So as I mentioned, the requests I got for these classes were keep it simple and try to keep it related. Try to show how the discussion is related to actual experience, daily experience, and so last night I tried to do that. Was that sort of what you, do we do some part of what you want to do? So, if you want we can keep trying to mix the experiential ingredient into the, into our classes. If you feel you're getting a little, talking about something rather than, rather than relating to what's happening right now, then call it, and we'll see how that goes. You can interrupt me when I'm talking, and maybe we should develop some decor of how we interrupt each other, or maybe interrupt isn't such a good word, how we enter into

[01:05]

dialogue rather than having like a sharing circle kind of thing. Oh, and another, I was talking to Regina about another way of doing this would be that in addition to lectures, classes like somebody teaching a class, and discussion groups, you can also have maybe small stuff discussion groups on some of these topics. It's another way to do things. People could even work on, you know, you could split up the work and send people on particular assignments. So, anybody, again, have any ideas about this, please let us know. So I thought maybe this morning I would talk about this term, outflow or leakage, which

[02:05]

is an English translation of a Sanskrit word, asarvam. And asarvam, which is translated, as I said, as sometimes leakage, outflow, but in a way it's more direct, etymological meaning is flood, flood. And flood, so the flood can be flooding in or flooding out. Usually when you say leak or outflow, of course, it seems like it's going out, but flood could

[03:05]

be in, right? Your house could get flooded. So flood, in a way, is better because it has this, can go either way. And the Chinese character that they used to translate this didn't mean, not necessarily going out, but just a flow. Okay, asarvam, very basic Buddhist term, and these, this phenomena, this setup called outflow or flooding, is, what you say, it's kind of like a, it's putting the emphasis on what happens to the organism or to the psychic organism when there's dualistic setups. This is kind of like the energetic, psychic energetic consequence of dualistic thinking.

[04:17]

So it's very, it's very basic. There's two, two important related or derivative terms to this word, which you also might see around in your reading. Are sa-sarva, which means with or having outflows, and is sometimes translated as impure. Ram, since you're talking and using the term outflow, don't you just always assume that

[05:25]

you actually mean inflow, outflow? Yeah, right. I can say flood too. Usually, you know, they almost never do see that in Zen literature. They almost always say leakage or outflow. Leakage also. Leaking is good. Yeah, leaking, yeah, leaking is good. Leakage could be leaking in or leaking out, couldn't it? Maybe leakage is good. So, with leakage. And then the other word is ana-srava, which means without, without leakage. It often is translated as pure. Kind of gives a new meaning to impure thoughts.

[06:27]

Exactly. And it shows you the way Buddhist translators view impurity. It's not like dirty. As you understand these terms more, it will be helpful to understand how the word purity and impurity are used. A little bit more background before we get into the nitty-gritty. At the beginning of the Abhidharmakosha, Vasubandhu says, well, there's basically two kinds of things. Two kinds of, yeah, two kinds of real things or two kinds of dharmas in the world. The ones that have outflows, the ones that have leakage, and the ones that don't.

[07:31]

Everything that's life, as far as we're concerned, is one or the other, he's saying. That's right, like the first page he says that. It can't be in between, partially, it's either one or the other. Yeah, right. It's not like, if you're. Is that like a hair's breadth deviation? Yeah, it's like a hair's breadth deviation, right. He says, well, what are the things that are impure? And then in Abhidharma terms, there are, in his system, in the Vaibhashika system that he was teaching, the main scholastic tradition of northern India and Gandhara and so on, Kashmir.

[08:37]

They have a system of 75 dharmas, which is, that's everything. 75 dharmas accounts for all things of the world, even all things of liberation. So he says, the impure things are 72 dharmas. What are the pure things? The pure things are three dharmas. It's what, three dharmas? Space, path and nirvana. Those are the things that aren't impure. Yeah, the Buddhist path. What's meant by space? Space, the definition of space is not just a space in between things, but the space that contains everything.

