from talking to some of the yogis who are practicing in this sitting program we have here, I think that still some more discussion of the middle way in the mundane world would be good. And once again, I feel that, as I said in the first day, and I've been saying over and over again, the foundation of the practice of the Buddha way is compassion, is loving and being loved, of feeling love,

[01:26]

towards oneself and towards others, and feeling love from the other. Feeling compassion towards oneself and towards other, and feeling compassion from not just one other, but the big other. This is the root or the foundation for the practice of the Buddha way. And learning what love is, is part of the way we take our seat. It's part of the way we practice the middle way. And also we, you know, it's both what we're trying to learn in the practice of the middle way, but also what helps us find the middle way. From, you know, both sides, from both directions, or both ways.

[02:33]

So, when we talk about the middle way of trying to settle in this world of suffering, to try to find our seat of enlightenment, in the world of birth and death, the Buddha says that there's two extremes to avoid. One is the devotion to addiction to sensual pleasure, and the other is avoiding devotion to self-mortification. And again, it's funny that it's when we don't feel loved that we're devoted to the addiction of sensual pleasure. When we don't feel loved and we don't love, we feel bad.

[03:39]

So then we indulge in or we become addicted to sensual involvement, which actually could be something nice we do for ourself. Buddha could go get a massage. Got a little pain in the neck? Hey Buddha, go get a massage. Or can I give you a massage, Buddha? Sure. I used to give Suzuki Roshi massages. when he was dying. It's okay. That's something I did, I was happy to do for him, and I guess he was happy to receive from me. And the other person gave him a massage too. So, getting a massage, which might feel good, might relieve some tension and pain, that's okay.

[04:43]

Okay. And if you love yourself and care for yourself and care for others, you might do that. But if we don't love ourself, the funny thing is if we don't love ourself and we don't feel others love us, it's like we take revenge on that lack of love and become addicted to something which probably might be good to do a little bit of. It's funny how the mind kind of like flips around like that. And of course, doing it that way distracts us from the pain of not feeling loved and just perpetuates the feeling of not being loved. So even doing something which is quite nice in itself

[05:44]

turns out to be a testament to not caring for ourselves and not feeling cared for by others. And it distracts us from our fundamental feeling of not loving and being loved, of not feeling love and feeling loved. On the other side, which is in some ways more, well, not more, but anyway, quite vividly alive here in this retreat is a side of self-mortification where some people feel like they're torturing themselves by following this schedule. That they're either hurting themselves or on the verge of hurting themselves by following this schedule. They aren't sure it's all right to care for themselves lovingly. I've been saying it, but they're not really sure that anybody else would agree with me.

[06:51]

They think maybe it'd be a nice idea, but they think maybe, no, I don't think so. It's safer just to brutalize myself. Nobody's going to fault me for that. Doing something difficult that you wish to do because you think it would be good, even doing something that might be painful but that you think is good, verges on self-mortification. Question is, are you devoted to it, and are you doing it to distract yourself from your deep pain?

[07:57]

I often say at the beginning of Sashin, have a good time, enjoy yourself. If you want to follow this schedule, fine, and now if you're going to follow it, please enjoy yourself while you're following it. In other words, follow it with joy. In other words, be joyful following the schedule. If you don't think that following the schedule will be joyful, then I would suggest you don't enter into a commitment to follow it. If people would hear that and heed that suggestion, it might be that the sign-ups for sesshin would temporarily drop. People would stop and think, do I feel that following that schedule of that meditation, maybe, could I see the schedule, please? Look at it. Hmm, there's quite a few periods there.

[09:07]

I wonder if I could follow that schedule joyfully. And if you don't think you will, if you think, well, gee, I don't think, actually, I don't, well, maybe the first period and the last period... But the in-between 70 or so, I don't know if I could practice that schedule joyfully. So maybe, if I'm listening to Rev, maybe he's saying don't enter that field if you don't think you're going to practice joyfully. I'm not kidding. I don't really think it does much good to practice without joy. On the other hand, I think practicing with joy is really good, and I think part of the joy is that you think you're doing something good. So maybe before you sign up for a session, look at the schedule for a few weeks beforehand or get some general idea of what it might be like, and think about whether you feel enthusiastic, whether you feel zeal and joy at the prospect of entering into such a discipline.

