Again. We've mentioned earlier about not associating people on tax system. Yeah, not associating. I was wondering how that would be on the other page. That's for people who are strong. And on that page. Well, some other faiths, I think, you might be able to see that people are practicing in those other faiths. If you feel like they're not, you still might, again, try to help them, but you may not, for example, you might not tell someone of another faith certain things about Buddhism that you feel like they might reject. So you might meet someone from another faith who you feel... is ready to hear Buddhist teaching, and that they would like to hear it, and you can check to see if they do. And, you know, or they may ask you for Buddhist teaching, and you might share it with them, or tell them where they can find out more. But it's also possible that someone from another faith might have a, you know, might be narrow-minded, might be attached to their own faith, and therefore, like, be draining and burning themselves out in their own faith.

[01:03]

And if you expose them to Buddhism while they're holding on to their own faith, It might be a disservice to them. But some people in other states are very open to other states. Some non-Buddhists are very open to Buddhist teachings. And some Buddhists are very open to non-Buddhist teachings, so-called non-Buddhist teachings. In other words, they can hear Buddhism all over the place. And some people of other religions can hear their religion all over the place and benefit from Buddhist teachings. You don't want people to reject something you think is very valuable because then later they can't have it. So if they're not open to it, don't give it to them because you don't want them to reject something very precious. Right? Just wait, and in the meantime, be their friend, but don't exactly, like, associate, don't try to do the same practice as them. Any other people that haven't asked a question and have one?

[02:07]

Well, like, I don't know if you were here when we said it, but, like, Like, certainly, like in AA, okay, in Alcoholics Anonymous, okay, some people in Alcoholics Anonymous do not associate with active alcoholics. I mean, you know, they themselves are trying to not drink, okay, and they won't go into bars, okay, with people who are drinking. They only associate with people who are trying to stop drinking. They won't associate with people who are drinking, so they don't associate with them. Okay? Well, no, not... Pardon? Let me go on a little bit, okay? If somebody's got a problem with drinking, and they come to, for example, what they call sponsors in AA, the sponsor will relate to the person and help the person, but the sponsor won't go into the bar and drink with them.

[03:18]

So if you're practicing Buddhism, if someone's got a problem with ignorance, of course you relate to the person, but you don't then go with them when they do ignorant things. You know, you don't go with them when they go and harm people, for example. You don't associate them with them when they're lying to people or cheating people. That's association. No, I'm not saying don't interact. I'm saying don't associate with people who are doing things that are inappropriate. Foolish common people doesn't mean other faiths. Foolish common people mean people who are not paying attention to what they're doing and have no intention to do so. If people are trying to be mindful, even if they're failing, at least they're intending to do so, so those are people you might associate with. But if someone didn't want to even be mindful and had no intention to do a wholesome thing, you still would relate to the person, but you wouldn't be codependent with them.

[04:23]

You wouldn't support them to do their unwholesome activities. Again, I've told this story over and over that the Buddha, actually, one of the Buddhist students was actually a serial killer. The Buddha didn't associate with the guy, but the Buddha definitely related to him and converted him. So a skillful Buddhist master, a skillful master of any religion, can sometimes help a person who's doing very unskillful things, but they don't associate with him. They don't hang out with him. It doesn't go with him. He might go with them when they're going to do a robbery, going to do a murder, but just before it happened, he would convert them, and they wouldn't do it. He would go with them to make sure they didn't do it. You might do that, but you wouldn't go and do a bad thing with them. That make sense? Okay. Gary, did you have a question?

[05:24]

Well, I was just wondering about something that I thought was implied in question about associating versus not associating with people who are different and whether there is a question of working to go out of our way to cultivate relationships with people who can be spiritual friends. Another example, you know, this is slightly off the skew and more oblique to what you're saying, but another example is war. So, you might not go into a war situation, you know, and be one of the soldiers and kill people. But also you might go in as a soldier if you thought you could keep compassion in the war scene. If you thought you were so skillful that you could go out in the field and yourself do no harm and actually benefit everyone out in the place, you would go and do that. But that wouldn't be associating. Associating would be that you would be doing the same thing they were doing, they would kill each other.