[09:41]

Like the space of the universe. But it's pure because even if you put things in it, that doesn't crowd it or lessen it or something. It's not just in between things, it's also inside of things, right? Which we now know by various kinds of research, or we now believe, I guess, by various kinds of research, that really there is space inside of hard things. That actually most of what's inside these beams that are holding this thing up is space, right? In addition to the space that the carpenter bees are making. There's space inside the things between the spaces that they make. So, that's space. Nirvana, I guess, people say, oh yeah, that makes sense, nirvana would be pure. But the path, the path is pure. What's the path made up of? Impure dharma. That's right. The path is nothing but impure dharmas because what's the path made out of? What are the impure dharmas?

[10:44]

Things like faith is an impure dharma. Diligence, concentration, effort. All those things are impure dharmas. But when you put them together into the path, it becomes pure. It's kind of like a great kind of cooking. You take all these ingredients and put them together and they make a thing that doesn't have leakage. So that's why we have the path. It's a way to coordinate all these things that each one of which has outflow. Each one of which is dualistic or each one of which is based on dualism. When you put them together into the Buddhist path, there's no leakage anymore. How does that happen?

[11:45]

Why is it that everything has outflows? For example, faith. Faith as a kind of phenomenal event is often faith in something or about something or towards something. But the path as faith is not faith in anything or about something or towards anything. But there's faith in something or about something because there's a flow there. I remember one time Gregor Bateson, he wasn't talking about outflows, he didn't use that term, but he was talking about partial circuits in nature. Like, I give Carolyn a dollar and Michael gives Eva a piece of cake and Charlie bites Chris.

[12:52]

These are partial circuits. Right? You understand? Rather than talking about simultaneously how Chris' flesh fills Charlie's mouth, and not only that, but how the transaction between Michael and Eva relates to Charlie and Chris. But in nature, all these partial circuits add up to be a whole circuit. Partial circuits, there's always a flow, but in a whole circuit, you can't really say. Partial circuit goes... But in the whole system, there's no gain or loss. And the path is kind of the way of being with all the things that are happening that includes them all, so there's no flow anymore. It just... So the path is the way to live our life, which we call the middle way, such that there's no gain or loss, increase and decrease.

[13:59]

There's no flow anymore. There's just a radiant presence. But any little part composing our life, if you look at it, you'll see a flow or a duality there. You'll turn away from something. And that turning away from something sets up these outflows, these leakages. Yeah? It's confusing to me about the metaphor of leakage or flow, because it seems like something that doesn't have leakage is kind of hermetically sealed, and it's not... I'm not used to thinking of it as a good thing for nothing to come in or out, and you think about flowing in positive ways too. Can you help me sort that out? Going with the flow, and letting things flow, and letting yourself flow into what's happening. Well, in the present moment, you do not separate yourself from other beings.

[15:18]

The present moment of life actually is not sealed off from anything, but there's nothing you can add to it, or take away from it. There's no place to get something to add to it, and there's no place to take something and put it someplace else. There's no way to do that. So in the present moment, there is no flow. Things are still in the present. There's no movement. Movement is illusion. Flow is illusion. Everything's actually perfectly in balance, but not static. It's a dynamic stillness. That's the fundamental non-leaking presence. Which is not... we're not so up in our head, up in our life, daily life, we're not so aware of this still presence with this tremendous potential energy.

[16:40]

That's completely alive, and ready to be compassionate. Just press it, touch it, touch this kind of presence any place, and you get compassion out of it. Full, vital, compassion. Because it's not sort of like, it's not like, well I'm going over here, would you please come over here and help me? I'm inclined over this way, my energy is going this way. I'm not really in the present, so if you want me to go back that way, I'm kind of, it's a little bit inconvenient for me. It's not, it's like you're just completely ready. You know, like a couple of examples from science, I don't know science, but from empirical observation, and various kinds of games in the world. Like this is another example from Gregory Bateson. If you take a container of water, I don't know exactly how you do this, but like if you send sound waves at it,

[17:48]

which means you vibrate something, I think it's sound waves, and it might even be sound waves in the sense of a frequency that we can't hear, but anyway. You vibrate something and it has some kind of compression, decompression thing in the air, right? And if you do that, the water will start shaking. But then you can vibrate another source and send another wave, and the water will shake another wave. And you can keep doing that from various directions until finally you can make the water still again. Right? Have you ever seen anything like that? I've heard of that. So what you've got here is this water, which is now completely still again, but it is the resolution of various forces, just like we are, every moment we are the resolution of the forces of the entire universe. Now if you take a pin and stick it in that water, the water will splash all over the room.

