How many people weren't here last week? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Okay, last time I discussed about the foundation of the practice of the kinds of meditations which relieve us of ignorance. The foundation of the meditations which free us from ignorance is compassion. So it's possible to try to practice these meditations without being grounded in compassion, but I find that people just have to go back and ground themselves in compassion.

[01:14]

So might as well start with it. And compassion, I would extend, you know, beyond the the unusual limits of compassion. But for starters, compassion has an aspect of feeling, has a feeling side that has to do with feeling pain. and being able to empathize with other beings. And to think about the practice of compassion involves thinking about the extent of the misery of the world.

[02:24]

And I could say before you start, I could say that you'll find it's very extensive, but not just to take my word for it, but actually think about for yourself how it extends throughout the world. and in a sense how it's... it's part of anybody who exists. If you exist, there's some suffering in that. In reality, the way we actually are is not bound to existence or non-existence, but we have instinctive tendencies to feel ourselves to exist, to feel ourself existing by ourself as an individual,

[04:00]

And other things in the world, other beings, other humans and non-humans and other things, existing out there on their own, separate from us. This is ignorance, which is innate. And we can learn to elaborate it, but we don't have to be taught it. It's pre-verbal. And even animals have a sense of like this. So we suffer because of this ignorance and animals suffer because of a related kind of ignorance. And it's like it's an instinct. So it's not like there's something wrong with us exactly. It's just a

[05:07]

sort of comes with being a human being, comes with being a living being. We don't know exactly, but maybe plants don't have this problem. Traditional Buddhist teaching is that plants don't do this. They don't think of themselves as existing separate from other beings. but some modern research indicates that maybe they do at least weigh down in the root hairs of some trees, that they may have some sense of self and other down there and some anxiety there. But anyway, we know that we are anxious, or maybe many people know that they're anxious, and so part of the grounding of the practice is to open up to whatever extent we personally feel suffering and then to start noticing to what extent others share in it.

[06:13]

And to do this meditation or do this kind of contemplation in such a way that we don't get depressed, This is not intended to make us depressed, but there is a danger of getting depressed if you start thinking about this. And part of the way actually to enhance the meditation on suffering and to deepen and widen the sense of compassion is actually to do practices which bring joy to the meditator. So practicing loving-kindness is part of developing compassion, and loving-kindness

[07:25]

is practiced towards oneself and towards others. And again, it is done with the intention of developing positive feelings towards oneself and towards others. So in both these cases, the challenge to the meditator is to find a way to think about loving-kindness all the time and at the same time think about compassion all the time, at the same time feel joyful at both of these types of meditation. And another aspect of this developing this compassion is to keep your eye open for any kind of success or virtue that other people have.

[08:59]

and to rejoice in their good qualities and their successes and to learn to see this in people and then also feel good about it rather than perhaps feel jealous and competitive. which is again instinctive that we would feel competitive towards other beings not all other beings all the time for example you know if our children are successful we don't necessarily feel competitive or jealous of them although believe it or not some parents are jealous of their children's success i actually know a buddhist teacher a buddhist scholar who has a very good student, and he actually kind of resents how good his student is, because he's better than him.

[10:06]

And he is a good scholar, but his student was like really, really brilliant, and he resents it. And he knows about how that is sort of antithetical to the thing he's studying, but anyway. It is possible sometimes, even our own children, our own students, we would not rejoice in their success. Actually part of being a Buddhist teacher is that your students would be so successful that people wouldn't even remember you. Your students would be so great they could hardly even remember who their teacher was. Who was that person's teacher? Probably had one, but who cares? That's a successful teacher. And can the teacher rejoice in having such a successful student, such a wonderful student, that people couldn't even remember who the teacher was?

[11:15]

Just like being such a successful parent with such a wonderful child that people can't even see, can't even remember who the parent is. You know, like sometimes in the dictionary, not the dictionary, but in the encyclopedia, you look somebody up and they say, so-and-so's father. That's all it says. Or so-and-so's mother. Sometimes it says, you know, son of or daughter of so-and-so, too. This kind of practice is the root or the ground of the highest kinds of insight, of the clearest kind of vision, of the kind of vision, the kind of awareness that can see very clearly

[12:34]

very carefully, very minutely, very exactly, very exactly, very accurately how things come to be. You can see how suffering comes to be, how suffering arises, how suffering ends. And this kind of compassion is also, as you meditate on it, then you can also try to think about, is there any limit to it? In other words, you can see that all beings are suffering, but does your compassion to them, does your wish, does your sympathy to them and wish that they would be free of suffering

[13:41]

which in some sense is one of the essential qualities of compassion, that you sense that beings are suffering, yourself and others are suffering, that is very extensive, and you wish yourself and others to be free of suffering. Is there anybody that you don't wish that they would be free of suffering? And we need to look at that, and look at that, and look at that, and look at that. in a joyful way until we actually have no limit like that. We may have some problems with somebody. We may have some problems with the way they behave, but still wish that they would be free of suffering, still wish that they would be happy. really wish that they would be happy and feel happy at the thought of wishing them happy and happy at the thought of them being happy.

