So the proposal for today, our study in the last night, I was at the Monterey Peninsula College and had a little kind of lecture dialogue with a physicist and we're talking about consciousness and the relationship of consciousness to the material world to the physical world and I talked about how consciousness arose from

[01:07]

physicality or in relationship to physicality and then how karma develops from consciousness and how karma then creates a world and then how consciousness responds to a world which is created by karma and then consciousness generates more karma which again creates and modifies the world. In this way, the physical world, consciousness, karma and the karma-created world evolve and turn on each other, constantly transforming each other and by bringing attention to the process of how this all works, the attention changes the understanding of the consciousness and then the consciousness generates different kinds of karma which creates different kinds of worlds. So, in terms of personal liberation from the process of the self-created

[02:11]

world or self-centered created world, in terms of personal liberation and also in terms of world transformation, studying karma is central to the Buddha's mission of liberating beings and transforming worlds. So, it's very simple, it's our life, you know, many lifetimes of study are given over to this basically eternal study of karma until, I guess, nobody has any delusion about self, and then there won't be any karma anymore, but that probably won't happen for a while, so we'll have to keep studying. And we only have about six hours or so, right? So, we can't do too much today, but you may be able to get some kind of like

[03:30]

foothold into the teachings of karma, and actually I hope you can actually start practicing a little bit with your foothold. This is just a one-page summary of basic teachings of karma. It's a pretty good little summary, but I probably should make another summary of something else I'm going to be telling you. Do I need these? I can see them more clearly, but I don't really need them yet.

[04:41]

Well, since people seem to be reading it, why don't you go ahead and read it? Last year, I talked about how consciousness arises, and I talked for about half an hour about that, or twenty-five minutes about that. I might not talk quite that long, but Te thought it would be good if I went over it again, about how consciousness arises, because karma arises from consciousness, so it might be helpful to understand how consciousness

[06:49]

arises. And I might say that once consciousness has arisen, then the next major step on the way to the arising of karma is the arising of the idea, or the sense of self, of an independent being. Consciousness does not necessarily involve a sense of an independent self. So one phase is the arising of consciousness, the next phase is the arising of an idea of an individual self, then there is the belief that that's a real thing, and then karma can happen. So, arising of consciousness, arising of sense of self, believing in the reality

[07:56]

of that, grasping that as a truth, rather than just an imagined thing out of consciousness, and then karma arises based on that idea of independent self. As I went through it last night, talking about how consciousness arises, I was again impressed by the feeling that the way consciousness arises, in some sense, predicts or involves, has a seed for the arising of the sense of self. And many biologists feel that if you watch, if you study evolution of life and see how it has been developing and see how consciousness arose, they feel

[08:57]

it's inevitable that some sense of self would arise from life in any form, that life would develop a sense of self. Not necessarily just like us, but something like what we've come up with. So I'll try to point that out now, where it might come from as I tell this story about the arising of consciousness, how a self naturally, the sense of self naturally evolves from this process. So, imagine that there's kind of like nothing, okay? And then that there's some kind of like, some kind of events like, how would I call it? Electromagnetic radiation, like light, you know? Not light, but electromagnetic radiation, and some of that

[10:01]

electromagnetic radiation is in a wavelength band that we call light. So there's electromagnetic radiation, and then there's mechanical, there's electromagnetic waves and particles, and there's electromag, then there's mechanical waves and particles, waves of particles of mechanical things like air and water, and then that there's gases and liquids, and then that there's even grosser material things like rocks and flesh, but not rocks, not that congealed, but something that's a little bit more solid like that, and these things are all just ... and somehow there's life tissue in the middle of all that, and then at some point there is this interface between two

[11:09]

types of materiality, a gross type, which is these five types, which are, you know, color, taste, smell, touch, and sound, these five touch living tissue, and some part of living tissue responds, is sensitive to that and responds, and from this interaction, this interface between the gross materiality and this responsive materiality, which is, you know, tissue, that interaction there is what we call the door of consciousness, or the door of arrival of consciousness, and some

