The greatest way to be responsible for your karma is not just to say, okay, where do I sign, but be aware of it, study it. Who did I think I was at that time? What did I think I was doing? What was my intention? What did I think would happen? What did happen? How did I feel after it happened? As long as you're involved in karma, then this is really responsible. to monitor it, because then you're doing the work which will gradually transform your karma and make it better, as long as you're involved in karma, you'll make it better. It's also setting up the conditions for liberation from that whole scenario of you doing things, and get you closer and closer to a practice that you realize, a practice which you realize rather than a practice you do. So you can realize Buddhist practice, which liberates you and all beings, but you can't do Buddhist practice.

[01:07]

And many Buddhist people, teachers and also card-carrying Buddhists, say, I do Buddhist practice or I do Buddhism, I'm going to go do some Buddhism, I'm going to go do some meditation. They say that, but you know, that's a way of talking because people, you know, just to help people who are still talking that way. So if everybody talked like me, a lot of people wouldn't be able to start practicing Buddhism because they'd say, well, you can't do it. So I'm going to go someplace, some religion where you can do it. So as a skillful device, people say, well, let's hear some practices you can do. Want to do some Buddhism? Here. I'm teaching you today another way, which is actually practice. Buddha does not do practice. Buddha is practice. Buddha realizes practice. So you can realize practice but you can realize true liberating practice, you can't do that practice though. In fact, what you can realize is a practice which liberates you from practices which you do. Mostly people are hung up on practices which they can do, but this gets boring, to say the least.

[02:13]

So gradually you can move to practices which liberate you from doing, but in the meantime, studying the practices which you are doing will get you ready for that. It's a good preparation. So studying practices which you can do is a preparation for practices which you can't do, but which you can realize. Buddhism can be realized. It can be realized in this world, but it can't be done. It's too big to be done, but it's not too big to be realized, because that's exactly the right size it is. It's huge. This huge practice can be realized but can't be done by a person. It can be done by everybody at once, but that's not karma. That's Buddha. Buddha's practice is everybody's practice. The Buddhist practice is the practice of every living being, together.

[03:16]

And even Buddha can't do that. That is just Buddhist practice. And all of us have access to that. through selflessness. But in the meantime, we're doing stuff all day long, right? Things are happening, so by full expression, you tap into selflessness. So, partial expression's hard, right? Got various problems Full expression is hard too. It's got different problems. It seems dangerous and scary and you know, death is real close and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, it's not that much harder and it's much better. So try it. And try it in a safe environment. With people who, theoretically anyway, say, yes, I think I do want you to fully express yourself. What do you mean by that? I went home from a workshop one time and I said to my wife, do you want me to fully express myself?

[04:21]

And she said, no. So, you know, the people you think would want you to may be angry at you for a couple of days ago and not be ready to say yes. So you have to, you know, but really later she said, I really do want you to. I was just mad at you because you didn't let me fully express myself before that. Meg, did you want to say something? Yeah, thanks. I'm wondering about the situation of a person who is in an alcoholic bladder. Yes. And what happens in that kind of blackout, parts of the brain click off. Yes. One of the parts that clicks off is the part that lets us remember what's happened.

[05:21]

Right. But other parts seem to click off too, so that a person in a blackout, in an alcoholic blackout, will do things that they would ordinarily never do. Right. And many things happen in that situation which are very hurtful to people. you know, people are beaten, people are raped. Right. You know, children are hurt by their fathers who, you know, when they're so little, they're very loving fathers. Yes. So, you know, of course the karma there, in terms of how you're talking, that And that person, when that person then wakes up the next morning, who did this thing, who hit his child, he hit his child, won't remember, won't, won't, won't, and told that he did that.

[06:22]

He said, no, I couldn't have done it. You know, I didn't hit him. And yet the child was hurt. Yes. Yeah, uh-huh. I think I understand your question. So if the father is responsible, he is responsible. We are responsible for unconscious activity too. Even if you're not consciously aware of I did it, like I said before, even if you block out and cover up that you're doing it, like I said, you know, like a murderer or something, who kind of like puts himself into some kind of trance beforehand, so that he won't notice I'm about to kill somebody, doesn't get into the self-expression at all. In some ways that makes it easier to do unwholesome things, to put yourself in a kind of trance. And I used to go to prison to visit people, and I talk to these people, they seem like really nice guys, you know?