[10:15]

Whether you think, that would be a good situation for me to discipline myself. Discipline relates to, you know, dossiere, to learn. This would be a good situation to learn something about myself. That schedule. Me and the schedule interacting. I could learn something from that. That would be great. To see how I will take care of myself in this schedule. Anyway, you've already signed up. It's not too late to quit, but I would suggest you try to find joy in proceeding through the rest of the way. In other words, now, from now on, do it in a way, think about how to do it with joy. Think about how to follow the schedule joyfully. Try to find a way to do it with zeal. That's the way that it's offered to support.

[11:25]

It's offered to support a zealous, joyful practice. It's not offered as an opportunity or an excuse for you to torture yourself. It's not offered as an opportunity for self-mortification in the sense of mortifying yourself in such a way that you distract yourself from what's going on. And if I say this to some people, they think, oh my God, well, now I don't know what to do. I'm so used to torturing myself. Well, how would I practice? And then they'd rather go back to torture than be confronted with, well, here I am.

[12:35]

How can I practice joyfully? I don't know how to do that. Yikes. I know how to force myself into following a schedule. It is possible to go down into the cave of the green dragon with joy. Even though it's difficult, bitter work, one can do it with joy because one can know that it's good for one's health. It's possible to go into a room and lock the door behind you and sit at a desk and put a piece of paper out there and write something.

[13:39]

which you need to write, but is very difficult to write. And that's what writers do. They go into a room, close the door, sit down, and they write. But sometimes they have a great pain in writing. That's why they have to go into the room and lock the door, so to speak, because they know that they want to do anything but that, even though If they don't write, they won't be healthy. They have to write. Like a mother with a baby inside, it has to come out. It's painful, but if it doesn't come out, it's a really unhealthy situation. Nice thing about being pregnant is that The idea that you have an alternative is, you know, minimized.

[14:47]

You know this thing's coming, you know. You know it's got to come. You don't think, well, geez, how can I not be pregnant? you know as long as you're pregnant, you're pregnant. And if you're a writer, you're a writer and you have to write. You don't have to actually, you don't have to actually, you know, write a book. You just have to go in the room and face the paper. So, here's the schedule. How are you going to do it with joy? How are you going to lovingly care for yourself in this schedule? And can you believe that the Buddha wants you to practice that way? Or do you think Buddha actually would like you to torture yourself?

[15:52]

Is that the Buddha you've got? I guess there are some religions where they think that, you know, the person, you know, the leader or, you know, the example or the point who's in charge actually wants you to torture yourself. But the Buddha very clearly said from the beginning, uh-uh, I tried that. Forget it. It doesn't, it isn't any good. Don't be devoted to mortifying yourself. Practice in such a way that you have joy practice the middle way, which is I have no alternative to the pain I've got. I have no alternative to the pain I've got. I don't then do a practice to hurt myself so I don't have to pay attention to what's going on. I do a practice that helps me pay attention to what's going on, and I hear that's really good, and when I think about how good it is, I feel great joy at doing a practice which is that I work with what's happening.

[16:59]

And I feel joy about that. And if I don't feel joy about it, I realize that I'm not practicing love, and therefore, I'm missing the point. I'm on some kind of like trip that I'm on, but it's got nothing to do with Buddha way. Buddha way is you're giving yourself love, you're practicing love, taking care of yourself, and you're helping others and wanting to help others by your sitting, by your following the schedule. If you don't think this is helping others, if you're not doing this to help others, you're missing the point. You're missing the root point. And without feeling like that, you're not going to be able to sit because you're going to rebel.