[12:10]

Buddhist meditators in the old days, Buddha would recommend that they meditate, see if they can see, watch, where the two kinds of materiality touch, and see if they can see the birth of consciousness there, or, you know, the consciousness itself is looking back on itself and seeing itself arise from this interaction, and this is the birth of sense consciousness, this is not the birth of consciousness consciousness the way we ordinarily think of it, like consciousness where you know something, this level of consciousness doesn't have, like, objective knowledge, doesn't, like, know things externally, there's no externality here, there's no self and other here, this is just an awareness of what? Well, it turns out, it's awareness of gross materiality. So what happens is, the gross materiality and the subtle materiality, the gross materiality is called

[13:11]

the field, and it's the field of the subtle materiality, which is called the organ. The organ plays in the field. The living tissue plays in the field of light, plays in the field of taste, and plays in the field of touch. That's the field where this sensitive tissue plays and responds. Then, from this play, this consciousness arises, and what is consciousness aware of? It is aware of the field. It's not aware of the organ. Just like when you look at someone, you're not aware of your eye. It's just the awareness, in a sense, sees through the eye to what the eye is playing with, or sees through the eye to what is playing

[14:14]

with the eye. You can't see your organs as they're operating, and that's part of the reason why they're called subtle. It's like, if you take butter and it separates between, is it ghee and what's the other thing? Ghee and whey? So, from the top, you can see through the ghee to the whey. So, it's like the organs, the ghee and whatever the organ is playing with is the whey, and the consciousness sees the whey. But, although the consciousness arose from the interaction between the gross, between the interaction, it arose from the interaction,

[15:15]

and it arose from a gross materiality and subtle materiality, because of the way that the organ operates, the consciousness feels like it's separated from, in a sense, separated from what it is born from. Does that make sense? The consciousness becomes aware of what it was born of, and in a sense, the organ separates it from what gave birth to it. So, the consciousness is born from the organ and from the field, but the consciousness develops, starts to act in a sense, as though it's separated from what it's born from. So, this is a very important nature of consciousness, is it has this dynamic in it that's separated from what it's born from, or in other words, it's separated from what it's connected to, it's separated from what it depends on. If you take away the materiality, of course, there'd be no consciousness, because it wouldn't be conscious

[16:24]

of anything, the sense consciousness. If you take away light, there's no awareness of light, in terms of direct sensory experience. But, on the other hand, if there wasn't an organ, there wouldn't be consciousness either. If there wasn't some sensitive tissue, consciousness wouldn't arise either. It isn't just like there was light and then there was consciousness. There was light and then there was this living tissue, and when the light and the living tissue interacted, there was consciousness. Before there was this living tissue, there wasn't consciousness. There was just light, I guess. We don't know what there was. We can get into that, but basically, light by itself is not enough to give rise to consciousness. You have to have light and life to have consciousness of light. There's consciousness of light, sense consciousness of light, the consciousness is born from the light and the organ. The organ is necessary for the consciousness to arise, and

[17:31]

then the organ separates the consciousness from what it arose from. If you took the organ away, consciousness wouldn't arise, and also if you took the organ away, the consciousness wouldn't sense what happened to consciousness. It would just collapse into the light. And there'd just be light. And there's something about that too, isn't there? If you take away the separation consciousness of light, if you take away the separation, there'd just be light. Same with sound. If you take away the separation, there wouldn't be consciousness, there would just be sound. And in a sense, that's liberation. When you understand this, in some sense, consciousness evaporates, and there's just light. Or, the light evaporates and there's just consciousness. Either way you want to do it. But this is dynamic, and it's kind of, it's a little bit unworkable to be