[14:52]

And people who have hurt us, especially people who we've been nice to that have hurt us, these are the most difficult people to wish that they would be happy. But in order to overcome ignorance, as far as I can tell, we have to wish well people who have hurt us. Even people who will say, yes, I did and I meant to. And also people who won't admit that they did it, who even will lie and not admit they did it, who will even say that they didn't do it. Even people who say, I did it, but they meant it to be helpful, and it was helpful, and we deserved it, and it was really good for us.

[16:00]

All these different varieties of people that hurt us It looks like, as far as I can tell, that we have to take away the resistance to wishing them well, otherwise that will make us not able to see in the most accurate way. It'll cloud our vision if we hold back in that way. So, you know, Buddha, I don't know if anybody ever heard of Buddha, but actually, in a sense, people have hurt Buddhas. I mean, Shakyamuni Buddha was hurt by people. People tried to hurt him. His cousin even tried to kill him. I think twice. And actually did injure him slightly.

[17:02]

And some other people tried to hurt him. And a lot of people tried to refute him and defeat him in debate. But I know of no case where the Buddha didn't wish a being well. Okay, so that's how I talked about last week. Is that right? Did I talk about that last week? Huh? No? What? Yes or didn't I? You look... Sure? It was related to it. What? More insight this time on compassion. Or more of a description of compassion. Last time was more like what? This time was more descriptive of compassion.

[18:06]

And last time was more what? The middle way. Taking suffering a little bit at a time. That's patience, right? And patience is also part of compassion. And giving is part of compassion. And ethics is part of compassion. And enthusiasm is part of compassion. And concentration is part of compassion. I talked about that last week, right? So giving is another way to work on this. And giving is fundamentally a mental practice.

[19:09]

It's a mental yogic practice. It's fundamentally mental. Again, the practice of giving is to try to be very familiar with giving. In other words, try to be giving all day long. Try to think about it all day long. Try to think of being able to give away everything you've got to everybody, but think in particular about particular people and particular things and then just extend it. And ethics is, again, to think about, look at your behavior of your speech and your thought and what you do with your body and consider whether it's in any way harmful to anybody.

[20:19]

And if it is, think about how you might cease any activity which is harmful to anybody, how you might abandon any harmful activity. And then ethics is also to consider any ways you can do positive things. like practicing compassion, practicing loving-kindness, joy, giving, patience, and so on. And ethics is also to think about how you can serve beings, how you can help them, any way you can help them. any beneficial action you could do so refraining from harmful things doing good practices developing compassion and love and in any way you can actually serve beings which of course is also part of compassion and then patience patience will help you settle into your into your

[21:42]

into your pain, will help you be able to be settled with other people who are suffering. Because, you know, it's not that easy to be with people that are suffering. But we need to learn how to be with them. Even if they're not attacking us, it's hard to be with people who are suffering. Even if they're not attacking us, it's hard to be with people when you're really hot or really cold or really tired or have a headache. It's hard to be with yourself. It's hard to be with others under those circumstances. And I think it's even harder if people are insulting us or attacking us. But we need to learn how to do that. if we wish to understand. If we don't wish to understand, we don't need to.

[22:45]

It's not necessary. And another way we need to be patient is we need to be patient with the teaching. We need to be patient when we're listening to it, We need to be patient when we're reading about it. We even need to be patient with ourselves in the process of learning about it. Because we do need to learn about it, because we have to remember what the practices of love and compassion are in order to practice them. So we have to remember them. Most of us have to work at memorizing the instructions in order to remember to practice them. After you memorize them and practice them a long time, then you don't have to memorize them anymore because they're in you.

[23:55]

And the other practice of compassion is enthusiasm or zeal. And the primary characteristic of that practice of compassion is that, again, you think about how good it would be to practice compassion. You think how good it would be to practice giving. When you practice giving, you think about giving in such a way that you feel really good about giving. If you think about giving but don't feel good about thinking about giving, then that's not what we mean by the practice of giving. So if you imagine giving something to someone and you don't feel good about it, give it in a different way or give less or give it to somebody else in your mind. Start with somebody who you'd like to give something to, who you'd really like to give something to, and something that would be appropriate.

[25:26]

And practicing enthusiasm is to then again think about how good it would be to practice giving in such a way that you'd feel full of joy at thinking about giving. We can't give things all day long, usually, material things, but we can think of giving material things all day long. We can also think of giving teachings. all day long, and sometimes we can give teachings. And we can also give fearlessness. In other words, we can do something to help beings who are frightened or suffering in certain ways. For example, you can take drowning insects out of the water. You can set flies free from your house So that your spouse won't kill them.