[06:28]

But it is sometimes possible that in a war scene you can teach compassion. And if you thought you had that skill, Or if you somehow were in a war scene, you could possibly teach compassion. It is possible sometimes to be kind in the middle of a battle. So not associating means don't go into situations unless you're fairly confident that you can behave in a helpful way. And some situations require so much skill to behave helpfully that it's better to stay away. and intoxicants and violence and some other situations are very difficult to go into and be compassionate and helpful. So now, what is your question? Did I speak to your question and do you have another tilt on that that do I bring out? Well, I feel like the angle was more of, there are limitations in some relationships. And we can cling to a relationship and try to make something more of it.

[07:35]

And maybe that's a deeper kind of association, but it seems like the other option for us is to try to find people who are spiritual out. We should definitely find people who are spiritual allies. That's no question we should do that. We should associate with people who have commitment to the welfare of all beings. We should associate with those people. We should help them do what they're trying to do, and we should ask for their help. We do need to have another way you extend, another way to bring... the deep insights of Buddhist teaching into your daily life is to find some other people who want to do that and ask them to help you and get agreements that you want to help them and you want them to help you. And that you're committed to the values of compassion and wisdom and you want their feedback and support if they're willing to help you do that and you also help them. Definitely we should do that. Right? That's okay.

[08:35]

It's called sangha. It's called the community. We need that. You can't practice without people helping you. We can't practice alone. That's the teaching of interdependence, is that we can't practice alone. We don't practice alone. It is impossible. Practice the way of enlightenment by yourself. You only can do it with everybody helping you. If you're doing the practice of Buddhism without everybody's help, it's not the practice of Buddhism. The practice of Buddhism is what you are doing right now with everybody's help. Can you see what you're doing right now with everybody's help? That's Buddhism. That's the Buddha way. You're sitting on that chair. You're sitting on the floor and you're breathing. The breathing that you're doing because of everyone's help, that's Buddha's breathing. The whole community of enlightened beings is helping you live right now. That way you're living, that's enlightenment. Definitely we have to have that. We have to understand that we have that. When you understand that you have that, you realize you have a sangha.

[09:38]

In other words, you have a community of people who are helping you be a Buddha, or at least practice be a Buddha's disciple. You can't be the Buddhist disciple without people helping you. Yes? No. It's just life. It's just whatever is helping you. So when you see that something's helping you, practice the way. That's an element of your sangha. If you see that, then everything's sangha for you. Okay? If you see that the tree's helping you be kind, then the tree's part of your sangha. If you see a chipmunk's helping you be kind, then chipmunk's part of your sangha. If you see that a robber's helping you be kind, the robber's part of your sangha.

[10:39]

If a robber's still a robber, and he's getting in trouble, but the way he's helping you is the sangha. People sometimes do cruel things to you. Their cruelty is not sangha, but the fact that you can be helped by their cruelty, that you can interpret their cruelty in a way that helps you be more sincere in your practice, that's the sangha. The sangha is whatever actually is conducive to the realizing Buddha in you. And it turns out that that there's a formal Sangha of those who are formally, professionally committed to the Buddha way, and those people are certainly supposed to be helping you, but sometimes when you look at them, you may have trouble seeing how they're helpful to you. Like some people get discouraged by monks or priests. They think, gee, their practice isn't so good. Well, when you speak their practice isn't so good, in fact, your practice is not so good, so then they're not helping you much because you don't see that they're helping you.

[11:43]

You don't appreciate them. So then when you don't appreciate someone, it's hard to see how they're helping you. But when you appreciate someone, in fact, they're helping you. So then they're part of your song. And it's not orthodox or formal. It's more of a spiritual thing. Yes. Yes. Yeah, so I'm not talking about a, what was the word you used? Some core? From association? Yeah. Anyway, when I say you can't do it alone, I mean that the practice of the Buddha is the practice of The practice of the Buddha is the practice of everyone. The Buddha practices together with all beings.

[12:43]

Right now, the Buddhas are practicing with you right now. That's what the Buddhas do. The Buddhas are those who are practicing with you right now. That's what a Buddha is. The question is, do you appreciate the Buddhist practice, the practice of those who are practicing with you? Are you opening to Buddhist compassion? Do you accept Buddhist compassion? It's coming to you right now. It's not like Buddha's waiting until tomorrow to extend her compassion to you. It's not that kind of thing. Do you feel yourself receiving the compassion of the Buddhas right now? Do you feel them helping you right now? If not, you've got some feeling to work on there. You've got something to open to. Because Buddha's compassion is not waiting for you to open to it. It's giving it to you even before you open to it. But if you don't open to it, then your heart is closed to it.