[18:35]

separated from what you're born from, to be separated from what you're connected to, to be separated from what you're ... or a thing to be separated from what it's born from, or a thing to be separated from what it depends on, is a little bit nonsensical, kind of mysterious. But if it wasn't, it wouldn't happen. Just like a child has to be separated from his mother, but if it wasn't connected to his mother, it wouldn't happen. It's like that. So in a sense, this sets the paradigm for later developments, called the world. So the next thing in the story is, based on this model of the sense consciousnesses, these five sense consciousnesses, now you have consciousness. You have sensory interactions. In other words, sensory interactions means sense tissue touching materiality and consciousness. Sense tissue touching materiality being touched by ... actually being touched by materiality and responding and giving rise to consciousness. The Buddhist

[19:37]

word for material is rupa. That's the Sanskrit word that we use for materiality. And rupa means, comes from the, I think, the word rupa, means to be hit. So materiality is something that can be hit. It's something that's located. Materiality is located, and it can be hit. And it can be, and the sense organs can be hit, because they're in a place. Like, the sense organs are not your eyeball, but they're around your eyeball. They're located. So when light hits this area, it responds. So these things are hit, they give rise to consciousness. They're hit, they give rise to consciousness. They're hit, they give rise to consciousness, okay? Now we have consciousness. Let's say. Now consciousness itself, how is it born? It's born of this duality, of this interaction,

[20:40]

you know, this dynamism, which has connection and separation built into it. So within the seeds, or the nature of consciousness, is this duality and this dynamic duality. And somehow, at some point in the development of life, around here anyway, it seems that what happened was that the consciousness itself, just like the pre-conscious world, the world of, you know, of where materiality, of these two kinds of materiality started working, in the realm of consciousness, a similar event took place. Namely, that consciousness developed a gross and subtle aspect. That consciousness somehow found a way to interact with itself. Now, it didn't make this,

[21:51]

it didn't develop this from nowhere, because it was born of this type of interaction. It somehow split itself into two. And the way it split itself into two was an effect of the way it was born. And sometimes they say that the organ, the consciousness developed an organ, just like the world of materiality developed an organ. When life came along, the material world developed an organ. Okay, there was a material world and then an organ was born. And what was the organ? It was physical, it was living tissue. Now, consciousness develops an organ. What is the organ? The organ of consciousness for itself, the organ of mind consciousness, is basically a deceased,

[22:52]

a dead sense consciousness. It's kind of a funny way to put it, but that's the way they say it. The organ of the mind consciousness, the organ which will, the sensitive tissue in the mind which will respond to mind stuff and give rise now to mind consciousness, that organ, that kind of like the analogy or the analog to the physical organ, the mental organ, is a deceased sense consciousness. So a consciousness now has a deceased sense consciousness in it, in a sense. What that means is that when a sense consciousness arrives, there's past sense consciousness too. So every new sense consciousness lives in a universe where there's past sense consciousnesses, which has something to do with the rise of the present

[23:53]

sense consciousness. So consciousness arises from this same interaction, physical interaction, still physically based sense consciousness is, but also the effects of past sense consciousnesses are there too. And the previous sense consciousness carries in it, in some sense, a kind of history of the birth of its own life. So it introduces this split, this bifurcating capacity into the mind, and the mind splits itself into consciousness and something which is separated from consciousness, but the thing that's separated from consciousness is in consciousness. So consciousness splits itself in two by using the paradigm of the arising of sense consciousness as its organ. So this amazing thing happens is that consciousness

[24:57]

can look at itself. The mind becomes aware of itself. The consciousness becomes aware of itself, splits itself into subject and object in a sense. Not quite subject and object, but awareness and object awareness. And then on that occasion there arises, because of that split, there arises a sense that the object of awareness is external, even though what you're aware of, the mind is aware of itself.

[26:02]

Originally there was some, in a sense, externality you might say, but now it's in the mind itself. The mind's looking at its own contents and saying it's split from it. So then there's a sense of the awareness is here and what it's aware of is over there, and then we feel like there's a this and a that, and this over here is an identity separate from that, and this is the origin of the idea of self. So some story like this, as I say, a lot of biologists feel that something like this is inevitable. It's inevitable that life will give rise to consciousness, and consciousness will give rise to a sense of self. And then once a sense of self arises, is it useful or not? And it turns out it is useful. That if you have organisms, especially they feel now that you have

[27:05]

organisms like primates who are living together in groups, because you know a group of primates is stronger than one primate against one saber-toothed tiger. The living together in groups has various qualities and so on, and that in a group, if you have a group of people and one of them has a sense of self and the other ones don't, the one that has a sense of self has an advantage. It's a kind of technological breakthrough that turned out to be adaptive when living in groups. Adaptive in terms of that person ascending in power and reproductive opportunities. It looks like it, you can think about that. But anyway, this was something that became popular.

