communication and also in terms of psychology and how I think a lot of our... often lost, but a lot of our attention really is getting to know our own principles and another's principles. Excuse me, I missed a beat. A lot of what is getting to know what? A lot of what our true intention is when we communicate with another person really is to get to know ourselves more thoroughly and to get to know them more thoroughly as well. And I wondered if you'd give some examples of how to do that more effectively.

[63:23]

Because I think we get lost. I get lost. And it seems to me most people get lost in talking about stuff when our real intention really is to be honestly expressive and to get to know ourselves and get to know the other. So I just wondered if you had any suggestions of how we can better do that. You mean some suggestions about how to do it? Even taking away better? Just do it? Well, first of all, it isn't something you do. My first suggestion is that you don't make this practice another thing you do. The practice is not to do something, the practice is to study yourself doing things. or not even to say to study yourself doing things, but just to study doing things.

[64:25]

And what are the things we do? We think, we speak, and we make postures. So, study yourself sitting, study yourself making postures, speaking and thinking. So, by study yourself, be aware of... Of intention, be aware of feeling, be aware of motivation. Yes. Yes. Be aware of body posture. So, for example, as you know, we spend quite a bit of time just sitting. At that time, it is being suggested that we be mindful of what posture we're making moment by moment. also involved in that posture will be breathing. So it's very good to be mindful of the breathing. And if you hear the message that it's good to be mindful of your breathing, it's good to notice that you can start thinking that you should be mindful of your breathing.

[65:42]

I haven't heard the instruction that it's good to be mindful... I haven't heard the instruction that it's good to think that you should be mindful of your breathing. We don't say it's good that you... I don't say it's good that you think you should be mindful of your breathing. I say it's good that you're mindful of your breathing. However, if I say that, then people convert that into I should be mindful of my breathing. Now, what I would say is good is to be aware that you thought you should In other words, be mindful of your thought, that you should be doing something that you heard is good and that you believe is good. So being aware that you have converted what sounds like a favorable instruction into a principle again, then you become mindful of your thinking, which is also, it's good to be mindful of your thinking. When people hear that, they think they should be mindful of their thinking, but that's just more thinking, which you should be mindful of. So to be mindful, basically, of all these different things that you think you can do. You think you can make a posture.

[66:46]

You think you can think a thought. You think you can make a should. You think you can follow a should. You think you can make a posture. You think you can breathe a breath. You think you can think a thought. These are things people think that they can do. Be aware that you think that way. Be aware that you think you're a person who can do things. Watch yourself enact that illusion, that fantasy that you can do something by yourself. If you watch this very thoroughly, and particularly from a calm place so that you really get a good sight of it, as you reach the thoroughness of watching this person do things, And again, settle with the disturbance created by this observation because observing this process will agitate you slightly. And keep studying this and calming yourself back and forth until you can study this process which is actually very active and wild and musical and colorful and it has lots of energy and really lots is happening to be able to enter into your mind's creating itself and its world

[67:59]

and still be present and calm at the fullness of that. All this will turn into wisdom. And you will realize the full flowering of your life. And then your hand will reach out into the world and be compassion. Without, you know, any kind of principle. You'll be whatever the world needs you to be. But it's hard work to get in there with what's happening, stay present with it, and stabilize yourself, and also to give up your stabilization and enter into contemplation. And then as you get into contemplation to such an extent that you get destabilized, to go back and stabilize yourself, to do this dance and to become skillful at it, is a lot of work. And it's hard in the sense, the hard part is that you have to give up everything else for it.

[69:07]

The optimal... What I hear you saying is that the optimal position of processing, of becoming, is one singular, is one sort of introverted self-aware. And it seems to me that I can only do that so long, and that I have the need to process with other people as well. Am I confusing what you're saying? No. So what you need to realize is what you just said was that you think that the other people that you see are not you. You need to realize that that's what you think.

[70:12]

You need to think that what you're seeing over here, you need to learn to see that what you think is over here, called me, is not me, but it's you. You don't see me, you see yourself. So I need to acknowledge that whenever I see another, it's my perception of you. Right, exactly. What you're seeing over here is your perception of me. And I'm over here to tell you, sister, I'm not what you see. I'm not what you think of me. However, I don't say, stop thinking of me that way, because I know you can't help it. Although you're creative, you're not in control. And you make up new rebs all the time. But you're not in control of your process of creation. But you're creating me. But I'm not what you create. However, I am created by you. But I'm not what you create. I'm not what you create. But I'm created by you. And I'm created by everybody.