[18:56]

That's like a compassionate person. They're just completely present, you touch them and you'll get a response, depending in relationship to the amount of forces that they're the resolution of, which will vary from moment to moment. If you have a real high frequency wave going into the water, the water will be really shaken up a lot, right? So you're going to have to have other, equal energy stuff to balance that energy, right? So some water will be, water without that happening to it, also if you touch it, it will splash, just regular water, but it won't splash a lot, right? You know what I mean? It'll splash a little, if you look carefully you'll see it splashes. As you break the surface tension, and you took a microscope, you can see. Ever seen that? When you break surface tension on just ordinary water? It breaks, it actually, it's got a tension on it, right?

[20:07]

It's not just sitting there, there's tension for various reasons. You break through it, it doesn't, it goes... There's also a surf at the edge of the surface tension. There's little surfers riding those things. Have you ever seen that? There's a surf at the edge of surface tension. But then if you add more energy to it, it makes it even more vivid, that the still water is always the resolution of various forces around it. So the more high-powered the sound waves, the more of a splash you'll get when you touch it. So, that's an example of a moment of stillness. That has tremendous energy and ability to respond. The other example I thought of was...

[21:08]

What was it? Flow, stillness. I forgot. Maybe it's part of the matter of thinking of the largest enough context that in a small piece of the picture, maybe it looks like something is flowing out of the flow. Exactly, that's exactly the point. In a small picture, you see a partial surface, there's a flow. When we look at our life in a small way, and then we imagine it over time, we see flow. But even in a moment, if you look at a part of the moment, there's an implication of movement. Even though there's nothing moving, it looks like it's going somewhere. Just like, again, to have faith in something, that psychic construct has a flow built into it, it implies flow. To think that you could get away from your children, that thought implies flow. But if you think, there's no way I can get away from my children, that thought doesn't imply any flow.

[22:22]

So some people actually think, there is no way I can get away from anybody. That kind of thought includes all those partial circuits of all those little thoughts that you think of how you could get away from people, either the sum total of that, or just the basic belief that you can't get away from anybody. That kind of attitude is what you call a non-leaking attitude towards other beings. To know that you never can get away from anybody, there's nobody you can avoid dealing with, not anybody. That's a non-leaking attitude. If you really believe that, then you, in other words, rather than believe in it as a construct to live that way, you would end all flows in your life. If you really lived that way, I would enact that faith. Back to the things that move, would it be that what we refer to conventionally as moving

[23:26]

really means that things are always changing? Yeah, well, I wouldn't say it means that. I would say that we, with our minds, convert the observation of impermanence into the illusion of movement. We change change into movement. Firewood does not change into ash, but we see firewood move over into ash by our imagination. Because we can see that there's a thing called firewood, therefore the thingness of it, we can see that over in the ash. And then we can connect the two things, and then we see movement. Just like I often talk about Mickey Mouse, if you take one of those little yellow pads that we have around, those little yellow pads, they take notes on those sticky things, and draw pictures of Mickey on each piece, and each one is just a dead picture, right? But you flip them, it looks like Mickey's jumping around.

[24:28]

That's what we do. Pictures are changing, and we make them into a story. So there's movement in the hole. The hole is still. And then it changes. Oh, did I say movement or change? You said movement. There's change in the hole, and there's also changes in the parts. But the hole changes from one non-leaking hole to another non-leaking hole. The parts change from one thing with leakage to another thing with leakage. It's maybe the same type of leakage, maybe the opposite leakage. The faith can jump around. Mickey can go from one thing to another. And you can make a story about the history of your faith, or the history of your diligence.