[07:27]

A lot of them. And when I found out what they did, almost always they were stoned when they did it. They almost always get jacked up on something, or jacked down on something. when they did that stuff. Almost none of them did the stuff sober, that I met. And they really seemed like nice, reasonable guys, you know? Intelligent, a lot of energy. So, at an unconscious level, if you think yourself as independent of others and you act from there, even though at that level you're not aware of that sense, that you're understanding at that deeper, darker level, or your ignorance at that more less articulated conscious level, that counts too, not just up at the level of ordinary consciousness. Now if you're in a trance or you're really blacked out, okay, then what you do

[08:31]

But you wouldn't hurt anybody in that state. So a yogi who goes into a state where they don't do anything and they're really blacked out and nothing's happening, there's no karma of that. But they don't do anything. They don't hurt people in that state. So they don't get any merit for not hurting people either. You know, if somebody comes up and kicks them and they don't hit back, they don't get any merit for that. They're not practicing patience, they're not getting anything out of that except a break from karma. and whatever level of understanding they have stays static. That's why going into certain kind of trances are just vacation time, and you shouldn't spend too much time like that because you're using part of your lifespan for that. But sometimes it is a really nice break and it's okay to do it, but if he hits somebody, that doesn't happen by accident. There's still some kind of sense of me and me and the kid there. So even though they've dulled themselves to such an extent, I shouldn't say dulled themselves, but as a result of their alcohol, their system has dulled them to that extent.

[09:39]

It still counts, and they're still responsible. It's different, though, than being aware of it. In some ways, in terms of spiritual evolution, it's worse when you're not conscious than when you are conscious. And then if you're really conscious, it's even less bad because you're starting to learn. The point is, the situation where you have some slight bit of awareness and some slight possibility for learning something from your mistakes is better than the situation where the same act is committed where you have no chance of learning. So when you do something evil with no consciousness and no way of even being conscious, that's a worse evil than where it's a situation where you're vividly aware of it and really feel bad about it. Even though in the latter case you really feel terrible about it, in the other case you seem like you feel fine, the one who feels terrible is more likely to learn from it.

[10:42]

Does that make sense? You look like you got a little confused for a second there. Well, in the sense that I'm responsible for my consciousness. I'm responsible for being conscious. Responsible means everything, all your consciousness registers on your life stream. in the continuity of your existence, so even your sensory experiences are registered and have effects. But sensory level, direct sensory experience, we don't know about, because direct sensory experience, there's no sense of self and other and so on, there's no external object in sensory experience. At the sensory level, you don't think that the object is external, and it's not, because it's touching you.

[11:43]

So we don't know about that level. It's unconscious. It's not conscious in the sense of objective knowledge. But it still counts. It still is our life. I mean, it's a huge part of our life. A lot of what's going on in our life we don't know about and we never will. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is. And that's the way it is for lots of animals. They have consciousness. They're having direct experience, direct conscious experiences, but they don't think of what they're aware of as external to themselves. And there's no self at that level. But that is our life. And so then the next level I talked about is a level where you're aware of things as objects, as external. That's the next level. The next level is to have a self. The next level is karma, and so on. The next level is study. All these different levels. But all of them are connected and they relate to each other. The way your sense organs operate gets modified by the way you meditate.

[12:45]

and so on, or it gets modified by the way you don't meditate. If you don't meditate, if you permit karmic acts and don't pay attention to them, it changes the way your sense organs work. The very way you experience reality starts to change depending on whether or not you meditate. You can't go down to the level of direct experience and do anything directly because you don't even know where it is or how it's operating. What you usually think of as your sensory experiences, like seeing people and so on and so forth, is not sensory experience, is not direct sensory experience, it's conceptual. It's a conversion of direct sensory experience, which you know about. But the way you relate to that, and the way you do karma in relationship to that, the way you meditate on that, that actually transforms your sensory experience, which you don't know about. The more skillfully you meditate on the gross karmic acts you commit, or the subtle karmic acts you commit, the more you meditate on your karma, the more your consciousness is transformed by that process of meditation, it actually transforms the way you actually experience sensation.

[13:53]

And guess what? In a good way, I mean in a happy way, you start to really feel good about what's happening. the result is that you appreciate sensory life more. It's like sensory life turns into light. It's like, you know, smells have light, tastes have light, everything starts turning into light, as a result of meditating on the stuff you can meditate on, in the sense of where, you know, there's you and others, so on and so forth. So they're all connected, they're feeding back and you know, they're evolving together. But every level counts and of course if you meditate up here you tend to drink less alcohol and have less alcoholic blackouts and so on. If you don't meditate up here your sensory life becomes so horrendous that you're more likely to try to take

[14:58]

If you fully express yourself and meditate together, you need less alcohol to cope with the pain. Take less alcohol, do more meditation, then the pain becomes more negotiable and so on. There is a possibility of this positive evolution. But you've got to work, you know. Yes? When you speak about number three, actions ripening, Ripening for the author? Yes. What does ripening mean in this context? Well, the previous one is actions ripening. Okay? Number two is actions ripen. Number three is talking about where they go after they ripen. All right? So ripen, so we talk about ripening, okay? You want to talk about ripening or coming back to the author? Ripening. Okay, so ripening.