[71:13]

And everybody here creates a different reb. Right now. And again and again. Everybody's creating a different one and none of you can stop it. And I can't stop you. So I don't tell you to stop. I tell you, why don't you admit what you're up to? Namely, dreaming of me. Fantasizing about me. If you can realize and catch yourself at fantasizing about me, then if you think, if you see it's a fantasy, then that's fine. If you think it's me, it's an error. But realizing that it's an error is leading you to truth. But our perceptual equipment is not meant to perceive truth. Truth cannot be perceived. Truth is to understand that you can't perceive it. What would you say, then, is the primary value of external exchange, of exchanging with another? What's the primary value of it?

[72:16]

Love. Love is the primary value of it. Love, freedom, and happiness is the primary value of it. Self-awareness, and by self-awareness, liberation from self-enchainment. And the only thing that makes sense to notice, if we're not and looking for a place to look like would be to always act out of love, is what you're saying. Always act out of love? Yes. Yeah, but what's that? That's just another fantasy. Love is not something you can act out of. Love is the fact that your actions are not done by you. when you realize that you cannot do anything by yourself, then love starts dawning on your life. But in order to realize that you can't do anything by yourself, you have to admit that you think you can.

[73:18]

You have to be willing to be a woman who thinks she can do stuff, including love. And I think if somebody thinks they can love, they should love all the way. They should love, you know, to the length and breadth of the universe. in order to realize that that is not love. That's just the love you can do. But if you do your love all the way, you will realize what love is. Then love will come and knock on the door and say, since you have been so good, and you filled out all these questionnaires on love, and you've devoted yourself to your idea of love all these years, we're going to give you this present now. It's going to be, guess what it is, of all things, it's going to be real love. And guess what it is? It's not the love you had been doing. It's like totally connected to that love, but it's called the big compliment of that love. It's called you're finally liberated from the little love you've been doing.

[74:20]

But only by doing your little love all the way. Not by kind of like, well, my love's not real love, so I'm just going to do it half-heartedly. No. Do your love wholeheartedly all the way. try it out in every possible dimension, go into every nook and cranny of your consciousness of love, and when you fill it out completely, then the big love will come and say hello. And it won't be insulting either. It won't say, you know, you've been too bad to love this way. It will say, you were good to love this way, but it wasn't so much you were good to love this way rather than that way. You were good to love this way wholly, completely, thoroughly. Because it's through that that you find out what real love is. And real love is beyond human trips. And nobody can touch it or hurt it. But it's really what we're all about. And you have to have wisdom to open your eyes to it. And once you see it, you're done. Then go to work.

[75:23]

Love work. But who wants to be a limited person? Who wants to not only love, but love to the full extent of love, which includes that you admit that what you're working with here is your idea of love. That's part of what's going on there, which people do not like to admit. There's a little thing called my idea written on top of the love. Forget that part. This is like love, rather than My idea. So then you take away my idea, then I think it's love. Well, then here's love. You take this, man. This is for your good. How can you resist it? You say, I don't like tanks. Yes, but it's my love. You can't refute that. Still, no thank you. I don't like tanks. But if I see my idea of love.

[76:26]

Then I say, oh yeah, it's just my idea, isn't it? So maybe you wouldn't, I can see why you might not like it. Yeah, makes sense. Just my idea. Should we do all the Hollywood movies and if somebody says, I love you, you should say, I have an idea that I love you. You know, it makes sense. If people see movies that way, they really... I have, well, first of all, I have an idea of you and I have an idea and I think I love that. Very unromantic. Very unromantic. Rather, you know, I have an idea of you, and it's so real that I forgot, and I think it's real, so I forgot that it's a delusion, and also, now the way I relate to it, I've also forgotten it's my trip, and I'm forgetting that, too. In other words, I'm totally asleep, and I'm totally in a dream, and you like that. And you like that.

[77:27]

And not only that, but this Hollywood dream, you know, it's an archetype, you know? It's right out of the Iliad and Odyssey and all that stuff. You're just like... We can't help it, poor babies. We create these images from endless past of creating images somewhat like them, and we're just creating them and creating them and creating them. So we think, but if I admit that I'm creating them, the romance will be gone. So I don't want to admit. It's like, you know, when I was eight years old, I went up into the closet and I was nine, I went up into the closet in my parents' room around Christmas time, and I found the presents that Santa Claus was going to bring. Basketballs, basketball hoops, and other wonderful toys. But I felt very sad to have found these presents for many reasons.