[18:03]

You're going to rebel from torturing yourself, which is reasonable. Why not? I mean, nobody asked you to do that. This is your trip. Now, you may be able to find somebody who says, yeah, we do want you to torture yourself, but, you know, it's not just you. Go ahead. It's a good idea. There are some other people who are doing this and they would like to, you know, get some other people to do it to justify the way they're doing it. But it's really just personal trips. It's not the Buddha. So, this is what's necessary. This kind of feeling great love, feeling full of love, and feeling fully loved is necessary in order to practice the middle way.

[19:09]

And not only that, To practice the middle way in the sense that I've been talking about of the mundane middle way of taking your seat in the world and moving straight ahead on the middle course in the world. This first way he taught. But it's also necessary to have this kind of context of being full of love and feeling fully loved. It's also necessary to have that in order to do the next kind of work. which is, well, not really the next kind of work, but I'll just say involved in this is this activity of letting go of conceptual thought. And for most of us, in order to let go of conceptual thought, in order to let go of all our preconceptions,

[20:13]

in order to forget about all our preconceived ideas, most of us, in order to really do that, just to test to make sure we're really doing it, we need to look at them. We need to bring our ideas out and look at them and see if we're grabbing them. Because we might be grabbing them in secret, from ourselves even. So the next way the Buddha taught is more to bring out these concepts and see if you grab them. and to work with them without grabbing them. In order to do that work, we also need to feel loved. When people hear about not grasping anything, and if they try to do it, they often get very frightened. They feel like they're going to fall into a void and have nothing to cling to. and just fall forever.

[21:15]

And some people even feel like there's teeth in the void, too, that are going to munch on them. So then they back away from the practice of renunciation, the practice of letting go, forgetting about our preconceived ideas. So once again, love and feeling loved are necessary to take our seat and move in a balanced way. It's necessary to be enthusiastic about letting go of all attachments. And it's necessary in order to actually test to see if we can work with ideas, work with conception in a non-attached way. We need to feel this kind of support. And there it is.

[22:24]

But I want to just say once again, when people come and tell me about how they're torturing themselves and I say, you know, you don't have to do that. They can barely believe me. They know they're torturing themselves, but they really think that, you know, that's the way. I mean, they know it doesn't make sense, but they think actually somebody told them to do that. And maybe so, but I'm saying I don't support that. I think that's a misunderstanding of the middle way. I'm ready to move on to the next sutra, but I don't know if you are. Yes? Yes?

[23:31]

She said, in practicing the discipline of sesshin in a loving way, it's not that the discipline goes out the window. It's that you practice the discipline of sesshin in a loving, gentle way. Ladies and gentlemen, I've seen quite a few people come to practice Zen and discipline themselves in a harsh way. But those people are not around Zen Center anymore, except for the people who just recently came who did do that. But I mean, like I'm saying, you know, thirty years ago I saw people come, twenty years ago I saw people come, fifteen years, ten years ago I saw people come who harshly practiced discipline, but they're not here anymore. because they don't like to practice that way. So they stop practicing that way, and now they're happy, you know, working for, you know, some computer company.

[24:58]

Maybe they're actually lovingly practicing. I don't know what they're doing. But anyway, they don't like Zen anymore because Zen is like harsh discipline to them, and you are not going to keep that up. You're only going to keep up what you do with love. We start practice out of love, not out of harshness. So the discipline, in order to work, when you're practicing discipline and you're doing it lovingly and successfully, it is a great joy. It is a great joy to practice a discipline. If you do it harshly, you're going to not be able to do it anymore. And not practicing a discipline that you take on is very, very sad. See, joyfully practicing goes with success at the discipline. Once again, the Buddha tried to discipline himself harshly. He failed. Many other Zen teachers tried to practice discipline harshly. They failed. They all failed. They all said it was a mistake.

[26:02]

You say, actually, just... And then people say, yeah, but you did it. You know, now you're a great master, but, you know, you did make that mistake, so I think I have to make that mistake. And they say, no, you don't have to make the same mistakes I made. I'm telling you, you don't have to. And some didn't. Some actually said, OK, I'll just do the practice you say, rather than going through a year of mistakes, repeating the same mistakes over. Now, some teachers who are successful actually, they're somewhat successful, but not completely successful. And one of their lacks of success is that they begrudge their students not going through the hell, the mistakes that they went through. You know, now I see people like, you know, getting to where I got after 20 or 30 years, like in two weeks. How come, you know, how come they get so advanced so fast? Well, because they're benefiting by the experience of other people's mistakes.