[16:02]

Here's a little bit about ripening. Wholesome actions ripen as happiness and positive, happy, good life. That's the way wholesome actions ripen. They ripen as experience of happiness. happiness in the sense of not, you know, on many levels, positive sensation, health, but most importantly, wholesome karma ripens in the form of being able to hear the teaching of meditating on karma. So if you act in a wholesome way, in a skillful way, paying attention to what you do, and doing something which you think will be beneficial to other people and you, or you and other people.

[17:08]

That kind of meditation which is beneficial to the most possible people, or at least to somebody, really. Really concentrating on what's going to be helpful to living beings, what's going to be protecting living beings, what's going to be protecting life and respecting life. This kind of action, which is called wholesome, and which actually is wholesome, Like, you think maybe helping this guy would be wholesome. You do it. You find out if it is. Maybe you think it's helpful and you find out it wasn't. Then later you say, oh it wasn't, so blah blah. I changed my story and next time I try it differently. But anyway, by trial and error you get more skillful. You do wholesome acts. Wholesome acts lead to happiness and spiritual opportunities. And the greatest spiritual opportunity that leads to in a karmic realm is it leads to the opportunity of studying karma. That's great. benefit of doing good karma is you get to study karma. So then, doing good karma leads to the possibility of liberation from karma. But good karma itself has a result, and results are to some extent a problem, because they get boring in their prisons.

[18:17]

But anyway, that's wholesome. Unwholesome karma tends to lead, also matures, but it matures as unhappiness, and the worst and worst result of unwholesome karma is it tends to foreclose and delimit and discourage and undermine meditation on karma. Like alcohol leading to blackouts which make it impossible to meditate on karma. You're doing karma and you've done such bad karma that you don't have a chance to study karma. And you're doing it without even the possibility of studying it. This is the worst situation. And under that bad situation where you can't even observe your karma, you do more and terrible karma and you don't even have a chance to learn from your mistakes. This is like the worst possible situation. This is like driving yourself to the lowest possible place that a creature can be, well that humans can be, is the place where you don't even have a chance but you've changed your physiology so your physiology is now fighting your meditation practice.

[19:28]

This is a terrible result of unwholesome karma. Okay? That's how it matures. Now, that's a very simple way to put it, and that's not deterministic. What I just said is not deterministic. That's the rule, but it's not a deterministic rule. And not deterministic means that there's various factors that contribute to that. but that's the basic paradigm. Skillful acts, happiness and spiritual opportunity. Unskillful act, unhappiness, material disadvantage and reducing spiritual opportunities. That's the basic paradigm that the Buddha taught. The complexities there are, that it happened in, and also the intention or the resolution of practice at the time of the maturing of the act, and of course the ongoing practice of the person.

[20:47]

These are factors which also come to interact with this process of maturing. Are you following this so far? Is this kind of what you want to hear about? Okay, go ahead, go ahead. You don't want to do it now? No. Okay. So, I'll tell a couple of stories. One story, I told some people at lunch, is the Buddha's examples of ... so you heard those various factors that determine the way things mature. There's the initial act, there's the context in which it arose, there is the resolution, the practice resolution or the practice intention of the person as the fruit comes, and of course the ongoing practice of the person. These are the factors, which is kind of the same as the last one. These are the factors which determine the quality of the maturing.

[21:49]

So a couple examples is the a grain of salt. And I guess they had pretty big grains of salt back in those days. He says if you take a grain of salt and you put it in a cup of water, the water will become undrinkably salty. Right? But if you take a grain of salt and put it into a large lake, freshwater lake, the water will not become salty and you can drink it. Okay? So, if you do a minor unwholesome act That's like a grain of salt, a minor thing, like if I were to be disrespectful to somebody here, say some disrespectful comment, that might be a minor unskillful thing to do. That would be maybe a minor unskillful thing to do. Now, that's the grain of salt. If I don't respect the person, not only do I act disrespectfully, but I actually don't respect the person,

[22:59]

and also I've acted in a way that the person feels I don't respect them, and I really haven't been practicing, and I really don't care about other beings, generally speaking, and I don't feel committed to devotedly practice good, and I actually don't want to benefit beings or myself, and I really have a low opinion of myself, then that grain of salt, that thing will fit very nicely with that mind, and that will you know, my mind's very small, that'll fit right with it, no problem, it fits right in, and that'll just go right along, and will lead to me going to hell for that act. That act will fit in very nicely with my petty small mind, and will result in a major terrible thing for me who did it. There'll be nothing surprising about that for me, and it'll just fit right in with the ongoing accumulation of disastrous results for me, for that one small thing.

[24:06]

Actually, a small deed like that will lead to hell in such a mind. In other words, it will completely salt it. Now, if a person who has a very big loving mind would be disrespectful to someone that they really do love and really do respect, basically, and really do care about and feel devoted to big time and they're always cultivating mindfulness and they're always studying their karma and they're completely dedicated to developing understanding and so on and so forth. For a person like that, you put it in and what tends to happen is, and other people also know that the person has this commitment, is that the person that they speak disrespectfully to says, gee, that wasn't very nice, and the That's the maturity. It matures very fast, and it's almost like nothing.