[25:31]

Say, yesterday I was this kind of diligent, and then you can see yourself moving around. So we do that, and that's okay. We should know what it is, that's all. This is another part of how it flows. But now I'd like to actually get into the feeling, almost the experience of this outflow business. And I forgot my other example, Susan and Bert, sorry. One of these three things that are now outflows is the Nirvana one, which just kind of jumped over. And I wonder what that is. Well, there's two kinds of Nirvana in the Abhidharma. One kind of Nirvana is the heart, a little bit difficult to understand. The other one is not so difficult to understand, but fairly difficult to realize. One kind is called the Nirvana, which is due to the fact that things don't happen.

[26:39]

And the other Nirvana is, and that's called pratisamkhya-nirodha, for your information. The other kind of Nirvana is pratisamkhya-nirodha, and pratisamkhya means kind of like effort. So there's one kind of Nirvana that is associated with effort, effort in practice. So if you do Buddhist practice, as the path is realized, Nirvana is realized within that path. And that's the kind of Nirvana that Buddha realized under the bow tree. And when Buddha died, he realized what's called perfect Nirvana. And also other people, you and I, will also realize that perfect Nirvana when we die. Because when you die, you realize the Nirvana which is due to you not arising anymore. Which is also the kind you had before you came here.

[27:47]

And it's the first kind. But the reason why Nirvana doesn't have outflow is because Nirvana is not caused. But it's kind of an effect. So I sometimes say, well, like there's a bus stop in Carmel Valley somewhere, and you walk over, if you go over this mountain and down the road, suddenly there's a bus stop in front of you. And you say, ooh! But your going over the hill didn't cause the bus stop. But if you didn't traverse that space, you wouldn't realize the bus stop. So in that way Nirvana doesn't have outflow. That's one explanation of it. Pardon? Yeah, except that this particular bus stop is just the way things are before there was any bus stops.

[28:51]

It's the true nature of a human being, whatever that is. It's not like there's a true nature of you which is fixed even. Just in every moment there's what you are. Pardon? Yeah, there's always a resolution of everything in the universe at a given place in the universe. And if it's where a human being is, that perfect resolution of the causes and conditions leading to our life, that's Nirvana. When we notice the bus stop. When we realize it. It's always there. Our Buddha nature, our true nature is always there, which is, you know, what do you want to say about it today? But the realization of what you are is Nirvana. Which is peace and happiness and all that. But it's not like you cause that.

[29:56]

So that's why I think, to make a long story short, that's why it gets classified as pure. Not because it's better than the other things, because the way the other things really are is what Nirvana is about. So all these partial circuits aren't really that way. Because in fact, none of them exist by themselves. You cannot really, it doesn't really right to look at these partial circuits and say, well that's what they are. Because it's not really true. And because you just focus on them and say that's the way they are, that's the basis of outflow. Because you're looking at this thing in isolation of everything, of all its friends. Which is not what it is. It wouldn't be like this if it weren't for everything else. It wouldn't be so wonderful, so cute, so successful, if it weren't for its family. So really it's not,

[31:01]

really when you see things that way, what you're doing is seeing an impure Dharma. And you yourself are involved in that level of realization of looking at things in a very small way. Which is what we have to do. In fact, we have to do that in order to live. In order to get a hold of the microphone, you sort of have to grab the microphone instead of your lip. So that's just the way it is. But by practice, we somehow can approach everything from this total perspective and then these partial circuits are coordinated with all the other partial circuits and then the whole situation doesn't have outflows. Yes. So is our bigger intention not to stop the leakages but to see the all-encompassing picture of any leakages? Yeah. Right. Well actually then you do stop the leakages.

[32:02]

But the way to stop the leakages is to a great extent to start noticing them. As you notice them more and more, you start to resonate or harmonize with the whole picture. And when you resonate with the whole picture, you see the whole picture, then the outflows are ended. But we don't... It's kind of like another image is like a hologram. You look into the picture, you look into the totality always through your eyes or your ears. You look in through a particular spot, but then somehow you see in that spot. You see through that particular place. You see somehow everything. You can see everything. You see how you can tune into everything through that spot. But you don't do it by kind of trying to pry your eyes open wider. You have to just stay in the usual situation of seeing one person at a time or one microphone at a time. But it is possible through practice to when you see a microphone to actually not see like... It doesn't exactly get to be like you.