[27:04]

It's okay. The new generations have new problems to face. They don't have to make the same old mistakes, too. Yes, Hugh? I like the word kind somehow, being kind to yourself and others. That's a good word, yeah, kind. Yeah, for me that clicks easier than love. It's pretty much synonymous, kindness. Yeah, pretty much synonymous. Except, I think, for me, I'm using the word love bigger than kindness because love includes activities which we don't necessarily think of as kind. But you could say patience is kindness. You could say concentration is kindness. You could say ethical discipline is kindness. You could say enthusiasm is kindness, if you want to. But do you? If you do, then I say they're synonymous. If you say that kindness equals all the things, the myriad things that are love, love is like, you know, it's infinite.

[28:10]

It's all good things. And if you want to say kindness is all good things, then love and kindness are synonymous. But certainly what I mean by this infinite thing called love, which I don't know what it is, I don't know what love is, but if you ask me, is that love, I say yes. If you ask me what that is, I say no. I respond to the question of, is this love? But I don't know what love is, because love is inexhaustible. Nobody knows what it is. All the Buddhas do not know what love is. And yet, they can respond appropriately to the issue of love. And if you make kindness that infinite, then I would say, They're the same. If you like kindness, like the other night, Elmer said, Elmer Owens, is that his name? Is that Elmer's last name, Owens? So Elmer Owens said, I like compassion better than love. I said, fine. So you like kindness?

[29:14]

Let's use kindness. Somebody else, what's the word? They don't like the word. What's the word they didn't like? Anyway, I'm willing to trade these words in on other words. Okay? Let's see, so it's kind of a tie between Adam and Tracy. Any other questions? It's your experience.

[30:16]

You sometimes don't notice when you're being harsh, but then later you realize you were. You have to see the consequences sometimes. Yeah, that sometimes happens. You're being too heavy, you're being too hard, and you don't know it. This is called learning by trial and error. So some people also don't know they're being too easy until after. Like some people, they're in some difficulty and they do something to avoid it and they feel bad. Then they realize, well, that wasn't quite right. Some other people have some difficulty and they push too hard. They go too long in the difficulty. And then later they realize, oh, that was off. So you learn. Like sitting in sashi, you're in pain and you avoid the pain. You do something to avoid the pain and sometimes it's a mistake. And sometimes it's right on. Other times you're in pain and you don't avoid it.

[31:19]

You don't do anything to adjust your situation and it's a mistake. And other times it's right on. You learn by trial and error. I have You know, I think, I don't know, which mistake I've made most. Pushing myself too hard or, you know, being a little too easy on myself. I don't know which one I've done most, but I think maybe I've made the mistake of being too easy on myself a little bit more than too hard on myself. I've made both, but I think the one of being too easy on myself I've made a little bit more than being too hard on myself. But the important thing is that I've done many of both. Zillions of both. That's the important thing. So I learned something. In other words, I was doing the experiment.

[32:24]

I've been doing the experiment. you know, a hundred, a thousand, a million times. So I'm learning because I'm always checking to see, well, how's it working? That was too much. That was too little. That was too much. That was too little. That was too much. That was too little. Could that have been right on? Maybe, almost. Once in a while, right on. But... I don't know if this is true anymore, but if you are steering a boat from here to Japan, if you get in a boat and go to Japan, once in a while you're pointed towards Japan. But mostly you're pointed towards Australia and Alaska, right? Mostly you're not going in the direction you're going. And in the early days of navigation, they did not have the concept of going in a straight line between where they started and where they were going. They didn't think that way. That was something that they thought of

[33:25]

like in the 15th century. The idea of like going in a straight line between point of departure and point of arrival. I think because they understood just by experience that mostly you're out in the ocean, you're not like going towards the place you're going. You're going to this place but not in a straight line. So we're feeling our way to Buddha in this middle way. By trying, see how it works. It's experiment, trying, experiment. The question is, are you a joyful experimenter? If you're not, I say, you're missing a key ingredient in love called enthusiasm. Enthusiasm means literally full of God, but I would say full of love. You must be full of love to practice the Buddha way.