[13:47]

So then you've got to realize that you're missing out on something pretty good called Buddhist compassion. And if you won't accept Buddhist compassion, then Buddhist compassion is not going to live in you. And if it doesn't live in you, it's not going to come off of you either. Does that make sense to you? Don't be afraid to say no. Are you saying no, Vernon? No, no. The issue of developing an appropriate relationship with another person, a practicing person or not, a person can't make a lot of money. or not. Many of us meet into a lot of trouble. Trying to develop an appropriate relationship where someone gets you into trouble? Yeah. The way we decide the relationship that we end up deciding on ends up being inappropriate.

[14:57]

And I'm just wondering if maybe it's if we learn to be mindful of the person. You were using some words before. I'm trying to write the words down here, get the right one. Whether they're showing respect for the person, to be mindful of that person, or to learn to pay attention to that person. Maybe if learning to do that could take this decision of what is an appropriate relationship with this person. Do you not marry people that you treat? Did you hear what he said? So I agree. He said maybe being mindful and respectful and attentive will develop their appropriate relationship rather than trying to make, rather than having an idea of appropriate relationship and trying to make the relationship like that idea. Yes, definitely. Of course we had some idea of what appropriate relationship is, right? I mean, not of course, but we often do. If you hold to this idea of appropriate relationship and then try to get people to be that kind of relationship, this is no good. This is another example.

[15:58]

You get burned out trying to get people to line up with your idea of appropriate relationship. That will burn you out. But to pay attention to people and respect people and be attentive to people, then the appropriate relationship will manifest. But who knows when or how? Well, you'll be there to see, well, it's manifesting like this. And I don't like it. Or I do like it. Or now we finally got it and let's keep it like this. Again, finally it just happens to settle into what you thought it was going to be and then you grab it. No, let go. Just keep this kind of attention, listening, watching, just loving, non-attached attention. Total devotion without trying to make it be a certain way. And then the appropriate way will happen. Even though you may not like it. And then sometimes you have a relationship which might be perfectly appropriate.

[17:04]

In other words, you're practicing right. You've got just the relationship you want. I mean, just the relationship that your practice wants. You don't like it. And in a case like that, you might want to then, again, check with a teacher and say, well, I'm doing all these things. I've got this kind of relationship. This person's acting like this, and I don't like it. The teacher might say, you've got a great relationship there. Not because you don't like it, but everything else you tell me sounds good. Like this person is saying these things to you. Saying these things to you which you don't like them to say. But I'm glad that they're saying because I don't have to. Like that person saying to you, you know, you're really such and such and so and so. And... And you're like listening to that and feeling that and it's getting to you and you don't like it getting to you, but you're also aware that you're also being attentive to yourself, too.

[18:10]

And you're then developing an appropriate relationship with yourself. Yes. Yes. Some people ask that question over and over. Is it ever appropriate to end a relationship? And in a sense, the answer is no, it's not appropriate to end it, but it's appropriate sometimes to live in a different house or not talk to the person for a while or something like that. That oftentimes is appropriate. Yeah, well, I don't think it's not, the person isn't harming you if you're practicing with it. They're not harming you. They're only harming you, like, you know, Dalai Lama talked one time about this guy who was in prison a long time,

[19:15]

in Tibet, I forgot how many years, but he got out of, he escaped from prison at some point and then came to see the Dalai Lama and the Dalai Lama said, well, during when you were in prison, what was your greatest fear? And the guy said, my greatest fear was that I would stop, I would lose my compassion for my, for the communists who were imprisoning me. So, if people treat you whatever way and you stop being compassionate, then it's not that they harmed you, but that the relationship was such that the most harmful thing happened in that you stopped being compassionate. If someone is yelling at you and you're being compassionate, they're not harming you. Because your Buddha is growing. But it doesn't mean that when someone's harming you and you feel compassion for them that you don't say, excuse me, I'm going to go outside now for a while. I'm going to leave town. Or I'm not going to live here anymore. You might do that. Because you feel like you're supporting them to do something that's bad for them.