[33:04]

You actually see right in the microphone all the pine trees reflected on the chrome here. It's not so much like that, although sometimes you do. It's because you can't see that with your human eye. But with your human eye you see this and through seeing this with your human eye, with your psychic, with your Dharma eye, you can see all the pine trees in the microphone. You realize all the sentient beings in this microphone. And then you start taking really good care of microphones and serving utensils. And of course living beings because they're so sensitive and easily hurt. Okay? Now, should I keep answering questions or should I get into the outflows instead of these examples? Answer the outflows. Okay, so there's three kinds. Well, there's many, there's innumerable kinds. I'm just going to present this teaching of Dongshan, right?

[34:05]

Which, as I mentioned to you, is in case 15 of Blue Cliff Record, these three outflows of Dongshan. And just before they're listed, Yuan Wu says, well, these guys like, you know, Yun Men and people like that, all they want to do is melt the glue and pull out the pigs and set people free. They just want to walk hand in hand through beings with birth and death to go into the mud and water for the sake of all beings. And he says, how can they do that? He said, well, they've ended all outflows. So, this is what bodhisattvas need to do in order to do their work. Now Dongshan says there's three outflows. Three outflows are outflow or

[35:10]

leakage of views, leakage of emotion or feeling, and leakage of words. Or language. Could be. You could say language. Like speech, like body language. Body language. Could be. Yes. So, okay, then he says, for the view, for the leakage of views,

[36:11]

if you look in that, if you look in that book, I think what you'll find that the way Clary translates it is the intelligence does not stir from its fixed position and falls into a poisonous sea. But I want to point out to you that the word intelligence that he has in there, I can see why he translated it that way because the actual character that's in there is this character. Which is pronounced Ki in Japanese. And it's part of my name, Zenki. And it's part of, and that name is also a fascicle of Shogogenzo. And Zenki means,

[37:16]

is translated by Clary as the whole works. And Zen means whole or complete. So, in that case, Ki is being translated as works. Another translation of Ki is opportunity. Energy. Occasion. And like the word for airplane in Chinese is Fei Ji. Fei means wings and Ji is this character in Chinese. So it's a winged opportunity or a winged energy or a winged machine. This could also be translated as machine almost. So you can see why it would be funny for him to say the opportunity or the occasion or the energy does not stir from its fixed position. But if you remember this word,

[38:18]

all that word's got in it. So you can imagine that in the case of view, well the energy takes, takes the form of maybe intellect or intelligence. But it's, it also you could say that you can see why this opportunity or this energy that sort of has a, that's channeled in a certain direction or in a certain philosophical position or something or hooked on to a certain value, that that energy held that's fixed to a certain position on something, that that can throw you for a loop. A poisonous sea does not stir and it does fall. The energy does not stir. It holds to a fixed position and, and then falls into a poisonous sea

[39:21]

because it's hanging on too tight to a fixed position. So this, I find this quite easy to observe in my life. Yes? I was going to say actually it wouldn't necessarily be the energy, the intelligence or opportunity doesn't stir and it falls into a poisonous sea. That doesn't stir and there is falling into Yeah, right. It doesn't stir and then we poor little deers get thrown into the poisonous sea. We feel like and so again, human beings got these 73 impure dharmas. One of them is, you know, some view. We have views on various matters. Yesterday I was walking down Tassavar Road and I saw Pam Walton with her hand like this on her hip.