[34:26]

And this is filling from the inside and being filled from the outside. Adam? We were talking about the food ethic and zealous and joyful participation in the Sashim. I'm feeling good about my participation in the Sashim. And sometimes I feel really enthusiastic and zealous. I can't say, wow, I'm going to put it out there. I'm not reactive. It's a good feel. Uh-huh. Well, you know, before you go further, I just want to say that what you said a while ago didn't sound to me like what I mean by joy. Joy is not a feeling of bliss. Joy is that you feel like you're doing something good. The joy I'm talking about, the enthusiasm I'm talking about, again, I hate to irritate you with the word God, but it's being filled with God.

[35:37]

It's not being filled with Adam, in your case. Okay? It's not, huh? What? What? It's being filled with God. In other words, it's being filled with joy about doing good. That's what enthusiasm is. It's not zeal about, hey, I got what I want for once. It's zeal about the practice. It's thinking about, God, good really is good. And it might feel good, too. One time, what is it? Somebody asked Dungsan. I think Dungsan's teacher asked Dungsan. You know, Ungan Donjo asked Tozan Ryoka, he said, are you joyful? And he said, yes. It's like finding a pearl in a pile of shit. So, the enthusiasm is when you get up in the morning and you feel lousy.

[36:39]

You feel not good. And you think about practicing the way, and you think, I feel bad, but I really feel great about practicing. Now, sometimes you wake up, it happens, like to some people, they wake up, they feel like happy. And sometimes they wake up in the middle of the night, happy, like happy. Wow. Well, that's fine. But enthusiasm isn't just feeling happy, it's feeling enthusiastic about the practice. It's different. You feel it even when you're down under lots of shit. Okay, good. Yeah. And still I feel like you're very appropriate about my situation overall.

[37:45]

I feel like it's something I just forget. Enthusiasm is when you feel, at the moment you feel, what am I doing? Right at that moment, you feel joyful that you're in the middle of saying, what am I doing? You feel, you know, you know, you're full of the understanding of how good it is to be in the middle of that question. You feel one zillion Zen masters sitting around you saying the same thing. And not only are they saying the same thing, but they're saying, hey, we had that same question when we were your age. They say, this is a question that we all ask. And if you're not asking it, they say to you, what are you doing? The founder of this place said that to us. He said, what are you doing? He said that to us.

[38:47]

When you say that, Suzuki Roshi is in your body. And also when you don't say it, he is too. You're welcome. You just said, filled with God, and yesterday you said to ask the Buddha's assistance. Could you speak on God and Buddha? Speak on God and Buddha? Ah, God and Buddha? Well, um... The similarity is that nobody knows what either one of them are. And the differences are, well, they're spelled different. And people have different preconceptions about God and Buddha, I think.

[40:02]

And if you mean by God something or somebody that's in control of the universe, that's not Buddha. If you mean by Buddha being unattached and full of compassion, then I would say that's what I think Buddha is, too. Although nobody knows what that is, because being unattached isn't something. And being full of compassion isn't something. And if somebody says, well, that's God, I would say, fine. Is that enough? No, if I say so, what did you say? I just asked you. I just asked you. You look like it's not enough. So then you say, if I say so. Hello? What are you doing? You could hear more and it could be enough?

[41:12]

Great. Well, so now I wonder, are you ready for the next kind of approach to the middle way? We have, let's see, two more days or three? Is it four? Six? Two more days. Two more days. But three more talks, because I'm going to give a talk on Thursday night, too. So I don't know. I'd like to get that same story.