[26:44]

Or so that you won't. You can get an ant farm for your ants. Somebody gave me an ant farm for my birthday. I'm really fascinated by ants. If you know how great ants are, they're really something. But anyway, enthusiasm is to think about how good it would be to give material things, to give teachings, and to give fearlessness to beings, and to be really happy about the thought of how good it would be to practice giving. And then also to think about how good it would be to practice ethics, and to think about how good it would be to practice patience, and to think about how good it would be to practice concentration.

[27:55]

And concentration is basically a practice whereby we learn under all circumstances, to be calm. Or, put another way, we learn, we find the mind that's always calm. How we find the calm that's always there. So again, concentration is part of compassion in the sense of it's a way to be with people in a calm way, but it's not just like you're calm like, you know, not alive or something, but that you're calm and you're also one pointedly with the being. You're with yourself and you're with others. Beings don't get outside your mind and then attack it and disturb it. You have a mind which includes beings, just like your compassion does. So concentration is actually part of compassion.

[29:02]

But also concentration is the spring, is the, you know, the last step in a sense before you enter into inquiring as to the nature of your ignorance. So that's a lot of material, but there it is. And do you have any questions about this? Any of these practices? Do you feel up to practicing one of them? Which one do you feel up to practicing, Martin? I myself just happened to have thought while I was sitting here, I'm going to go home and write a check, and I'm going to enjoy writing the check.

[30:18]

It's going to be a gift to somebody I know, actually the wife of one of my teachers. So I'm going to enjoy writing that check and sending it off to her. And I'm going to think about it before I write it, too, as I'm driving home. I'm going to get into thinking about how nice it's going to be to write that check. And how it's going to make her happy and some other people happy too. That when they see that check, they're going to feel encouraged. It's going to be a little encouragement to them. A little bit, I'm sure. But I'm going to have probably more fun than they will. And while I'm at it, I might think of giving some other things too.

[31:20]

Any other practices that you have questions about that you'd like to commit yourself to in public? Rejoicing in other people's happiness. As much as possible. Yes. Even the ones that we have difficulty with, or maybe especially the ones we have Yeah, especially the ones we have difficulty with. I was actually reading a book about evolutionary psychology, and it was talking about how if somebody beats you at some sport, it's considered good sportsmanship to congratulate them. So the author was saying, you know, that, you know, although someone might defeat you, you know, it's considered good sportsmanship to say, what do you got, jolly good old chap, you know, all that kind of thing.

[32:42]

But then he said, but to actually inwardly feel good about them beating you, that's the jaw job for a Buddhist monk. That's really hard. to really feel good when somebody beats you at tennis. Really feel, gee, that's great that you did so well, you know. He even beat me in the process. Got a higher score than I did. That's terrific. I'm so happy for you. We're so... When we're in direct competition is the time when the instinct gets most turned on. I have a question about compassion.

[33:49]

A question about compassion? Not too long ago, I was counseling a young woman who was in an abusive situation. A young woman was in an abusive situation. I'm going to repeat some of the things you're saying so they'll be on the tape. I may do that when you ask questions so they'll be on the tape in case anybody wants to listen to the tape. So it doesn't mean I don't hear you necessarily when I repeat. Okay, a young woman, she's being abused? Someone's abusing her? Yes. But she felt a great deal of love and affection. She thought that he was doing what he was doing, and so she continued to remain in that situation.

[34:51]

It seemed to me that her very compassion was clouding her vision, was making her not see that she was engaged with liberation. So you feel like her compassion was clouding her vision. It is possible to have compassion that's Well, I say possible, but I mean, it's usually the case, as we begin to practice compassion, that our compassion is somewhat clouded, that our compassion is not conjoined with being able to see accurately what's going on. That's quite common. That's the usual case. We're still in a state of delusion when we first start practicing compassion. So you felt like the compassion maybe contributed even to her blurry vision. And... Yeah. And it endangered her.

[36:00]

And it endangered her. Now, if she had, instead of being compassionate, she had gotten angry and thought of hurting him, then would that have been clearer vision, do you think? No, that wouldn't have been clearer. So what would have been clearer? What would have been some compassion for her but be clearer? Huh? To protect herself. So her compassion could have included herself, to protect herself. That would have been a little bit clearer, right? So... Loving kindness in some texts, in some major texts, is recommended to be practiced toward yourself first. In some other texts they say to practice toward your teacher first. a teacher being someone who you don't have a strong, let's say, not hope, but let's say your teacher is someone who you don't have like some strong passion or lust towards, but you disrespect them.

[37:13]

But in some of the major texts, it says you just to start with the self. And I think that actually for a lot of people in America, starting with oneself is good. Some teachers... Some Asian teachers say you shouldn't practice love towards yourself. You should practice love towards others and abandon your own non-virtue. And I don't disagree with that. But I think for a lot of people, they can't practice love towards others until they practice love towards themselves. And I think that it may be that in Asia... People have an easier time practicing love towards themselves, almost like taken for granted, so they can start practicing love towards others right away. In this case, this person, it's not clear if this person was practicing love towards herself, taking good care of herself. Some people, as you know, grow up seeing their mother or sisters or whatever being abused, and they think that's normal.