[20:22]

But it's not harming you. And the fact that you respond that way even shows more that it's not harming you. Because you do something helpful for them. When you stop doing helpful things for this person, then you're being harmed. You're being harmed when you do things that aren't helpful. You're being harmed by yourself. Now, am I saying that no one can harm you? Well, in a way, you know, they can't harm you. They can only harm themselves if they want to harm you. And you can only harm yourself by your interpretation of what they're doing to you. So people try to harm me, are trying to be mean to me. That definitely is harmful to them. But if I'm compassionate to them, they're not really harming me. They're just giving me an opportunity to realize compassion. But they are harming themselves. People can be harmed, but mainly we can harm ourselves by our delusion, by our ignorance of interdependence.

[21:28]

And so if I want to harm people, can I successfully harm them? Well, I can harm them if I want to harm them. and they interpret it in a certain way, then they're harmed. But sometimes I can want to harm them and they don't get harmed, and sometimes I can want to help them and they interpret it as harmed because they feel like what I'm doing is such that they don't feel appreciative, they don't respect me, they're not compassionate for me. So all those virtues which they could be practicing when they meet me, they don't practice. Then they're harmed. But not by me. But if I want to harm them, I'm harmful. And if someone who loves me sees me doing something harmful, wanting to harm, they feel pain seeing me do something that way. They feel compassion for me. They're sorry that I'm doing something that I want to do something harmful. They feel bad about that.

[22:32]

They can then grow in compassion for me while I'm doing something stupid. So I don't harm them either. So in some ways I'm saying we don't really harm others, we only harm ourselves. And the people who we want to harm, they can only be harmed if they ignore the opportunity to practice the way, to be patient and compassionate with us. Because basically, you know, everybody needs to be patient and compassionate with us. And if they are, then we are part of their process of benefit. And if they're not, even if we're fairly, you know, mild, if people become impatient with us, they're harmed by their impatience. Now, how about trying to encourage people to practice? Can we help people? I think you can help people. Although I don't really think we harm people, I think we can encourage people to practice.

[23:36]

So I think we can help people. I think helping, in other words, I think helping people is real. I think harming people is delusion. And harming myself is acting on my own delusion. And helping myself is, that's kind of real. Except that really I can only help myself with your help. Did you have a question? Can you tell me your name again, Chris? Marcia? Marcia, yes. Yeah. of feeling sadness.

[24:48]

So what's the body sensation of feeling compassion? Let's see, what is it? Well, it's kind of like, it's a kind of like your heart, your heart tends to start opening, you know, sort of getting, going around people. You kind of like, you feel happy at the idea of helping them in any way you can, or you feel happy at the idea of them becoming awake and free of pain. So it's a joyful, warm, expansive, open, embracing, fearless, that kind of emotions. And the body feels open and vulnerable. but somehow trusting the vulnerability and realizing the vulnerability is life-giving and life-affirming. There's a feeling of physical non-revulsion.

[25:56]

You don't feel physically, what do you call the word, you don't feel squirmish, squeamish. You don't feel squeamish. You feel like, you know, I can open to this. So those are some of the physical feelings that I think I might have if I was feeling compassion for someone. In other words, I'm willing to wade into the bloody, messy world that I perceive if it's helpful to people. And also, compassion is I'm willing to not wade into it if it's not helpful. I'm willing to sort of sit back here and wait for my turn. If people don't need me to do anything, I'm willing to sort of just sit in meditation for a while until they need me. but I'm sort of like ready, sort of on guard, you know, at your service kind of thing. A friend of mine said, I was at a cocktail party. I was sitting next to a friend. It wasn't actually cocktails. It was a mixture of cocktail and teas. And this person said to my friend, what do you do?

[27:02]

And she said, what do you need? And to have your body be like, what do you need? Here, if this is a body, what do you need it for? What do you want? Blood, skin, you know, little muscle, little lip. What do you want? Just sort of like your body feels like it's a facility for people's happiness, that kind of openness. And then that's trusting interdependence. If you feel like your body is being given to you, take it back. But at the same time, you also have a sense of what's appropriate. Right? So sometimes children might want to use your body in a certain way. That's not appropriate. So you say, no, no, that's not, no, no, that's not appropriate. Like my daughter used to pick me up all the time. You know, which I didn't mind because she's a little girl, right? But she used to punch me and slug me. But at a certain point I said, you know, I usually stop this because you're going to get in the habit. And, you know, I'm bigger than you and kind of tough guys or, you know.