[40:23]

This is not, this is not directly related necessarily. One hand turned like this give the other hand like this and I said to to Gaylen, I said women stand like that, don't they? Gaylen said, yeah, it's really neat. It is kind of neat. I've seen other women stand like that. It's kind of an unusual position for a man. We don't usually do it. It's kind of like yoga in your everyday life. Interesting. Anyway, so we have views, right? We have opinions. We do that all the time. Evaluations of things. That's not really the problem. Again, problem is if you hold them and if you hold them, just a little bit of holding can throw you for a loop. Energy is going into it. So one way to talk about it

[41:24]

which is one way to watch for it is does the thing have a charge? Like you bring up something in a in a discussion with somebody and you go to talk to somebody and you want to talk to him about something you feel or something you've observed something you think something you value something you're concerned about something even that you're quite I mean in the sense of, you know, you really think this is really important and you want to make sure it's taken care of. That's okay. But if you hold on to that especially if you really are concerned you got a lot of energy on it lots of stuff's coming together on it if you then hold it you get thrown into a poisonous sea. You get thrown into a tremendous turbulence and it's not friendly turbulence like, you know, I like to drink this stuff. It's real difficult and you feel really embarrassed if you're supposed to be practicing composure. When I was a kid one time

[42:29]

I went hopping trains and I walked up to a train that was going about 30 miles an hour and I was grabbed and I'm still here. Alongside. And then I was fine. You got to run alongside you got to keep going the same speed then you can grab it. So if you come up to something and you've got a charge maybe you can handle it if you take that into account. But otherwise if you grab something and you've got a charge on it and you don't know it it's going to throw you for a loop. You say not only am I concerned about this but I've got a fixed concern. And how are you either you have to drop the fixedness of it or you're going to have to figure out how to run real fast to catch up with it. But the point is how are you going to spot this

[43:30]

how are you going to spot beforehand that there's a charge? Well, it's hard before you learn how to spot it. It's hard to learn except by actually mistakes by grabbing the train. And then you get thrown for a loop and you say that's... I must have had a fixed view because look at the charge that happened when I touched it. Listen to my voice quiver feel the heat in my cheeks look at the reaction of the people I have I must have a charge and then next time look again and maybe start to notice I feel that same kind of thing not only do I think this is right I want to practice righteousness that's good I want to practice good that's righteousness but there's a thing called self-righteousness which means setting up standards on your own

[44:31]

you decide what's right you're the sole carrier of right so you've got to hold it in your own body then when you come in a situation everybody backs away or they don't back away they shake or they cringe or they fight or even if nobody's around if you look at yourself you notice you're really upset really turbulent and you probably find in there somewhere that you might be able to find that what you're doing is you're holding to a view you don't just think this is good you hold to that you're the crusader you have to carry this good or you have to protect against that bad rather than a much more subtle and complex and helpful situation that's actually making things possible so in all these cases but particularly this one starting now what you do is you try to find find it to try to spot it spot your views

[45:33]

and then spot the ones you have a charge on yes how do you practice good without setting up standards? you do it by setting them up with other people how's that? well for example you know I often use the example of of having pizza with somebody you buy the pizza maybe they set it down in front of you and you say to the other people you know whose piece is whose? and then you discuss it and then somebody says to you that piece is for you and you ask the other people is that true? is that my piece? and they say yeah you're not just saying that because you're afraid of me are you? they say no as a matter of fact you can't have any really? on the other hand

[46:34]

to sit down at the table and as a matter of fact they say that was actually good it was good it was inspiring that you discussed it with us we appreciate you doing things with us rather than you deciding all by yourself which piece is yours now how would you decide which piece was yours? there'd be various ways you could do that yourself right? one way would be man I paid for the pizza I can have whichever one I want that's one way but that would just be the way you figured it out right? on your own actually you cannot figure out by yourself which piece is for you or whether the whole thing is for you the whole thing might be for you they might say you have the whole thing we're you know we're non-dairy but in your own mind you think okay look I paid for it I certainly but you bring in some value system I certainly can have one piece somebody else could say I pay for the whole thing I certainly can have the whole thing and I'll just give them some that I want to that would be another value system somebody else could say I pay for the whole thing I can't have any