[25:06]

And because the mind is so big, it matures very fast, and it's almost nothing. Almost like nothing happened. And not too much did happen, actually. For such a person, that's not a big deal. For somebody else, it's a big deal, because that's the way they treat everybody, and they treat people like that all the time, so nobody says anything to them, even. Nobody says, gee, that wasn't very nice. They say, yeah, that's the way he is all the time. So why even say anything? He doesn't respect me. So yeah, sure, he talks to me that way. Why should I mention it? So you don't. So he doesn't get the result. So it just goes on until finally somebody tells him something. Many lifetimes later, and by the time they tell him that, it's bad news. Guess what's going to happen now? Guess where you're going. for a long time. No more chances to hear Buddhist teaching for you. So, the way it matures, generally speaking, is that the more you practice, the quicker small deeds mature.

[26:17]

Also, the quicker major misdeeds mature. Now, if a person who is dedicated to, you know, has a very big mind, does a bad thing, then it won't be just a small thing, then it won't be like nothing. It'll be big. But it'll be also sooner. But it will be big, you know. If a person who doesn't practice does a big thing, of course, it won't be sooner, it'll be even later, it'll even be worse. So, your practice makes a context in which your karma is different according to your practice, the act is different, it matures differently, depending on the practice that creates it and then the practice that receives it. Another example, and this seems to be like the Buddhagedda's example, but I guess it's more like a schematic, is this schematic?

[27:20]

It's a schematic, what's the word? Schematic or paradigmatic kind of example. Is two people, two women. One woman did, never did, in the present lifetime, never did any unwholesome deeds, always did neutral or good deeds. The other woman did almost all bad deeds. And then they both come up to the time of death. And as they're dying, the woman who did all good deeds and was always like meditating on her karma and carefully like judging and avoiding evil and practicing good, as she died, sort of the prospect or what do you call it, the appearance of a destiny of hell appeared to her. She didn't actually go to hell, but she saw that sort of apparition of hell appear before her. And she said, oh, too bad.

[28:26]

Well, here I practiced good all my life and it seems to be going to hell. Well, I'm still glad I studied and practiced good my whole life. I don't regret it. I'm sorry I'm going to hell, but you know, I guess my deeds from previous life are manifesting in this next life. That's the way it works, but I'm going to continue to practice my study of Buddhism, even in hell." And then the hellish apparition faded away, and Heavenly One appeared. And then the woman who lived a bad life, an apparition of divine rebirth appeared, and she said, Well, I guess it didn't matter that I didn't study all those years. You know, I just studied Buddhism and I was kind of wondering if maybe I was going to get in trouble for that.

[29:31]

I didn't even study Daoism or Confucianism either. Or, you know, I didn't study anything. I was just kind of a bum. And I thought I was going to get in trouble for it, but look, here. So, actually, it's probably good that I didn't. That's great. And I guess I won't ... I'll just go to heaven and I won't study there either. So then the heavenly thing came away and the hell went up. Instead of saying, you know, my God, I was bad my whole life and here's the heavenly thing. Boy, the teaching of karma must be true because I must have done something good before. My God, this karma thing, this Buddha's teaching is really incredible. I'm going to really start studying now. And the heavenly thing would have stayed there and she would have gone to what he called, happy study ground. She would have gone to this place where she'd be able to constantly have a supportive environment to study Buddhism. That's really heaven. So those are some examples of maturing.

[30:37]

So my feeling is, I don't know what's coming to me, but I have a feeling that some stuff's coming, some tough stuff. So, you know, part of what I'm doing is trying to train myself so that I'll be able to have some dignity in the midst of the difficulties that are coming. Because I think, you know, if my health is good and I live to be old, I'm going to run into some trouble. You know, what I'm really having trouble with, how am I going to practice meditation if I have Alzheimer's? that's going to be tough. If I have Alzheimer's or a stroke, how am I going to continue full expression with diminished capacities? Probably it'll happen, unless I die pretty soon. And I used to be smarter, but my ability to do mathematics is getting really weak.

[31:45]

It used to be better. It's sad in a way. I have a little trouble letting go of the mind that's gone already. So it's kind of a sad thing. But anyway, You have done what you have done. It will mature. That's what the teachings say. The Buddha said, action does not perish, even after hundreds of millions of cosmic eras, when complex conditions and favorable times come together, they will ripen to the author. This stuff is going to ripen. So, if we practice studying karma and really devoted and intend to keep studying karma, then when this stuff rains down on us, we have some chance to continue study even in the rain, even in the fire of what's going to come to us. We don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it's going to come. And it's going to come, and if we practice, it'll come sooner, hopefully.