[38:23]

So then when they get abused, they just think it's kind of normal. They don't think it's strange. And also they grow up thinking that it's strange to think loving thoughts toward themselves. But they may be able to feel compassion and wish abusive people and abused people to both be free of suffering and want to help them. but overlook themselves. So it would be good if they would take better care of themselves. That would be a more appropriate practice of compassion. Yes? When you were talking about the check, it reminded me of a person who sent a check to my family, and we didn't cash it for a long time.

[39:25]

And I was starting to think, well, we don't really need this money. So I should tell her, we'll give it, you don't need to, we'll give this money back. Yes. But when we were talking, I thought that she was having some joy in giving me money. that it would be wrong to not accept it or to... I mean, it would take away from her gift. It might. But maybe not. Well, it... maybe not. It depends, you know. I guess I'm thinking that I feel it's often hard to receive. I mean, giving... And what's hard about receiving? I just feel that sometimes it's hard to receive compliments or to receive gifts or to receive from other people. It's hard to receive compliments and gifts? So what's hard about it? Feeling you don't deserve it or you don't need it or... And so someone is practicing giving and you're a person who won't receive.

[40:32]

I guess I'm wondering, is there a practice for receiving? The practice for receiving is to give yourself gifts. The practice of receiving is to give yourself gifts, is to give yourself loving kindness. That will help you receive. And also giving will help you receive, too. The more you give, the more you're able to receive. I think... Some of us feel like we are afraid to receive because then what will we have to give? If we receive a lot of love, will we have to then give a lot of love? And this person seems to be able to give me a lot of love, but I don't know if I can give him a lot of love, so maybe I will not receive a lot of love because I'm not sure I could give a lot of love. But if I'm willing to give a lot of love, I'm not so afraid to receive a lot of love.

[41:39]

And the more love I give, the more I feel like I receive. And so it's embarrassing if someone gives you a compliment because you kind of feel like, well, you want to give them one back, right? Someone comes up to you and says, you look really great. And so you don't think that they look great. So you feel embarrassed because you can't really say back, well, you look great too. So you feel embarrassed. You are embarrassed. You're caught up in not being ready to think they look great. So you kind of like, you have to hide in your house until you can go out in the street and be ready to think people look great just in case somebody tells you you look great. It's your defense against being complimented is that you, you're already, you know, primed to see how good people are just in case they give you a big compliment.

[42:49]

Oh, you are too. You are too. Boy, are you. But in fact, if somebody's walking along, comes up to you and gives you something and you're not ready to give it back, it's kind of embarrassing. So when you're embarrassed, how can you practice? What can you give them? What can you give them? Hmm? What compliment can you give them if you don't see one? Anything, but what if you can't see one? The practice would be to try to see one, but you don't have much time here. So what are you going to do? Can you say, you know, you just gave me a compliment, and guess what?

[43:55]

I don't have one for you. Can you give me a few weeks on this one? Okay. Can you say that? You can't say that? Why not? How come you can't say that? Did you give him a gift when you told him the truth? What's the truth? The truth is you have just given me a gift and I feel embarrassed. Did you give him a gift? Hmm? Did you give him a gift? It's up to you, folks. If you don't see that as a gift, then you don't see it as a gift, then it isn't a gift. But if you see it as a gift,

[44:57]

which I could see as a gift, you know. If I said to somebody, if I gave somebody a compliment and they said to me, you know, I feel really embarrassed when you compliment me. From my point of view, they could see that as a gift to me and they could feel a lot of joy of giving that to me and I could feel joy of them giving me that gift. I could go with that. But if they don't, then they miss the chance of giving. You're the one who says what you're giving somebody is not a gift. You're the one. And you're the one who feels like, you know, I feel like I am giving you something. You may or may not like it. but I feel like I'm giving you something, and I feel really good about giving you something, and my feeling good about you giving you something does not make me, like, say, well, I gave you something, and that's it. It makes me say, well, I gave that to you, and I enjoyed, and I'm willing to give you something else, too, because it's a joy to give to you.

[45:58]

This is part of it. This is part of love, is to somehow get in there and... You know, use what you are. Making something up is fine, but it has to be true. Otherwise, you're not practicing ethics. And you can harm somebody by not telling them how you feel. Really. And you have to practice patience, too, because you're uncomfortable when someone gives you a gift before you give them a gift back. Aren't you? I think we feel, well, not necessarily. Some people, I guess, receive gifts and give back. Yes? That could be your gift.