[47:35]

because of some other aspect of my value system but the point is I do something like pay for it or somebody else says they didn't pay for it therefore they can't have any and therefore you say have some pizza and they say no I can't have any that would also be setting up the standard of righteousness by yourself and you say come on have one and they say no they're being self-righteous right? they're holding I'm not going to eat it because I didn't pay for it I forgot my money I'm not going to have any pizza you're being you're wrecking the party none of us are going to be able to eat unless you eat well I'm not going to eat because I didn't pay for it and actually this is a small thing right? but you actually could cause a problem by not eating the pizza holding to your view that since you didn't pay for it and since you forgot your billfold that you can't have any and you say do people agree with me and they say no we don't we have a different value now ours aren't any better than yours but let's have a little compromise here let's now we have the value

[48:36]

you should eat it you have the value you shouldn't eat it we have the value that we'd like you to eat it because we'd like to have some too and we don't want to eat without you that's our value we'd like you to play with us so what can we work out here and then we say well let's make an agreement you come up with an agreement and everybody says this would be good and you do that and it's something that we can work out together it's not something that you arrive at the situation beforehand six people to have pizza and everybody knows before they arrive what's right and which piece you should have now usually if there's pizza sitting like that and we're sitting around the piece closest to you would be yours but what if it's the biggest one well good luck right anyway this happened to me this is a real life example I paid for the pizza I sat at the table they put it down in front of me the piece nearest to me was the biggest one I took it and somebody basically accused me of stealing and I wouldn't say

[49:40]

necessarily I stole but I would say that I did set up standards on my own and deciding that was my piece that was obvious to me crystal clear so clear that's my piece it just happened to be the biggest one which I liked that was nice but I wouldn't have reached all the way to the other side to get it probably so it's never accumulated it's always right here exactly the good position you don't carry around with you you don't bring what's good to the situation and plop it down that's called carrying a self and confirming and practicing the situation right so we're gonna have pizza tonight I know before I arrive what's good that's setting a standard on your own that's delusion of course you do arrive probably with some delusions that's ok but know that it's delusion know that basically you don't know what to do

[50:40]

with a pizza or with the salt or with the table or with the waitress or with the check people struggle over checks too right what's the you know what's the real true way what do you do after you've done who washes the dishes how do you do this stuff you work it out with people there's no beforehand good there's no such thing as good a fixed thing it's always something that appears in the situation to work out with other people so if you have an idea of good which probably you do most lot of people do some people don't that's really bad if you don't even have an idea of what's good or bad then you can't even play the game people are talking about well you know why don't you have a piece can't understand what they're talking about so it's very important that you do have values but then you enter into dialogue as to arrive at what to do with these values so that you don't get in a fixed position because if you do even a small thing like taking the biggest piece or the smallest piece could cause a disturbance

[51:41]

and somebody could say to you you know I really didn't like the way you handled that the way you took that piece or took two pieces or whatever and you could that can really hurt your feelings and then you can get upset about that by having outflow around leakage I mean outflow or leakage around feelings which we go to next so outflow around around views can cause a painful reaction which can cause then another outflow around the pain and those two together can lead to actual serious problems over nothing at all so maybe I'll go on to the outflow around the feelings what about ethics? how does that relate I'm not really sure well ethics is one of the words I'd like to actually define in this class but and studying outflows is part of studying ethics I just wondered if you had some sort of

[52:42]

fixed idea of how no it's not fixed but ethics is actually like what I just said you know just now yeah what I just said now about arriving at the good that discussion I just had is a statement I'm making which you all can talk about and study with me and that kind of inquiry into what's good in situations like that that kind of study is ethics that's an example of an ethical to look at what is the good and to try to figure out what is the good in a situation that kind of inquiry that kind of examination that's an example of ethics or moral philosophy but I I'd like maybe in the next class I'll give a definition of ethics and we can see how that relates to the precepts yes yeah it seemed like in your pizza story that there was

[53:43]

this assumption that whatever the group wanted would be the best good but what about when you're in a situation you too though what's that? you're in there too right but what about when you're in a situation where for some reason the majority of people are not are blind to something Nazi Germany or something people got together and everyone decided what they wanted but it wasn't but if you're in that situation and you decide well I think I see something that other people don't but everyone else disagrees so maybe I should just go along with the situation that's not necessarily that's right that wouldn't necessarily be good so what the group wants is not necessarily the good it's just that the good is something you work out with the group it's a different thing