[32:50]

So it'll be smaller because it won't get so big. And our practice will help us stay alert and awake and balanced in the middle of what it is. Now, if we could get liberated before, as soon as possible, then we really would be able to handle it well, because we wouldn't be worried about what's happening to this guy or this gal. You know, it wouldn't be like, oh, now I have Alzheimer's, oh, too bad. So, if you can get liberated, great, and then when the stuff comes, you'll definitely be alright, because you won't be worried about what happens to you, really, you big time won't be worried. And the other one is, if you still have a little attachment, you should have as strong a practice as you can, so that when it happens to poor you, you'll be able to cope with it in a good way. Because that's the third part, is it comes back to, of all people, the one who did it. Whoever, the one who thought she did it, that's who it comes back to.

[33:54]

That's the basic thing. But, you know, somebody gave me this cute little Chinese book, you know, it's actually partly Chinese and partly in English, kind of pidgin English, and has these pictures, you know, like has a picture of a boy being mean to his parents. in the next life, what happens to him? Or somebody being stingy to beggars, and what happens to him in the next life? Some people understand Buddha's teaching deterministically. He didn't mean it that way. It's not deterministic. It's interdependent. It's an interdependent play. It's a complex thing. But still, all actions, every time you think you do something, that does have a fruit. Every single time you think you do something, it has a fruit. That's what he's saying. There's no, like, there's no events, no karmic effects that don't register. They all count. Okay? And then they basically have these two directions. Some, however, is indeterminate.

[34:55]

Some are not clear. So they're either neutral, positive. The neutral ones don't exactly mature, they just kind of keep the system going. They don't mature into like fruits, they just sort of like an ongoing part of life. But the other two mature as fruits in happiness and unhappiness, practice and not practice. But it's not deterministic, that's why otherwise there'll be no point to practice. Because, you know, you've already done your karma, it's got its results. Since it's got its results, nothing you can do. But it's not that way. Practice doesn't stop the result, it just creates a situation where you can deal with the results in such a way as to promote better karma, and better karma, and then finally promote practice which liberates us from karma. So the Buddha's actually saying a heavy thing in one sense, but he's also offering the teaching that you can become liberated from this process.

[35:58]

And he says that he became liberated from the process of karma. But not that these fruits didn't mature for him, too. They've matured for him, too. But, you know, according to this interdependent way, rather than deterministic. Did you have a comment? Yes. At the beginning, when you mentioned that both actions beneficial life, which is the real reward of leading a skillful life. I'm doing skillful karma, yes, uh-huh. I feel like I've had immediate experience of this. Usually when I'm sitting in a Zendo with other people sitting, it really comes to me that this is a reward. for some previous actions. That's right. But I can't think of what those actions were. At least, when I think of this life, the person of this life, I come up really empty.

[37:05]

Yeah. And if anything, I probably hurt people a lot. Right. And then, I came across a case 97 in the Book of Record, which refers to the Diamond Sutra, saying that if we experience verbal vilification in this life, it's probably a result of bad deeds in a previous life, but by experiencing that in this life, we extinguish that karma, that karma that brought it on. And it again sort of made me think, because when I was younger I experienced a lot of verbal altercation from people that cause great pain and I thought maybe that was my vehicle, that experience, my vehicle to bring me to my practice. And is that possible? Was my life up to this point and the pain I experienced and perhaps the pain I caused part of this ripening process?

[38:13]

So, I don't know, could you follow what you're saying, kind of? It was perfectly clear, I just didn't know, I mean to me it was, but you brought it, when you brought the diamond suture in, that's a kind of complexity, but I'd be happy to deal with that. So, I One of the things actually, I think a lot of people feel they can deal with, you know, doing karma in this life and having results in this life, they can deal with that, right? But they say, I don't know about this past life stuff. But I think I've seen for myself, you know, I do certain things and I see the results of them. And by the way, I forgot to tell you, another teaching of Buddha is, a pretty important teaching, but probably didn't want to bring it up because this brings up rebirth. But anyway, the Buddha also taught not only this thing about the different kinds of maturing, but there's different times of maturing. There's three times of maturing. Karma matures in three times.

[39:17]

This life, the next life, and innumerable future lives. Or this life, next life, and maybe a much later life. It has these different trajectories of maturity, three of them. It's not clear whether all karmic acts have three, or just some, or whether some have, you know, not the present one, but just the future ones and so on. I think some maybe don't mature in this life, only mature in future lives. I think perhaps for really bad things, they don't mature in this life, or they mature in this life, but it's inconsequential the way they mature. Because when you're a human being, almost nothing's bad enough to be a real fruit of like killing somebody. Because you're still... Anyway, there are these three types of... three times of maturity. Okay? So, I guess when I first started hearing about Buddhism and practicing Buddhism, I could understand, you know, the maturing in this life.