[28:03]

You can hit me as hard as you want, almost any place, and it doesn't hurt. But if you start doing this, you're going to start doing it with your friend, then it's not appropriate to do your friend. So you should stop doing it with me, because you don't want to get in the habit of, like, you can punch anybody anytime you want to. So my body, you know, my daughter can have it for whatever she wants, but still I might say, still it's not appropriate, even though I have this feeling of, use it for what you want. So in the same way with other things, you might feel like... your body's available, but not necessarily appropriate in certain ways, even though you're willing for it to be used, whatever, except if it's not helpful. But you have no fixed position about how it's helpful, you just go case by case. For this person, it's okay if they use your body this way. For this person, it's not okay if they use your body this way. For this person, it's okay if they use your mind this way. And this person, it's not okay if they use your mind this way. But that feeling of openness is very joyful, and you feel like, you know, you're kind of like, What do you call it? Swinging from person to person through, you know, the jungle of life.

[29:07]

Like, what do you call it? A gibbon. A gibbon among all beings. What? And you're brachiating through all beings, you know. And sometimes it seems like, you know, you don't know if you're able to catch the next limb, but you always do, you know, go flying. So you feel like you're all, you know, you trust that, and your body feels that way, so you feel joyful, and you're willing to make the effort to connect to the next person. Any other questions or comments at this time? Yes. Did I say karma being a delusion? Karma. Karma. Well, yeah, it is a delusion. Even harming myself is a delusion, right. Yeah. Yeah, right.

[30:14]

I know it's hard. But what I'm saying is that Some parents do X to the child, and the child is experiencing harm, but this is the real hard part, it's harmed because of the way they interpret whatever is being done to them. Yeah, so what if the child is enlightened upon having their arms and legs broken? Then it wouldn't be harmed. But if the parent intends to harm the child, then harm definitely comes back to the parent, right? But I'm saying that's a delusion, too, because the delusion is basically that this person feels disconnected from other beings. That's a delusion.

[31:16]

And in that world, they do harm. But it's not really happening that way because they're not really doing this all by themselves. And if they could see that they aren't doing it by themselves, it wouldn't be harm. But if you can't see what's going on, then it definitely looks like harm. But that's a delusion. It's in the realm of delusion that the harm is occurring. Actually, the child and the abusive parent are actually working together to create this situation called harm. And in that situation, in the mind of the parent, there is the attitude and intention to harm, and so the responsibility comes back to the parent to suffer the consequences of what they imagine their harm to be. That's the way it works. And they will suffer, and the child may suffer too. So all this suffering occurs, but it's not ultimately real.

[32:17]

If it were ultimately real, there would be no way to... become free. But it's not ultimately real. In fact, it's a delusion. That's what I mean by being a delusion. If you can see how it happens, you'll see that it's not really happening that way. And then beings are liberated from this world of where people are torturing each other. If it's really true that people are torturing each other, if that's reality, then we should just accept that people are torturing each other and let it go at that. But I don't think we should accept that people are torturing each other. I think we should study the situation and become so intimate with it that people are not torturing each other anymore. I'm talking about realizing a world where people are not abusing each other. Not proving that the world where people are abusing each other is real. The Buddha sees that the real world, the world of reality, the world which holds up, is the world where we're working together in peace and harmony and love.

[33:17]

That's the world which is indestructible. But it can be covered up by delusion and that delusion covers it up and then in that world there is lots of harm. There's incredibly obnoxious, terrible, terrible, vicious harm in that world. By becoming intimate with that world, you realize that world is illusion and it really isn't happening. And then when you see that, you see that all these beings who are harming each other are actually beautiful Buddhas, potentially. And you very much want them to become awake so that they can become free of the world where they're enacting harm, where they're being harmful and being harmed. So that's what I mean by it's a world of delusion. World of delusion is the world of birth, death, ignoring interdependence, where it's like it's in the world where you do this to me and I have nothing to do with it. Well, we're not working to get it. I'm a victim of you. That's the world of birth and death.