[47:04]

Your gift could be to graciously receive. That could be a gift, definitely. But part of what I'm suggesting is that you actually be aware that that's a gift, that you feel like you're giving a gift. In order to develop the function of giving, we have to see how good it feels. That's how it grows, it grows from feeling, from seeing how good it feels to give. Giving is basically non-ignorant. A giving with joy is basically like, it's like enlightenment. Because it's like, how come you feel good about giving to somebody? The reason why giving is so good is because of reality, the reality that we're not separate.

[48:10]

The reason why ethics feels so good and is such a happy practice, the reason why we can be enthusiastic about it for good reason is that not harming people is enlightened. The reason why we feel good about benefiting people is because benefiting people is enlightened. In other words, it comes from understanding our actual relationship. Our actual relationship is that benefiting people is our happiness. But we need to actually, you know, not miss the opportunity somehow. Yes? I experience a lot of joy in giving, but I don't expect anything back from it. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, well, you might feel some joy and still expect something back, but if you experiment with it and notice the joy you feel of giving when you expect something back and then take away the expecting back and see that that actually increases the joy, I think it does.

[49:27]

There can be some joy at giving and still expecting something back. And there can be joy at giving and getting something back, but the joy of letting go of trying to get anything, that release, the release from stinginess and the release from conniving is really a joy. And I said, you know, that when I send this check tonight that the recipient may feel good about it, but Actually, it's a greater joy for me not to be so concerned in the act of giving about the effect it's going to have. Of course, I don't think it's going to be harmful. If I do, I wouldn't send it. But it's not contingent on being thanked. One does notice whether one's thanked or not, probably. That sometimes happens. But the joy is not contingent on being thanked.

[50:33]

Are these practices which it makes sense to you to take on one at a time or all at once? How do you feel about these practices? Are they appropriate for your life? And if not, do you have some problem with them? Robin? I think I can ask a question about patience. Because I find in trying to help these patients, I don't know where sometimes I'm going to resignation. Can you give an example? She's wondering about his patients going into resignation. In my work situation. Yes. When I find that I'm in a difficult or frustrating situation and I'm trying to be patient and then at a certain point I seem to be Just in that place where I'm saying, it'll never change.

[51:44]

It'll never get better. It just feels like resignation. It doesn't feel like what patience is supposed to be. So you say, it'll never get better. It'll never change. You start saying that to yourself? I think that saying that is, what, it's... Well, just let me say, it's quite different to say, it'll never change. That's quite different from saying, even if it never changes, or I'm not expecting it to change. That's different than to say, it won't ever change. It won't ever change is kind of like a little bit on the side of self-mortification. It's like you're going to say it's not going to change, rather than be open to the fact that it could change, which it can.

[52:46]

Which would be more difficult for you to face that it could change, but it hasn't been changing, than just to sort of say, well, it's not going to change. So that seems more like resentment than resignation. Patience is that you can not only tolerate the difficulty, but you can tolerate be unknown too. The name is that it could improve, and there's something you could do which might, I shouldn't say improve, but it could certainly change and turn into a benefit, and there's something you could do maybe, perhaps at some point, that would contribute to the situation becoming more beneficial. But that may be more difficult to face than just to sort of like take the extreme up, this is never going to change, forget it, write it off. That's a kind of resentment. Patience when you when you're patient with a difficulty You're handling it in such a way that you're you're not putting any energy into resisting it anymore You're taking it in the best possible Dosages and you're not putting energy into resisting So you have a lot more energy

[54:05]

to deal with the situation than when you're taking in big chunks and or resisting it. And one way to resist it is to try to push it away. Another way to resist it is to sort of like indulge in it and say, well, I'm just going to let it happen then. And I'm going to even say that this is going to go on forever. So you can feel bad in the way you feel bad by you saying how the situation is. And if it's a bad situation, then you can just say, well, it's going to be bad forever and nobody's going to argue with you about it. I mean, you can make it worse. And there's a predictability in you feeling bad about it and you exacerbating it by your own way of thinking about it. By saying, this is not happening now, but it's going to happen for a long time. And I feel worse about that, but at least I made myself feel worse by thinking that way. the predictability of banging your head against the wall.

[55:10]

It does hurt every time you do it. That's nice, in a way. But patience actually, you see, leads to enthusiasm. When you're patient, you can be enthusiastic about patience and about working with a difficult situation. because the energy that you usually use to fight pain is now available to make some appropriate response, like practice giving, ethics, more patience, concentration. Yes? You were talking about this point last week, and my thought about what I get into habit You can think in habits, yes. Yes. You're in a situation where something is uncomfortable?

[56:21]

And what did you say after that? It's not movable? Yes. Well, you know, every moment in a sense is just the way it is. So in that sense, each moment is the way it is. So what about that? There really is just that to work with. So that it would repeat it, that something similar or the same thing would happen again, I guess I don't see what the relevance of that would be because we have to face just this particular moment for starters, don't we? The fact that it's going to go on, what difference does that make if you feel like it's going to go on and that's relatively fixed?