[78:32]

I felt sorry for Santa Claus. I felt sorry to have robbed the surprise of this thing being brought to me. I felt sorry to not be able to tell my father that I knew he was tricking me because I didn't want to take that away from him. This is disillusionment, you know. there's a sad side to it. It's much nicer just to sort of erase it and pretend like, I didn't know this was coming and I really think that these basketballs come from the North Pole and it's sad, you know? Or like I sometimes say, we feel sad about taking the 10,000 pound teddy bear off our back. You know, it's been squashing us down but still to take it off is very sad. It's like we're honor-bound to our delusions to not see them as delusions. Who will take care of our delusions if we don't think they're real anymore?

[79:38]

What will happen to these old delusions? Will they be just trashed? It's very difficult to escape from the society from the delusion. Everywhere you turn. Yeah. So, I don't say escape from delusions. I say study them. Buddha does not run away from delusions. Buddha sits in the middle of them and studies them. Buddhas are those who understand delusion. And how do you think they understand them? They understand them because that's their business is to study these things. And they study them so thoroughly that they become infinitely gentle and infinitely suffering beings. And they connect with all life, and that's freedom. Yes? If our perception of somebody or something

[80:42]

differs from another person's perception, which it does, and we want to stake our perception to another individual, but we feel that our statement may not be what the individual wants to hear or know about, what should we do? Well, it depends on the situation. For example, if I have... Are we talking about the case of me stating my perception to someone about that someone? Could be. Should we take that example? So let's say you have the story of a Zen teacher talking to another Zen teacher. So this person has a perception of this other person. And this person's perception of this person is different than this person's perception of this person. For example, my perception of myself is different from your perception of me.

[81:44]

Now, if I'm a Zen teacher and you're a Zen teacher, and you tell me of your perception of me, I know that what you're telling me, assuming you're not lying, is your perception of me. So you tell me. Oh, you're a great Zen master, and I know that you're telling me that that's your perception of me, which is not me. So I say, why thank you? But knowing that what you just told me is what you think of me, not me. But I might say to you, dear friend, what have you just told me? Have you told me about what you see or who I am? And you might say to me, I've told you of what I see, not who you are. And I may say, well, why do you tell me of what you see as me? And you may say, so we can talk. I say, well, let's talk another way. You tell me about your perceptions of me, and I'll tell you about my perceptions of you. Let's talk that way and see how that goes.

[82:46]

And we may talk that way for a while and say, well, this is no fun. Let's do it the other way. Or you may tell me, you may be a Zen master telling me, you know, you're a terrible Zen master. And I might say, is that me or is that your perception of me? And you might say again, that's my perception of you. And I'd say, well, then I'm safe, aren't I? Now, if I was a Zen student and you were a Zen master and you said to me, you are a terrible Zen student, then I might say, is that me or is that your perception of me? And you might say, that's my perception of you. And I might say, well, then I'm safe. Or you might say to me, you're a terrible Zen student, and I might say, you may be a Zen master, I've heard you are, but I didn't ask you to talk to me that way. Or you might say to me, now I'm a Zen teacher and you're a Zen student.

[83:49]

Have you asked me to tell you what I think of you? Do you want me to tell you what I see? even though it's just what I see. Do you want me to tell you about how I see? And I might say, yes, I'd like to see, I'd like to hear about how you see. I'd like to hear about what you see. Tell me what you see over here. And you might say, what you saw. But I get to watch my own perception of you perceiving me. Which is not the way you're perceiving me, but there's something about the way you would perceive me. you would be teaching me about your awareness of yourself. And we could talk. And I could say, how was it as you just preceded me? How did that work? How did you practice with your awareness of your own process? And you could tell me. And still when you tell me, I translate it back into my version of what you said. Back and forth, back and forth, we can go. But this is in a situation where I said, you know, I want to learn. And in the process of learning,

[84:51]

language will be exchanged between us, and perceptions will be flying here and there. And people will get confused, and people's feelings may be hurt. But I want to learn. And if I get hurt, I'll tell you I get hurt. And you tell me, and we talk back and forth. Now, if you say to me, or if I say to you, you tell me something, and I say, I have a perception of that, and I say, now, do you want me to tell you what I just heard? And you say, well, I don't know if I do. And I say, well, maybe I won't tell you then. If you don't really want to hear, I don't tell you. And a lot of people come to me and they ask, they say, please tell me what you see. Please tell me if I get off the track. But again, it's not that they're off the track, but I see them off the track, or I hear them off the track. But it's not that they are necessarily off the track, but still, if I say they're off the track, they have to deal with that somehow. He's saying off the track, it may be that he sees me off the track this way, and really I'm off the track that way. But I have to deal with him saying I'm off the track. Now what if I say you're on the track?