[42:15]

I have the feeling that I can take a dictionary and drop it on my toe, make my toe hurt, but I have a feeling that this joyful is something that works that way. I can't make myself out of feeling that I can label joyful, and I don't think that's what you need. Is that right? You can't make yourself joyful, that's right. You can't make yourself anything, that's right. And when you hear that teaching, you can't make yourself be joyful about that. But it can happen. And if it doesn't, then I say, although you can't do anything about that, it doesn't feel joyful, I say, you got to get joy. And I'm not telling you you can do it, but I'll just keep saying that until there's joy, even though I'm not making it happen either.

[43:19]

We're all just like servants of joy. We don't make joy. Joy is our nature. So when there's joy, there's love. You also can't make yourself love yourself. And you also can't make Buddha love you. But what you are is something that Buddha loves. And Buddha is nothing but loving you. And what you are is something that loves yourself already. And what you are is something that feels joy when it contemplates appropriate activity. But you can't control yourself into contemplating appropriate activity. ...of appropriate activity arises occasionally. Somebody says, appropriate activity, appropriate activity. And somebody says, well, what's appropriate activity? And then there's the contemplation of the issue.

[44:21]

And then there's joy. But nobody's in control of how this all happens. There isn't a God who's getting us all kind of joyful. There's not anything outside. And we kind of want there to be something outside so that we could make us and others get joyful. But I can't get you to be joyful. And people would say, well, then why do you try? Why are you talking about it? And I say, I don't answer why questions. It is a joy for me to talk about joy. But I can't do that by my own power. But when you're sitting here looking depressed, it comes out naturally. If you tell me that you're not joyful, I start getting on this kind of like joyfulness kick.

[45:26]

When you tell me you're full of joy, I say, okay, well, let's go to work. Things happen to me, and I respond. But I can't respond the way I do unless those things happen to me. I couldn't answer your question if you didn't ask it. I couldn't be on this topic if you didn't bring it up. Somehow it all arises. And Luke asked, how? He wants to know, how can we turn the switch to remember to practice? How does it happen that it's on sometimes and off other times?" And I said, only Buddha really knows how that all works.

[46:30]

Okay? To try to figure that out beforehand is inappropriate. First become Buddha. Then you'll know the answer to the question. But if we try to answer the question, we're postponing the work which will give us the answer. which has become Buddha. I have a story. Would it be indulging in sensual pleasure to tell it? Some of you have heard this already, so will it be indulging in self-mortification? So I was driving out of Tassajara at the end of a practice period. And on the top of the mountain, you get radio reception. I was listening to the radio and I got a gospel station.

[47:33]

And they were singing this song. And I don't remember the tune or really the words either, but the words were something like, would Jesus wear a Rolex on his TV evangelist show? So if Jesus was alive today, you know, and he had a TV show where he was evangelizing... Would he wear a Rolex? How many people heard this story before? That's not too bad. Oh, quite a few. Anyway, so the next line goes, you know, something like, if Jesus had a TV show, would Jesus drive a Mercedes Benz? So this particular song, the implication was, no, Jesus would not wear a Rolex and Jesus would not drive a Mercedes Benz.

[48:35]

That was kind of, I think, the impulse or the import of this song. So Jesus would wear a Timex and drive a Toyota, right? Or maybe a Ford, because this is America. Where are Timexes made in America? OK, huh? They used to. Now they're in China. OK, anyway, something. But I thought, I thought, you've got to become Jesus to know what Jesus is going to do in the 20th century. So please become Buddha. That's what the Buddha way is about. The Buddha way is about becoming Buddha. Really it is. It's not about somebody else that became Buddha.

[49:39]

That's the start of it. But it's about that person wanting other people to become Buddha. Buddha is about Buddhas wanting us to understand what they understand. That's what it's about. So please understand Buddha. Okay? Yes? What's your name? What? Wellington, like the Duke? Yes. Can I call you the Duke? The Iron Duke. Yes? He was named that. Clarify my mind, if I'm understanding you properly. And one of your talks, you talk about the two truths. The actuality of things and the superficiality of things. Yeah. If the actuality of things is that we are joy, if we are nothing, if we are those things, then the superficiality of things, then we could be not joyful as well as joyful, not loving as well as not loving in the superficial sense.