[57:29]

So, did I miss your question? No. What happens to me is I develop the habitual response, which is defending against the game, which is what you talked about. Yes. And how do you defend against the thing? Well, develop ways around the situation, or develop a big attitude toward the situation, or to despair about the situation. Despair, by the way, means etymologically no hope. So am I actually recommending that when you're in a difficult situation that you practice patience first of all?

[58:39]

Am I suggesting that? That you right away, as soon as possible, I mean like right away, with some difficulty, you practice patience right away? Am I suggesting that? Do you think? I am. Yes. That's the way to break the habit of not being patient is to practice patience immediately because it's very much a present kind of practice. It's very much to try to practice it in the present. That's where it's practiced. In the smallest little chunk of the present that you can find. And we have so many occasions to do it. I mean, it's like Giving, there's so many occasions for giving, but in some ways, patience, I find, is more obvious for people.

[59:42]

I mean, when I hear them talk about their lives and their problems, I think of patience first, actually. Even though giving's first on the list, in terms of what they're struggling with, it seems like patience is first. Because it's hard to practice giving if you're not patient. If you're fighting your situation and getting away, it's hard to practice giving at that time. Not impossible, maybe, but... Now, again, these cases of patience as compassion, compassion as patience, it doesn't mean that when you practice patience that you can't adjust your posture or move or do something else that you think would be beneficial, you can. Matter of fact, it would be good if you did.

[60:45]

That's part of the ethics is to do something, do something beneficial when you're in the middle of your difficulties. It's just that it's hard to see what's beneficial if you're not practicing patience with your difficulty. So again, I give this example over and over that in certain training situations when people are having a hard time, they sometimes come to me and say that they've had enough and they want to leave the training situation. They want to get out of the discipline because they're having a hard time. And I say, well, are you completely settled with this difficulty? Are you completely at peace in the middle of this difficulty? Are you calm and patient in the middle of this difficulty? And if they say yes, I say, and you want to leave? And they say, yes. I say, fine. But so far nobody's ever said that. So far. Usually they haven't thought about that carefully before they come to talk to me.

[61:48]

If they did, they might come and say, guess what? I'm having a difficulty like everybody else. I'm completely settled with it. I'm completely at peace with it. I could be in a situation forever. you know, a similar situation. I can face this type of pain indefinitely. I'm perfectly at ease with it. And I'm really enjoying practicing patience, but I'd like to do something else. And I'm sure I'll have difficulties there in practice. And I intend to practice patience with that too, but I want to do something else. If a person came to me and said that, I would say, fine. But usually they don't. And then they go away. I say, go away and look at the situation and see if you If you're completely settled with that and in your settled and patient state you wish to leave and you want to do something else, I'll support that. But I can't really support you leaving the discipline until you're at that state because you'll just get in another situation and leave that and leave that and leave that. So I don't support it. Of course you can leave, but I don't support it. And only twice did people come back when I gave them that assignment and said,

[63:01]

You know, I really unsettled. I'm completely patient with the situation. There's difficulty, but I'm not running away from it. But I would like to go. Twice they came back. And one of the cases, as soon as the woman left, a couple days later she found out she was pregnant. That's what she wanted to do. She wanted to have a baby, which she couldn't have. She didn't even know what it was, but she wanted to do something else. And she did it. But it wasn't she running away from the monastic situation. She was perfectly happy there. She just wanted to do something else. So it doesn't mean you don't do something else. It just means you don't do it because you're running away. You do it because you want to do it. Does that make sense? No? It does? It seems that the issue of patience, as you were saying that, I was thinking that for myself, some of the most difficulty I have with patience is those moments where I'm seeing my sort of non-loving feelings, my non-appreciation of others' successes.

[64:31]

That's where it's important to try to practice my patience. You have trouble being patient with things you see about yourself? Right. And especially when I think about trying to practice being more kind to other people and I notice unkindness. You're trying to practice kindness towards others and you notice in yourself unkindness and it's hard for you to be present with that and you feel pain at feeling unkindness? That's where I feel it. And it's hard for you to practice patience at that time? Yeah, it's difficult. So there's double patience. There's patience with the pain of feeling like you're, you know, pretty slow in this practice of appreciating others. And then there's patience with the pain of not appreciating others.

[65:33]

And there's also, I guess, pain at not appreciating yourself. So there's three kinds of patience that would apply maybe to that situation. One wouldn't have to feel all three, but I think a lot of people would in a case like that. Yeah, that's... This feels very fundamental. yeah it's all those aspects yeah right so you're trying to practice loving kindness and you have to be patient with whatever perhaps you're somewhat unskillful at practicing loving kindness you're trying to practice appreciating any successes particularly spiritual successes of others particularly skillfulness of others that when they do things well you're trying to appreciate that and you're having... you're having trouble either you're not seeing their virtues or sometimes they are successful but you're jealous or sometimes they're successful but maybe you... maybe you say, yeah, but I know some other stuff about them.