[40:23]

But then when I looked at my practice, like, just like you, I thought, You know, I look at my practice. Now I know, most of us know about ourselves, people practicing anyway, most of them know more bad things about themselves than other people know. Now some people are so evil that other people know more about them than they do. But most people I know, they know more bad things that they do than most other people do. They're their worst critic. So, you know, when I look at other people, most people look, to me, when I look at other people, most people look better to me than I, they look better than me, because knowing what I've done, most of you look better, especially people I just met, you look better relatively to how bad I know I've been. So then I think, well, how come I get to go to Tassajar this afternoon, you know? Why do I deserve that?

[41:24]

I haven't been that much better than you. Some of you have been better than me. So how come I get to go to Tassajara and practice there? It's incredible that I have that chance. It doesn't make sense, given the virtue of this lifetime, that I would be able to practice in those mountains. It doesn't make sense. The only reason why I could be able to go there is I must have done something really good in past lives. It doesn't make sense, otherwise, that I would have this opportunity. So, I can't see anything I've done. And the revilement is a little bit different. Even putting up with the revilement is not enough. Because putting up with revilement, it has to do with extinguishing evil karma. But extinguishing evil karma isn't enough to get to go to Tassajara. You have to also have done good karma. So I'll deal with the extinguishing evil karma, but you have to do something good to be able to even come to this workshop today.

[42:28]

The world lets you come and study karma for a day, you must have done something really good, probably there's nothing in this lifetime you've done good enough to get to come here. You probably like sawed off various limbs to feed hungry people in past lives or something, to get to be able to come here today. I'm not kidding. You've done incredible acts of generosity to be the way you are. We don't know. None of us probably can find that stuff. So that's what I feel that way. How could I be so fortunate to meet Suzuki Roshi? I'm not that better than you people. How come I got to meet him? So I must have done something that I don't know about. Because nothing I've done was really that good, actually. But some of the stuff I've done has not been so good, so that's what I'm getting ready for, those. You think it's funny, right? I might as well think it's funny too, right?

[43:30]

A sense of humor will be very helpful when this stuff comes. I have Alzheimer's, ha ha ha. Do I have Alzheimer's? I won't know, so it'll be hard to think it's funny. I'll have a videotape that I'll watch and say, laugh. What am I laughing at? You have Alzheimer's. Oh, what's that? Anyway, the extinguishing of evil karma is a little different, which is similar to what I said before. When people are criticizing you, reviling you, especially when they're criticizing or reviling you when you're teaching Buddhism, It actually says in the Diamond Sutra, when you're like teaching the Diamond Sutra and studying the Diamond Sutra and people come up to you and you know insult you and revile you, that's the result of past evil karma, which ordinarily would mature you know as some disastrous karmic result.

[44:34]

But because you're practicing, and in Dynasutra the practice is Dynasutra practice, but anyway, because you're practicing this thing, this evil deed which would ordinarily mature as some big punishment is foreshortened and is now manifesting as people insulting you. It's a good deal. That's the attitude, yeah. That's the attitude that the Diamond Sutra says. You should say, you should say, oh this is a good deal because this is the maturing of some evil thing I did which, you know, which ordinarily would lead to some big punishment but I'm getting it in the form of people just being mean to me and insulting me and spitting on me and stuff. It's pretty bad but it's nothing compared to what it would be. And the reason, and not only that, but this is a proud part, is the reason why it's maturing early is because I'm reciting the Diamond Sutra or whatever, you know? The reason why it's maturing early is because I'm practicing. It says you should never get angry at people or resent them for insulting you. You should realize that it's not that they're doing you a favor, actually.

[45:38]

They don't think they're doing you a favor, usually. Some of them do, actually, like these selfless ones who are fully expressing themselves. They are doing you a favor and they're doing it impersonally, but the other people who are doing it selfishly, unfortunately, they're going to get in trouble for it. So maybe they are doing you a favor. But anyway, if you then feel the pain of that, it isn't that you just sort of say, okay, you know, you have to feel the pain of it. If you don't feel the pain of it, it doesn't count. You have to feel the pain of it. Just concentrate on feeling the pain of it. And if you feel it, you pay your debt. and it's dissolved. And the teaching is supposed to help you feel it. So when somebody spits in your face, rather than punch them back, you sort of just feel the spit running down your cheeks. So I hate that feeling, I hate that feeling of saliva, somebody else's saliva on my face, now it's on my suit. Feel it.

[46:39]

Feel the pain, feel the nausea of being criticized. And if you feel it, then it's over. One karmic debt has been paid, has been dissolved. Don't get angry. This is the opportunity. If you get angry now, if you get angry, it doesn't get dispersed. Plus you create more. You got to register it. This stuff doesn't count until it works on you. Punishment doesn't count until you feel it. That's why, if somebody's punishing, I feel like, it hurts! No, it doesn't hurt, I'm not going to feel it. It'll hit you harder. It'll just be harder until finally you say, okay, I get it. You know, one of the surprising things of Buddhist psychology that I read is in one of the big texts on Buddhist philosophy and psychology, it's called the Abhidharmakosha.