[50:57]

Yeah. It seems to me that the difficulty of the mental processes is that we confuse the two. Hence, we are engaged in certain activities and we say, I'm not joyful, or I'm not loving, or I am loving, or I'm not loving. But in actuality, But the actuality of things, they are the loving, they are the joy. Is that a proper way of understanding this? Well, you said so much, I don't know what I'm supposed to say is proper and improper. Could you consolidate it into a little nugget so I can respond to nugget by nugget? Okay, well, I'll just take the joy. Yeah. The actuality of it is that we are joyful. That is our nature. Yes. But from the samsaric side, duality side, you get confused as to whether or not you are or not in a superficial way.

[52:02]

Well, in the realm of samsara, we may feel good or bad, okay? But whatever we feel is impermanent. And whatever is impermanent hurts. So birth and death hurts. But that's the superficial nature of our life, is that it hurts. The profound nature of our life is that it's peaceful, doesn't hurt, and everything's in harmony. But that second truth, that ultimate truth, we should be very careful of studying and talking about that unless we're well grounded in the conventional truth where there's suffering. But if we are well grounded there, which I hope now you're starting to become more well grounded in it, then we can start to open up the door of ultimate reality.

[53:16]

But in order to be grounded in the world of suffering, we must be loving. It's still loving in the world of suffering, but it makes us comfortable enough so we can stop wiggling and trying to run away by these extremes. If we can be settled here with great compassion, then we can look at the superficial nature of things. And by steadily, calmly, joyfully, patiently, enthusiastically, concentratedly, generously, mindfully, ethically meditating on the superficial nature of things, which is birth and death and suffering, we will see something else, which is very intimate with it, never separate from it, But we can't see that until we study thoroughly the superficial.

[54:20]

The profound is right. It's not a hair's breadth difference from the superficial. And yet it is really not exactly the same. And that subtle relationship will be revealed to us if we can study the superficial. But if we seek anything other than the superficial, we just get more superficial. By more superficial, I don't mean, in one sense, I don't mean that we're even more superficial, because we can't get any more superficial. But rather, just another example of superficiality, to seek something other than superficiality. So, by means of love, In this multi-dimensional practice of love, we can practice non-attachment and non-seeking in the world of suffering. So then, these little phenomena of birth and death, these little phenomena, phenomena?

[55:27]

These individual phenomena of birth and death, we can study and see accurately what they are and be released from the world of birth and death. Does that make sense? So tomorrow then I'll start to talk about this other way of looking at the middle way, which has to do with looking at what it is that we're not attached to, these phenomena that we're not attached to and these phenomena in which we have no seeking. What are they? How do they work? What are they really? How do we study them? Okay? Yes? In the meantime, continue and just notice what's going on.

[56:29]

Notice what's going on? That sounds really good. And while you're noticing what's going on, try a little tenderness. And a little means, you know, a little now, a little now, a little now. In other words, don't try too much tenderness so that you get tired out and you can't do it again and again. Just do a little bit. Keep practicing love and compassion while you're noticing what's going on. that will help you settle into the superficial goings-on. And when we're settled, then we can look to see what is actually going on here. So now, are you ready to look at what's actually going on here?

[57:37]

Can I get into that a little bit tomorrow? Wasn't I patient? I really am not in a hurry to get to the profound. I'm really not. I love the superficial. But I also want to study the profound. I want, I really want all of us to understand the profound truth. But not at the expense of the superficial. The profound's not better than the superficial. It's just that we need the profound and the superficial. We need both of them. And, fortunately, we have both. Isn't that nice how... it all worked out, and this is not, Buddha didn't work this out, God didn't work this out, you know, the truth worked it out.

[58:44]

Let's blame it on the Dharma. I love the Dharma. It's so good. It got everything worked out perfectly. It's just waiting to be understood. patiently waiting for us to be patiently studying it. It's so great. Enthusiasm. It's really, you know, you got to be, don't be afraid to be enthusiastic. Don't be afraid to look like a fool.

[59:25]

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