[66:51]

You know, that really overshadows this minor good they just did. Or you're cynical. You're cynical and you say, that was good what they did, but really I know what their real agenda is. They're just doing that to, you know, charm people or whatever. That feels kind of bad. So practice patience. That's part of it. You've got to face that's where you're at. And then you go then from that place, if you can stop, if you can face that pain, then you can practice loving kindness again. Go back and try again. Also practice giving again. Also practice joy at the fact that you're practicing patience with yourself and your feelings towards others. Joy at that you're practicing giving. joy of the giving and joy that you're practicing the giving. But part of... Yes?

[68:00]

If part of someone isn't nice to you. If someone isn't nice to you. If somebody is nice to me, if I'm jealous of them. I mean, if I'm jealous of someone, I can live with them and I can work with them. Yes. But if somebody, you know, especially when you're working on it, It's hard for me. It's hard for me to know I struggle. Should I be open to change? You know, it's like I knew a lot more than I feel, especially being with someone for years. For years? For years, you know. Yeah, you know, it's not like what? Right. You know, we lose our power. You know, energy is not going. Yeah. Energy is... Well, in some sense the energy is flowing, and the way it's flowing is that it's flowing in such a way that you feel like their energy is hurting you. Yes.

[69:01]

Yeah, so they're hurting you. And it's painful, and it's hard to practice patience when somebody's hurting you, whether... If it's intentional, it hurts, and if it's unintentional, it still hurts, both ways. If you can practice patience with that, this is hard, but good. Why? How come it's good? Why would it be good? How would it be good? Well, it's good because, for many reasons. One, it's good because you're starting to see something. Well, when you practice patience, you can start to see what the source of your patience is. I mean, what the source of the pain is. You can see what you... Loosening what?

[70:04]

It loosens your need to control the environment. Yes. Well, because compassion... Patience is part of love. Patience is part of love. You start to shift from control to love. When you shift towards patience, you start to shift towards love. But it doesn't mean that that leaves you less able to respond beneficially. it makes you more able to respond beneficially, but not necessarily more able to get control, but more able to do something appropriate and helpful. If you can handle the pain of someone attacking you, you're less afraid of them because you feel more confident that you could handle the pain of them attacking you if you should happen to tell them certain things that you have to say. You could handle the pain, you feel more confidence to be able to handle the pain if you practice giving towards them.

[71:11]

If you practice giving towards them, and especially joyfully, then that even offers more opportunities for love in the situation. I've done all that, so I've looked around the map a lot. And what actually made me feel the best at this stage is to almost leave more of them. Because it seems they're nicer to me. I mean, because I've had so many different facets of exchange. So it's just... Yeah, ignoring. Well, you know, just, you know, less energy coming out. Less energy coming out from you. Neutral. Neutral. Well, that could be part of patience, to be neutral. That could possibly mean patience. But it's patience that you're neutral with the fact that they're hurting you. That's neutral.

[72:14]

If they're not hurting you, then you can be neutral with them not hurting you. But if they are hurting you, you can be neutral with them hurting you too. But how about being neutral when they're being really nice to you? that would also be part of this kind of love. So, this kind of love is that you're neutral or you're upright whether they're attacking you or praising you. And patience is how you can be, it helps you relate to them the same whether they're attacking you or praising you. Now, it doesn't mean that you can't say something to them when they're attacking you like, You could tell them that it really hurts, but telling them that it hurts could be a gift rather than a maneuver. It could come from not running away or indulging in the pain, but being patient with it.

[73:21]

You can come back with something quite generous from that place. If you can't practice patience with it, it's pretty hard to come back with an honest response. Because you don't even really know what your honest response is, because you're not really in your body and in your mind. But if you sense that someone else can't be honest... If you sense that someone else can't be honest... ...then I feel... That's good. Just like certain animals are just like children. Sometimes children just have to lie at a certain phase. They have to, like, learn to lie. And you have to, like, deal with the fact that they are going to be lying.

[74:23]

They're going to lie now for this whole conversation. It's going to be one lie. And they got to do it. And you have to work with it. That's the name of the game right now. And you can honor that. And you can be upright with it. And it can hurt you. And you can be generous. But still the lie goes down as a lie. But You're there with them. You're practicing compassion, which is what? That you're being generous with them. That you're not harming them. That you wish them well. That you're handling the pain you feel with their process of learning to lie. That you're full of joy in this practice. And it may be not time to mention that you notice that they're lying.

[75:32]

That may not be appropriate. They may need you to say nothing about it. That may be exactly what's really appropriate. But how do you know whether it's appropriate to let them get by with a lie? First of all, do you feel any pain and are you practicing patience with it? Are you giving to them? And are you enjoying giving to them? And what are you giving to them? Are you practicing the precepts with them? Are you being harmless to them and beneficial? Are you enjoying this? Are you full of enjoyment about practicing this way with them? Are you concentrated? Are all these things satisfied? And then maybe letting them get by with the lie is fine. They may or may not come back and say, you know, I lied the other day. They may or may not. But they may learn that they lied and you being that way with them may show them, help them be able to feel what it's like to lie.