[47:42]

is talking about the, you know, the karmic quality of states of retribution. So there's active states where you're generating karma, and there's receptive states where you receive the retribution of karma. Okay? Does that make sense? Not all states are karmic. Not all states are you doing karma. Part of your life is doing karma, part of your life is receiving the results of karma. When you feel pain, that's not karma. Feeling pain is not karma. wanting to do something to make the pain go away, or get stronger, that's a karmic impulse. But as a result of karma, we feel pain and pleasure. When you actually feel pain, that is a receptive state, it's a karmic retribution state. Retribution and feeling are kind of the same thing. Or, say, feeling is retribution, retribution is experience, just experience, okay? So it was talking about the karmic quality of states of retribution. Did they have a karmic quality?

[48:45]

They do have a karmic quality, but what do you think the karmic quality of states of retribution are? What do you think? Are they positive or negative? It's kind of a tricky question, and I'll give you a third choice, or neutral. Huh? Positive, it's helping you get rid of it. Well, feeling it, the feeling of it is positive in a sense, that's kind of a meditative response, is to feel it, that will dissolve it. but the actual just reception of the data is neutral. It's neutral karma. It's not positive or negative karma receiving retribution. Okay? But it's neutral. But what it said was it's undefiled neutral. It's undefiled. So like when you're in hell, when you're experiencing hell, the quality of that state is karmically neutral, And so you could say spiritually or ethically or you know emotionally undefiled.

[49:51]

Isn't that interesting that being in hell is undefiled? Isn't that kind of surprising that the word undefiled would be used in experiencing a state of hell? I thought that's really interesting. So it's kind of like you're just you know nailed to the wall. And you're just kind of like, if you're fighting back, like, how come I'm in hell? That's not being in hell. That's fighting back. That's going to put you in hell some more. But when you're just in hell and say, okay, this is it, I give up, I'm in hell. That's undefiled and neutral. Also being in other states of retribution or human, heavenly, just okay. This is it. My destiny. That's undefiled, neutral, karmically neutral, and undefiled. And if it's hellish, or if not hellish anyway, in the human realm, you're in the human realm, and just in human realm, it's often, you're still in the human realm when you're insulted.

[51:06]

That's part of human life, you get insulted. if you just experience the insult and feel the pain of it, then that karma is resolved and you're still in the realm where you can practice really well. And I want to talk more about this, the difference between the undefiled and the neutral, but I'll wait for a second before I bring that up. Yes? Could I say just one more thing? Sorry, that her ability, that when she's in the zendo and she thinks, how did I get to be so lucky to be in the zendo? And she's saying, I can't see anything in my life which would give this to me. I think it is from a past life that you did good things to get in the zendo. Not because you resolved the unwholesome karma so much. Why do you say that? Well, because you can wind up in the zendo, okay? And then people come in and insult you in the zendo, okay?

[52:07]

the insults from your past life being foreshortened by the fact that you're in the zendo. Okay? And then your ability, and then you're handling that well, resolves that karma. But resolution of karma, I don't think is exactly the same as doing karma. It's more like just undefiled neutral. So when somebody insults you and you just experience the insult and accept it, then the karma is resolved and you just flat out experience the experience. It's karmically neutral. It's not strong enough to give you entrance into a zendo. It's just that that particular troublesome things over and something which a result which might like you know, blow you out of the zendo won't happen. A result which might make you not even able to enter the zendo won't happen now probably because of all these insults you got when you were a teenager.

[53:14]

But to help them with what's important. Some people, everybody gets these problems probably. Not everybody, but a lot of people get these problems and don't experience them. So when you give them an experience of really good... You know what's really terrible is people who don't get any revilement because then they don't have a chance to resolve those karmas. And those are people who are living in isolation, basically, like bachelors. You know, they're walking around, they basically think they're perfect, right? Nobody really says anything to them, nobody really gives them a hard time, they think, hey, I'm no problem, you know? So they have the bad karma of living in a situation where nobody can give them any negative feedback, so they can't resolve any of those past deeds. Even Buddha, you know, had some little stuff coming down on him from past lives.

[54:20]

So I think that my view would be that you're experiencing that was good, but that wouldn't be enough to project you into the Zen-do. You must have done something even better. and just experience the result of negative karma to get you there, although that was the appropriate response and good. My wife's mother said, you know this expression in Chinese, you know what a mokugyo is? Everybody know what a mokugyo is? Mokugyo is a Japanese word which means wooden fish. So in China, in Japan, in Korea, in Vietnam, maybe other countries too, but they have these little little wooden drums, they're shaped like a fish, and they go pop [...]

[55:25]

Broken means worn out. You did so much practice in past lives that you must have broken a lot of those mokugyos. My wife's mother said that I must have broken a lot of mokugyos in order to get to marry my wife. I must have broken a lot of mokugyos to marry a wife who would give me feedback. So, you know, I don't think I'm perfect, right? Okay. Okay, please. Bye. Is it Anne? Jane? Jenny. Bye, Jenny. The two parts, one is that people who are suffering the pain or torture, We don't want to say... We don't talk about other people's pain.