[85:53]

Then it may not be that you're on the track, but just that I said you are. And it may be even a trick on my part. I think the important thing is, have you asked for feedback? And a lot of people come to me and they ask for feedback like they say, tell me my faults. And I feel like, you look like you don't want me to say anything. And they say, what made you think that? I saw your hands go up like that. And they say, oh yeah, I did that, didn't I? I sort of acted, I took a defensive posture when I said that. Or they may say, oh no, that's not what it meant. And I make, back and forth, back and forth, I understand that they look like they were being defensive, but they really weren't. I don't know. The other possibility, a lot of people come to me and say, don't, you know, don't give me any negative feedback. Please don't give me any negative feedback." And I really feel like they're inviting negative feedback. Or not necessarily negative, but they're inviting feedback and say, why did you go way out of your way to come and tell me not to give you feedback?

[86:56]

In other words, my question would start giving them feedback. It's just my perception of who's inviting me to talk to them. But when I get the perception that I'm not being invited, Then I have the question, now, should I mention to them that I feel they're not inviting me to give them feedback? They're sort of saying, don't do it, but if I ask them why they're saying that, already I'm giving them feedback. But you see, on some fundamental level, when I'm awake, I feel like there's nobody out there, really. And whoever it is that's talking is really me. And they are inviting me to realize myself. And so if someone comes to me and says, please don't say anything to me, I might say, I'm not talking to you when I say this, but I just heard someone tell me not to talk to her.

[87:58]

And I felt like this was a very good friend of mine. who is speaking to me from my own heart. And they said, don't talk to me. And I'm not talking to you because I don't want to violate your instruction to me and affront you when you told me not to talk to you. So I'm not talking to you. And I can proceed like this. But because I feel invited by myself to talk to myself, because really there's just one person in this universe, just one person. There's not two. There's just one mind in this universe. But it's such a wonderful mind that it can take on infinite forms and infinite apparent sense organs. And each set of sense organs can imagine itself to be a separate living system. And, therefore, it dreams a dream. And it's just wonderful. And that's the world we've got. And we just have to become liberated from belief in anything so we can

[89:05]

you know, fully use our human gift, which is called compassion or love or whatever. Yeah. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if she could lend some money for me. Borrow? I'm sorry, borrow some. And I... The immediate response was, I don't have them, but I have them. But the answer came out, I don't have money. And with that answer of no came all these feelings of a sort of stinginess in me. I even remember once telling her months ago that she could always count on me. And so when she comes and asks for the money, I said, I don't have it. So... And I'm saying this because it put out a lot of sort of bad feelings to myself.

[90:14]

And if I understand you correctly from what you were saying just a little while ago, so I thought, here I am, I know that I should be charitable. Should? See? Well, I have these ideas. Ideas. Ah, that's the truth? That's what you felt? Is that the truth? Uh-huh. Is that the truth? Good. I don't either. But do you say that, do you say that by feeling out my stinginess, someday I'll be naturally... I'll be given money with, you know, naturally? Yes. When will I stop being stingy?

[91:18]

You'll stop being stingy when you feel the fullness of stinginess. And the fullness of stinginess is, you know, ghosts will come and visit you at night. You know, and they will tell you, oh, you did this and you did that. You were stingy in this case. That will be part of the fullness of stinginess. When you reach the limit of stinginess, when you completely are stingy all the way, And you can do it in a moment when you're completely stingy. At that time, you're not stingy anymore. It's not true that we're stingy. It's not true. Stinginess is not the truth. Magnanimousness is the truth. Perhaps she was practicing her wisdom. She was practicing her wisdom. You notice the stinginess. The practice of giving, the first phase of it is to become aware of stinginess. And you could have said, when she said to you, do you have the money, you could say, my first reaction is I don't have the money.

[92:25]

I do have the money, but I feel stingy towards you. You could have done that, too. You could do that. And that would be giving the stinginess. To let stinginess be stinginess is giving. To let stinginess be stinginess is the beginning of wisdom. When stinginess is stinginess, and when stinginess is stinginess all the way to that specific kind of stinginess, stinginess is precisely not stinginess. Stinginess liberates itself from itself by being itself. So you started by, you felt the stinginess in your heart. You felt the tight feeling in your chest. You felt it. That's good. You feel that. Stinginess is not good, but feeling the pain is good.

[93:10]

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