[76:41]

Then maybe they need to learn what it's like to lie. If you stop them from lying or you confuse them while they're lying by criticizing them, being impatient with them, then they can't tell whether if you didn't attack them, if you didn't embarrass them, if you didn't humiliate them, they can't tell if the lie itself would have been something all by itself that they do not actually want to do. So your response is important. Right, but it doesn't have to be given to them. No, your response is given to them, but your response may not be to directly confront them with what they did. So if someone's lying to you and you know it, sometimes you know it. You know they're lying. You see them go in the cookie jar and they take the cookie and they eat it, and then they come and they say, I didn't do it.

[77:47]

And not only did you see them do it, But you can tell by the look on their face that they know they did it too. It wasn't completely unconscious. And they're looking to see if they're fooling you. And they don't really think they are fooling you because you're not really like saying, yes, you are fooling me either, but you're not directly confronting them and humiliating them. You are giving them a response. You're just not giving them a certain type of response which might be really humiliating. But that may be, again, then they can see how they feel about it without being caught, how they feel about it. But it's possible that without you meeting them and knowing that they lied or stole or whatever, or lied about stealing or whatever, it's possible that if they didn't meet you and they just stole themselves, That they would think that if you did meet them and did catch them, that you would criticize them.

[78:53]

And that's what would bother them about the stealing, or that's what would bother them about the lying. They may think that. They may think, you know, I don't mind lying. I don't mind stealing. It's just that if she caught me and she screamed at me, that would really bother me. So if you catch them and you don't scream at them, and you work with the pain that you feel of it, then they realize, She didn't do that. I don't know if she knew or not, but in fact, anyway, I think she did know. I think she did know, and she didn't smash me. And I feel bad. It's not because she punished me that I feel bad. I feel bad. so in that way you maybe really help them plus you yourself feel good about it all the way through you it's painful for you to see them go through this learning process but you feel joyful participating with them that way and you know because you feel joyful about that you can do this again and again until they learn from themselves how they feel about it and they're not because they're afraid of you that they're doing these things in other words

[80:08]

Follow the precepts not just out of fear, to tell the truth and to be kind to people not just out of fear, but because we actually enjoy it. And if you enjoy not getting angry at people, and if you enjoy telling the truth and you enjoy being giving, that is your response, but it's not necessarily the response that they would expect. They don't necessarily expect a joyful response, a person who's joyful even while they're being hurt. In other words, they don't expect love to continue even in pain. But it can. And it must. We must be able to continue to practice love in pain and, in other words, to have joy and love in pain. Otherwise, we will not be able to study the nature of pain and its conditions. We have to be able to get close to pain and ignorance and be settled and comfortable, relatively speaking, with pain and ignorance in order to be able to see.

[81:19]

That's why love is necessary for wisdom. Plus, it also helps people while we're practicing it. While we're learning to be wise through love, it also helps them, too. even though we haven't yet attained perfect wisdom, it still helps them. And when we have attained perfect wisdom, it helps them even more thoroughly and more exactly. But this is really difficult, what I'm talking about. Easy for me to say this stuff. Very difficult to practice, you know. Very difficult to practice, even in, and sometimes in very nice situations where you're with someone who you know loves you and who you love, but who can't express it. sometimes it's very painful to face how painful it is to be with someone who you love and who loves you but there's a blockage because you don't you know you don't know it's appropriate and you're it's very difficult to practice patience

[82:28]

to be enthusiastic about being in this very touchy, painful situation, where nobody's hurting anybody directly. It's just by nature of working out the intimacy, there's pain there. So in a sense, all these relationships are really about intimacy. And intimacy includes getting away from somebody sometime when they're hurting you. Or going towards somebody sometimes when they're hurting you. intimacy guides but it's not easy but this kind of thing is necessary in order to get closer and closer to our ignorance to become more and more intimate with it so we can see what it is and become free of it we have to get very close to it to become free of it but it's surrounded by pain And all these interactions we have with people, these painful interactions, you know, are examples of our ignorance.

[83:39]

Real, live, dynamic, day-to-day examples of our ignorance manifesting to us in our relationships. So there's this great opportunity and great danger. Great danger that we'll blow it, that we'll knock it out of the way, run away from it, try to control it. a great opportunity that we can actually understand what our life's about right in the middle of a daily difficulty. It could happen. We're running over time, I'm sorry. But I would ask you to, like, think about all these practices and try to, you know, if it's too much to practice them all simultaneously all the time, then take just one of them and practice it for a certain limited amount of time. But please consider one or more of these practices in the next week and work on them. Contemplate them.

[84:44]

Speaking on behalf of the rest of the people in the world, we need you to do this. And little by little, you can become more skillful. Okay? Thank you.

[85:08]

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