[56:32]

When other people are suffering, you try to help them. Yeah, and I don't want to look at them and think it's the result of their past karma. You don't have to think of that, although it is. Well, how... Don't think about that, though. That's not your job to think about that. That's their job to think about that. Your job is to help them. And it won't hurt them for you to help them at all. Matter of fact, the more you help them, the more you help them, the easier it will be for them to meditate on their karma. So help them. And don't think about it if you want to, but it's true. I mean, it's true from the point of deliberation for them. They should think that. That's their truth. I understand that it's their truth. Yeah. So don't... Pardon? It's like an objective? No, it's not an objective truth. It's a spiritual meditative practice truth. It's a truth that if you take it on for your own experience, it gets you to meditate on your own karma and set you free.

[57:41]

You don't put it on other people. You get other people to take that point of view themselves. Otherwise, it's like this, you know, you're in hell and you're fighting back and creating more karma. People say, why did this happen to me? You know, they just get depressed. Just get depressed now and then also get in more trouble later. Don't encourage people to fight back from their experience. Encourage them to meditate on their experience and then act from that meditation. But you don't go tell them, you know, you don't go visit somebody in the hospital who's miserable and say, well, what did you do to get here? No, you don't do that. You don't do that because they're already having trouble settling into the situation as it is. If you do that, they'll fight back more. What you do with somebody who's suffering is you give them as much love as possible and if they get a lot of love from you, they might be able to settle into where they are and get out of there. So show them how to get out. don't tell them, you know, don't insult them, be nice to them, and then they can say, well, at least Tay's being nice to me, so maybe I could face up to what's going on here.

[58:52]

Now, of course, if they're completely settled, then they're already doing their job, and you can still be nice to them, and congratulate them on how great they're doing under the circumstances. They're already, like, you know, doing great. you know, and you feel inspired, and it's wonderful, but if they're resisting, then your loving-kindness to them, and your nurturing, and your expression of concern will probably help them turn around and look at, you know, what do they have to accept right now, and then once they accept, once they accept, the karma is resolved, and they go on to the next moment and start practicing. Now if more karma is coming, they have to accept more karma, and more karma, and more karma, and more karma, but that's what we do anyway. Moment by moment we accept our experience, accept our pain, accept our pleasure, accept our pain, accept our pleasure, and then is there some karmic impulse? Study the karmic impulse. So basically you want, no matter how much somebody's suffering, you want to find some way to get them to study.

[59:57]

But if they're in so much pain that they can't even like inhabit their body, then you have to like just love them to, not to death, but love them into their body. Love them so much that they're willing to live their experience. Encourage them to take residence in their karmic results. And if somebody is suffering and people are mean to them on top of it, sometimes they just say, I'm out of here, you know, I'm not going to feel this. And they go kind of brain dead. They go into a blackout. So then they don't learn. That's what I would try to do, is try to go there and feel that pain, and give them love, and help them settle into their situation, and then they can start practicing. Because no matter how bad what's happening to them is, it's still possible to settle in the situation and practice. And you show that you think so, because you go visit them there. Even though it's different for you, you still go there.

[60:58]

So that's great. you know, that's a gift you can give many, many, many times. Delon, did you have a comment? Yeah, I was about to follow up in the same way that she did, but I want to go a little bit more personally into that, and especially with your comment about Alzheimer's. Yes. Now, suppose, it's not the case, but suppose that my relatives, my father, or my mother, had Alzheimer's. Yes. And then I come up with Alzheimer's. Yes. And you said at that point I wouldn't be able to practice. I didn't say you wouldn't. I'm saying, I'm saying I'm trying to practice so that I would be able to practice if I had Alzheimer's because I'm having trouble figuring out how I would. So I'm trying to like get myself ready. That's why I go to those conferences with physicists. I'm trying to keep, you know, expanding my mind so that, you know, my studies into areas so I can, so all the different situations, We get thrown into all kinds of different situations, you know.

[62:02]

How would I practice if I was a woman? You know, this kind of thing. Okay, well let's suppose that we could practice. And that practice is studying the situation. Well, in that case, though, you wouldn't be able to... we might not be able to study, like... you might not be any longer thinking. Like Meg's example of like an alcoholic blackout, it might be that in Alzheimer's, you can't like be aware anymore, okay? So in that case, I guess one theory I would have is that if you really practice, you know, what do you call it, if you can get your practice to be a kind of selfless practice, then when you get into states of mind where the self is not even, where the ego is somehow not functioning and yet you're still acting without even conscious ego functioning, that the ritual that the ritual aspect of your practice will carry through in situations where normal brain functioning is not operating.

[63:03]

And you know I read this story with

[63:06]

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