[28:07]

And now those who have selves are the ones we have here, and the ones who don't aren't around anymore. There were such beings, and they might have been wonderful people, wonderful living creatures, but they didn't get the same opportunities, educational opportunities and reproductive opportunities as the ones that had self. And even now there could be people like that, but unless somebody takes care of them, they don't get a chance to reproduce. And actually almost nobody doesn't want to reproduce with them. That's just not their thing, you know. They're into like oneness and stuff like that. So there can be such creatures, but they aren't our ancestors. Our ancestors were breeders. They didn't wait in line for their opportunities because they had a sense of self. Now, the sense of self originally was just kind of an opportunity which a living being took,

[29:15]

and then if you think about it, you can argue about this, but basically I think it's better not to. If you want to use a sense of self, in some ways for a lot of people it's hard to use it with a sense that maybe it's just an idea, a useful idea, like a tool. If I had a sense of self, I could accumulate a lot of food over here and stuff like that. I could have a sense of my house and those guys over there. So in some ways it's more convenient and requires less philosophical openness to just sort of act as though it were real. You know, practically speaking, in terms of power, it's better not to sort of be so aware

[30:17]

that yourself is just an idea. Very good to remember yourself as just an idea. But again, love does not necessarily promote your agendas. Love promotes happiness and peace, but not necessarily personal success. And self is actually just an illusion. There's not really an independent self. The way self arises and how it's just, you know, about how the idea of self is not a self, if you're aware of that, then you'll use it in a more creative way. And one of the ways you might use it is not to use it.

[31:18]

You might even forget about it for quite a long time and be very happy having forgotten it. But also, you know, lose your money and forget to eat and stuff like that. That might happen, but who cares? Well, the self does. But aside from the self, it's okay. But if you want to promote the opportunities for an individual life, then it's good to sort of like keep on that self thing all the time, act as though it really was reality, and never ever let it slip. And so, since it was so convenient, those who were like really obsessed on the self, they came to dominate. The more relaxed philosophical people who had this idea of self, but were, you know, laid back about it and didn't take it so seriously and, you know, just used it when it was helpful, and the rest of the time realized it was just an illusion, those people, they're not around anymore.

[32:20]

Or, there are people who are brain damaged. The people who are obsessively clinging to the idea of self, those people are the people who have predominated among the human species. There are parents and grandparents and so on. So that's what we've got. We've got people who are really hung up on the self, who really think it's real. That's the humans we've got on the planet now, mostly. It's except, I say, for people that don't have it, who are, basically, we take care of them. They can't function very well. The Buddha was one of these people that, you know, he was the one who said, was hung up on the self, big time. He had a big self and he really believed it and he suffered terrifically for it. And, you know, it's inevitable. It's just the way, that's the

[33:28]

way biology has worked, is to produce this situation. This is not something, it's not good or bad. Well, it actually is good, because it offers the opportunity for Buddhas. You need Buddhas now. With this scenario, you need Buddhas. Buddhas means you need beings who understand how this happened and who, by understanding how this happened, don't take it seriously and overcome the obsession and become free of the obsession and so on. But the story I told is not that obvious to see how it happens. So the next step is the place where people usually start to work back to understand the process. If you can understand the process by which the self arose and is arising, you can stop believing and obsessing about the self and become free of self-clinging, and then you're all set. You're a Buddha, virtually. You have to sort of do some remedial work,

[34:33]

you know, once you recover, but basically, you know, you're free. But the easiest place to start is at the next phase of the development, and that is that this consciousness not only gave rise to a sense of self, but the consciousness always, even before there was an idea of self, the consciousness had a constantly changing quality, and it still does. Consciousness is not the same every moment. It varies according to various circumstances of our life, and different consciousnesses, in a sense, have different shapes or different, in a sense, tendencies, or impulses, or you could say volitions. The thought, the thinking of the mind, what we call thinking is like the shape of the mind. Each consciousness has a shape, and that shape is what we call thinking.