[34:20]

And I'm saying that's a delusion. But I don't think we should be irresponsible about it. Matter of fact, what I say is that we need to enter that world and become intimate with the world of harm. Intimate with the world of delusion. Face up to it. And if you face up to the world of selfishness, which is the world of misery and cruelty, if you face up to that and become intimate with it, I'm saying your eyes will open. If you open your eyes to that world, you'll open your eyes to the illusoriness of that world and what's really going on. And then you will help all those beings which are captured by that world to become free themselves. So I talk this way, but I mean that truly the world of birth and death is not true. But of course, our experience is the world of birth and death is true, and that's why we suffer. Because we think it's true rather than it's something that's being conjured up by our ignorance of interdependence.

[35:28]

Well, we can't skip over this world and deny it and say it's delusion, so I don't have to pay attention to it. In other words, we have to devote our attention and our loving intention and our full attention to the world where there's harm, where harm's appearing. But not grasp harm as it appears. Don't grasp harm as harm. Respect harm, not like it's good, but that you should study it and see how it works. If you study harm and see how it works, you can set beings free from that process, that harming process. The danger, I feel, is that if we take harm as real, then we don't act as though it really were real, we act as though it were real and that we can get away from reality. So if you're going to call it real, then you should be happy with it because it's reality. But we aren't happy with it and we're not happy with it because it's not reality. We're happy with reality, which is that we love each other.

[36:34]

That's reality. If reality is that we're cruel to each other, then you're going to be unhappy because you're not happy with that we're cruel to each other. You can't be happy with that because you can't be happy with ignorance. Okay? Yes? Yes. Yes. Yeah, but can I say something? The way you open yourself up to seeing other people's delusions, other people's Buddha, is by being open to your own delusion. working with your own delusion. By admitting your own shortcomings and your own delusion, opening your eyes to your own confusion and your own ignorance, okay? Then you see other people's virtues.

[37:36]

So then, when you're also open to their problems, it won't be such a shock to you because you're already open to that stuff in yourself. But if you walk around not noticing your own problem and start seeing other people's virtues and open to that, and then suddenly you get all that pollution unexpectedly, that wouldn't be good. But the way you're really open to other people's virtues is by first of all admitting, first you admit your own shortcomings, then you see other people's virtues. So you're already working with your own shortcomings, your own delusions. So when you meet other people's delusions, it's kind of like, what is it like you're you're working with like three tumblers, you're juggling your own delusions, your own confusion, your own ignorance. And when you meet other people, it's not like suddenly, oh my God, there's ignorance and evil here. No, you're used to it. So when you meet other people, it's like, yeah, right, let's have, you know, I can take one more, I can take a couple more of those right now. I can't take too many, but you're already juggling. It's not like you're standing there with no, with no, what do you call bowling pins or whatever, and suddenly your bowling pins come running and flying at you.

[38:37]

You're already in the mud. You're already in the world of delusion, your own. You're already recognizing your own delusion. And then you start saying, hey, other people are kind of enlightened. And then you say, but they do have some problems. But, you know, like me. It's not like, my God, they have problems. My God, they're evil. It's more like, oh, I know about that. Compassion for what? Compassion fatigue. Yes. Yes. Right. Compassion fatigue or sometimes called burnout. Compassion fatigue, what I'm talking about is where you're meeting people who are suffering and you think that they're like the chair, that they're solid. If you meet suffering people and you treat them like the chair is going to hold you up, then every interaction you have drains you. But if you meet people who are suffering, and there are many of them, but you don't grasp

[39:41]

and believe your perception of them, then you don't drain yourself by every interaction. So that's part of what the helping person has to do is has to learn how to be intimate with people without falling for what your perception of them is and taking them as really the way you think they are and being solid. And compassion fatigue is part of what guides you to realize your meditation is a little off And you need to go rest. Plug up the holes and try again. The holes are that you're making them into solid beings. That you see the person over there and you make them an object. And you love them as an object. That drains you. If you see suffering beings and you make them into objects and you love them, pretty soon you'll be running away from them. Protect, huh?