[54:44]

so that hasn't been completely worked out then because one person still is yeah right exactly it's just that you for example let's say you're in a situation where a bunch of people a group of people are going to do something really cruel and you're there if you agree with them if all the people in the group agree it does not necessarily make the good because a whole bunch of people can agree to do something bad okay so that does not mean that severe that doesn't mean that groups always do good things it just means that if you are trying to figure out what is good in a group that you should pay attention to the group and if they're all going to do something bad you should pay attention to that right and not only that but I'm recommending that you notice if you have an outflows because holding to your position when you're in the middle of a bunch of people they're going to do something bad might be really

[55:47]

counterproductive why because you might get self-righteous in the middle of them and become totally dysfunctional in helping them turn it around whereas if you're if you have the view but don't have any charge on it you might be able to walk up to them hold it out right in front of them show it to them and they might all wake up and say my god we were just about to do something really really cruel right but if there's a charge on it they say man you're on a trip and they'll crush you and won't even do what you said and won't listen to you and you'll be ineffective in showing them the light once they see the light they'll change but you can't show them the light if you don't have it and you won't have it if you hold this to your position so in fact this is the reason why bodhisattvas must end outflows around views because if a group of people if a group of people are about to do something cruel the bodhisattva

[56:48]

should go and intervene and save them from doing that cruel thing and protect whoever they're going to be cruel to right but if the bodhisattva is holding to his view or her view to stop them then the bodhisattva is self-righteous and the bodhisattva will be ineffective in stopping a group of people that are more powerful than you but if you don't have a charge on it you can turn around a group of people that are much more powerful than you because you can show them light once they see the light they'll change but if you hold the view you darken it even if you're right even if in fact it is a good thing you're talking about so it's also important besides not holding your view it's not like what you're saying it's important not to kind of reject your view even if it's not according to your view the most important thing is don't reject your view hold your truth like Gandhi says Satyagraha hold the truth always hold your truth

[57:49]

Satyagraha doesn't mean fixed to your view it means hold it up in the world hold your truth up you must do that that's your job and on top of that don't have a charge on it don't attach to your view don't be fixed with your view moment after moment hold your view up that's your job as a human being you must do that otherwise you miss the great opportunity so bodhisattvas are holding up their truth I want to help people that's the truth they want to hold up they must courageously do that if they're bodhisattvas but they must also understand that there's no view at all and there's nothing to hold to then they'll be really effective so please thank you for making lunch for us but I said this would be a short class so if it's ok I'd like to make it a short class is that alright? and would everybody please write down their questions that they have at the end of their hand and we can bring them up in the next class we're not quite I didn't get to the feelings to the feelings

[58:50]

and the words yet right? so we'll meet again and I'll do the other two the other two outflows which as you see you'll see naturally flow from are connected to this other one and I just parenthetically remark that being able to watch these outflows is directly related to taking refuge in Buddha that if you can if you can you can keep coming back to your true nature if you can watch how you leak away from it by these by these forces that are set up by dualistic thinking is it repentance? pardon? that's repentance sure what's repentance? sort of seeing your outflows admitting them admitting what your outflows are definitely it's an act of repentance to notice your outflows so Yuan Wu says after he listed these three kinds of outflows

[59:50]

he said you should learn how to spot these outflows in your daily life so it's very important for us to be able to see them in our daily life and I think I think actually you can actually learn how to do that fairly especially for the first two kinds I think you can learn how to do that and spotting this and confessing it then opens you up again to take refuge but when you're actually outflowing refuge it doesn't exactly make sense because unless you've spotted it if you spot it then you open yourself again and you're you're ready to take refuge again and then you take refuge and then you probably trip again but you notice it and admit it you're ready to take refuge again so this process of taking refuge falling on your face

[60:50]

noticing it admitting it repenting taking refuge goes round and round actually okay is it alright to stop? May our intention be and traitor be being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way Means are numberless I vow to save them Conditions are inexhaustible I vow to end them Dharma gates are boundless I vow to enter

[61:52]

them Buddha's way is unsurpassable I vow to be calm His way unsurpassable

[62:01]

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