[35:38]

Or on this chart, it's what's called volition. And that, and also, it says, Buddha said, O monks, see under the first thing, action is thought, volition. O monks, I say that action is cetana. Cetana is the Sanskrit word, and cetana means volition, will, intention, shape, landscape of the mind, or I sometimes say the watershed of the mind. So you have a state of consciousness, and the watershed is like, if you pour water on a landscape, the water falls down all over the landscape, but it doesn't just sink in straight in, if the landscape isn't flat, right? If the landscape's flat, the water just will sink in evenly all over. There's no, the watershed is neutral, right? But if there's mountains and

[36:42]

valleys, then if your water rains down on that landscape, the water doesn't go straight in, the water goes down the mountains into the rivers, into the valleys, and makes rivers. So then the watershed is the shape by which the water will tend to collect and go a certain direction over the surface. Same in the mind. Some states of mind, every state of mind has a different watershed. So some states of mind, some states of consciousness are kind of receptive. They're not really going anywhere, they're just being receptive. A receptive state of mind or state of consciousness, in a sense, is watershed is shaped like a plate, or a dish with a slightly curved edge, you might say. None of the water runs off, but it doesn't go any particular direction, it just is received. So some states of consciousness are just receptive, like sense consciousnesses.

[37:47]

But some states of consciousness are very clear, like irrigation ditches, or sharply defined mountains, so that when anything happens, there's a definite inclination or tendency of that mind. Like the mind, like some minds, let's say the mind of a well-developed enlightened being, something would happen, like that being would sense pain, and when the pain was received, then the next state of consciousness might be a very clear impulse. The mind may be very clearly shaped and inclined towards wishing freedom from this pain, or wishing to do something beneficial in response to this pain. That could be a clear shape of the mind in response to that pain.

[38:54]

Now, if there is a sense of self in that same system, and that sense of self is taken as real, then there might be a feeling of, I would like to do something, this self would like to do something beneficial. And that intention, that cetana, that volition, in combination with the sense of a self, makes karma happen. That's not make karma, that is karma. So cetana is the definition of the karma, but to make it into karma you have to have, in order to turn the karma on, you have to have this sense of self, and take it as real. So I would say that a person, in a sense, a Buddha, or a Bodhisattva, an enlightening being, or even an arhat, who do not any longer believe in independent self,

[40:01]

their mind, their consciousness also has shapes, and their shapes are almost always directed towards the welfare of others, but even though they want to help beings, and the mind wants to help beings, they don't believe in individual selves, so their impulses to help beings are not karma, because karma requires this self, this individual self, in connection with the impulse. Of course, sometimes people have impulses to not help people. Now, those impulses could conceivably, I suppose, happen in the mind of an enlightened being, could conceivably happen, but they wouldn't be connected to a sense of self, so there would be no karma to express that, and that would be pretty good. It wouldn't happen, karmically. It would just be this thought.

[41:07]

But actually, I don't think that, in an enlightened being, that the landscape of the consciousness would actually form coherently towards doing something unhelpful. It would just be that an enlightened being could think the thought, let's do something unhelpful. But that thought would be like, you know, a little ranger station up on top of the mountain range. It really wouldn't significantly affect the way the water ran down the hills, because you can think thoughts like, let's do something mean, but think that in the context of a larger picture of let's do something really good. Can you understand that? No? Well, I have an example. One time, when my wife was on a vacation, she went to France for a while, and my daughter and I stayed home in San Francisco, and she was about three, and we were