[40:43]

Okay. Pardon? Indifferent? No, you're not indifferent. You love them. You're devoted to them. You're devoted to them, but you don't know what they are. It's like you're devoted to the chair, but you don't know whether the chair is going to hold you up. You don't assume something about them. You're devoted to beings that you don't know. If you're devoted to beings and you know them, then you're going to get burned out. You get burned out from your own laziness, not from the beings. Okay? Huh? Yeah. Yeah. You lost me when? What? About when you know someone.

[41:43]

Yes. Then you burn out. Yes. If I'm devoted to you and then I have some idea about who you are, my idea about who you are, that you're this, that you're Joan and this thing is Joan, if I believe that and I'm devoted to you, then I get burned out. That's when I'm an object. I make you into an object. And I think that's you. Of course I have to make you an object, but I don't have to believe that you are the object I make you into. I never make everybody into objects, but that's not who you are, believe me. You know that. I do too, and if I remember that, I don't get burned out being devoted. But if I get devoted to beings and I think they're the object that I see there, then I get burned out and pretty soon I run away from these objects. Yikes, get these objects away from me, they're taking my life. But it's not that they're taking my life, it's that my laziness is draining me. It's easy to make people into objects and say they're what you see.

[42:44]

That's an easy habit, but that drains us. Even if you're devoted to them, it drains you, and if you're mean to them, it drains you. Both ways it drains you. It's the same thing as assuming the chair will hold you. It's the same thing as assuming the chair will hold you. Chairs hold people, right? If you assume that's the case, it tires you. Being devoted to the act of sitting on chairs without remembering you don't know what a chair is, You tire yourself every time you sit down. Being devoted to beings, without remembering that you don't know what a being is or who this person is, you get tired. And again, you don't notice it maybe in one relationship. But when you have ten or a hundred, you just get wiped out. Because each one cuts a little bit of your energy out of you. But if you meet a person who doesn't know who they are, you can be devoted, but it doesn't tire you. No, not exactly clear in a state and have no expectations, because you do have expectations, but just don't grasp them.

[43:52]

I've got expectations. I have an expectation you're all not going to come over here and mob me right now. You beat me up. I had that expectation, but I'm not attached to that, so if you start coming, I'm ready to move. I'm not fixed to the idea that you people are my friends, according to my idea of friendship. But I do have an idea of friendship, and you suit that bill, but I'm not attached to that. So I'm flexible, and you can be whatever you want, and I can adjust. Shall Salah? The lazy side is when I meet Salah, I have a perception of Salah, And for me to think that's who you are, that's lazy. That's easy for me to do, right? It's not taking into account that she may have changed. It's also not allowing that she's far beyond what I ever can see of. I have to put you in a little package, you know.

[44:56]

But actually, that's lazy. That's lazy. That's not lazy, that's just necessary. But to believe that's you, that's lazy. But to say, there's sala, but I wonder what sala is, that's more energetic. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. So what can I say? I won't talk about you. I'll talk about me. I can say you don't change either, really. You keep being Sala. You keep being a Zen student. You're basically the same. You're getting a little older, but basically, you know. It's not true. You are changing? Okay. Well, it's also true that your mother is changing. But I could say you're not changing, right?

[45:57]

And you know that's a bunch of junk. You know you are changing. Your mother's changing too. Your mother's dying. She is changing. But she does have this, what do you call it, this thing of asking the same question over and over, which annoys you probably to no end. But that doesn't mean she's not changing. But when somebody's annoying you in certain ways, it's easy to be aware of how the annoyance is continuing and not so easy to notice how they're changing. It takes a lot of work, maybe, in some sense, to notice that they're changing. The lazy part is just to go with the habit, and the hard part is to always be opening things up and wondering what's going on. In other words, to respect that life is manifesting in this very challenging way, calling having a mother who's got Alzheimer's or a mother who's got, you know, maybe Alzheimer's one of the most, a mother who's manic-depressive, or a mother who's depressed, or a mother who's extremely controlling, you know, who had these patterns occur, and how can we respect life when it manifests like that?

[47:07]

Or we have a son who's a drug addict, or who's a robber, or who's a liar, or who's a psychotic, or who's a psychopath. You know, they're like in a psychopathic group and they've been that way for months and months and years and years. How can we respect life in that form? How can you look again? Look again and again. And if we don't, if we care about the person and we don't look again and again, we just get run down by every interaction. And we keep taking breaks and recovering and coming back and doing the same thing again. We have to break through to a different level of relating to people Otherwise, basically, we're just always recovering from our last drainage. We never really learn this new way of relating, which is to respect life in every way it's appearing. We start with ourselves. Yes. Was anybody else ahead of him that I missed?

[48:11]

Yeah, I think you were next. I have a question about... You're saying, when you're discussing about the one of the things along the experience, you know, the experience of the time, and it's trying different parts, and it's often that, and often that, and every time, you have to do that, because it's not, you know, you do, you do that right, first of all, it's a topic for you, Yes. Yes. Okay, I got it. Can I give you an example?

[49:14]

Simple example. Could have been innocuous. When I got married, my wife said, no hitting. That means me not hitting her. Okay? I never hit her, but she just told me before we got married, that was one of the rules of the marriage. I couldn't hit her. She didn't say she couldn't hit me. And I never said also that she couldn't hit me. But she told me I couldn't hit her. She said, if you hit me, I will leave. Okay? And I didn't hit her, and she didn't leave. And she also said, I will still love you, but I will leave. And you said something about how can, like if you would leave, how could you reestablish a healthy relationship? Actually, if you tell someone that if he hits you or if she hits you, you're going to leave, and then you leave, that is a healthy relationship. It isn't that you reestablish a healthy relationship. That is healthy. It is healthy to say, if you do this, then this will happen. And then they do this, and then that happens. That's healthy. That's a healthy relationship where you tell a person what the consequences will be if they do such and such a thing, and then you follow through on that.

[50:21]

That's healthy because then they get defeat. Oh, she told me if I did this that this would happen, and I did it, and it did happen. So the person learns. They might learn. They could learn. But that's healthy. That's a healthy lesson called do this, then this happens. It doesn't mean you don't love the person. As a matter of fact, you told them beforehand, I do love you, and if you do this, I won't live with you anymore. And I'll still keep loving you, and I'll show you my love by following through on what I said. That love can manifest that way. You can draw lines in love. Love requires drawing lines sometimes. Some people need it. They're begging for it. And if you love them, you'll give it to them. Jake? Paying attention to the manifestation of each moment, as contrasted to just being lady, this is gentleman, this is the chair, helps avoid burnout because it makes me more aware of my impermanence, which causes me to be more compassionate.

[51:35]

Yes, but also you tune into the dimension in which you're receiving your life. When you meet people and have a perception of them and make and believe that your perception of them is what's happening, you block yourself from your nurturance. When you meet people and realize that you can't help but perceive them because you've got perceptual equipment that doesn't stop, but that's just a perception, then you open yourself to the person might be something other than what you perceive. which means you're not just locked into your perceptions, but you accept your perceptions as perceptions, and then you open up to the totality of where you get your life from, namely by air, food, the history of the universe, and so on. So if you confine yourself, you get burned out, You confine yourself to believe in your perceptions, you get burned out. But if you let your perceptions just be perceptions, you don't get associated and identify with your perceptions, then you're free of your perceptions, and you touch with your real life source, and you're just like, you know, you're awake, you're free of suffering.

[52:48]

If you believe you're suffering, if you believe your perceptions, you're attached to your perceptions, you constrict your life, you suffer. You diminish yourself by attaching to your own processes as real. But still, it doesn't mean you need to stop having appearances because you shouldn't grasp what's appearing as reality. Don't grasp things as they appear, but just say, okay, things are appearing this way. This is an appearance. Now I wonder what might be going on. Like this person appears to be angry at me. You might say, could I ask you a question? You seem to be angry at me. How are you feeling? They say, well, I'm just depressed, actually. I'm not angry at you. Oh, that's interesting. Matter of fact, I really appreciate you asking me that question. That's really a big help. Thank you. So this is, you know, this way is a way to bring interdependence into reality. And not into reality, but into manifestation. Don't just lay your trip on everything, but realize you do have perceptions of things, but then that's just part of it.

[53:52]

Then start over and say, now this is what I see, but what's happening? Hello? Tell me something. So I don't know what happened today, so you don't have to tell me because I don't know. But if I thought I knew what was happening, then I'd have to ask you, what happened today? Well, I'd like to say you're welcome and thank you for coming.

[54:14]

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