[42:14]

taking a bath one night, and she said, let's go in the kitchen and get the dishes and put them in mom's bed and break them. And I said, yeah, let's do that. So that's me sort of like thinking, oh, let's do that. But it was in the context of, I bet if we do that, I bet if I say that, she'll realize she doesn't really want to do it. So I said, okay, let's do that. And she said, no. So that's an example of where I had the thought of doing something kind of mean. I thought it, but it was in the context of, you know, testing to see really what she was up to. And really, she just wanted to think. I don't know the nature of her thought, but my thought was, so you can use negative images in a helpful way. Sometimes people can come and tell you that

[43:20]

there's something negative, and you can say it back, and then they realize, you know, that that's what it is, and they get confirmation, and it's clear. Sometimes people tell you negative things, and you push them away, say, no, [...] it's not so bad, it's not so bad, and they make it worse, until finally you say, okay, it's bad, and they say, thanks. So it's possible that some bad thought in an enlightened mind can be entertained, but the overall shape is in a positive direction. But even so, there's no self there, so it's still not karma. The Buddha said, you know, in teaching the Eightfold Path, one of the aspects of the Eightfold Path is right action, okay? Now, there's two kinds of right action. One kind of right action is action which is beneficial, meritorious, basically comes back to the source of the positive, of the right action,

[44:28]

and is tainted. But, you know, beneficial, meritorious, and the fruit matures back to the source, the name of the actor, but it's tainted. It's tainted by having an actor, by having an individual person who thinks that she has the power to act on her own. That's the taint. The other kind of right action, it doesn't say it's not meritorious, but in a sense it's not meritorious, because it's not karma. The other kind of right action, it's action, but it's noble, it's liberating, it's the path. It doesn't have fruit that comes back to the author, because there isn't an author. It's not tainted by having a power source. In other words, a living being can act and have it not be karma. The karma that Buddha is talking about is karma which is,

[45:32]

has a self in it. That's the karma that creates worlds. The other karma liberates worlds. That's not really karma. The other kind of action is this action which is called right action of the super mundane type. The world unmaking in the sense of unmaking the bondage quality of the world, transforming the world towards freedom rather than reinforcing bondage. Okay, so that's a lot, and so do you have any questions? Yes. When you're talking about self, separate self, if I understand it, I tend to think of not having a separate self, yet you have a self that's not separate from the

[46:35]

others. You still have a total self, whatever you may call it, the self that's with all beings. Is that a correct understanding? Because the second right action would be for all selves, including my own, which is not separate from others. Well, let's see, you kind of like proposing a somewhat different kind of a self, so there could be a different kind of a self, a self which like a sense of self, called a self if you want to, but you understand that that self is related to all other selves, and without the other selves, not to mention the other selves, but also the self is related to the nature of your consciousness. You understand how the self is born by the way your mind works. As you see how the self depends on all these qualities, then you see that there actually isn't a self separate from all these things which support it.

[47:43]

There actually isn't something there, it's just something that's propped up by all these conditions, then you don't apprehend the self as a substantial thing. If you don't apprehend the self as a substantial thing... But still there's this thing that needs to be fed, you know, sit meditation, how do I refer to this thing sitting here? You say there's still this thing that needs to be fed. Yeah, okay, you know, careful, go to this thing, this thing, okay, when you... Well, one thing that happens is sometimes as you study this thing, which you study this thing which you call the self, you study, you study, you study, and suddenly at some point you forget it. That sometimes happens, you forget it, just for a little while, maybe between meals. Well, okay, whatever, but

[48:47]

anyway, sometime when you're not worried about what will happen to you, you forget it, and there's no space there. And then something happens, or many things happen, but those things happen. And you still forgot whatever that thing was, and suddenly you see that thing born from what happens, and you realize that thing wasn't there, and it actually depended on the other things. Then you have a new understanding of this thing, this thing, okay? With that new understanding, it's like, okay, now here we are with the new understanding, now what? Well, is it lunchtime now? Is it lunchtime? No? Well, let's not eat then. Okay?

[49:48]

No, that's who I am now, I'm not having lunch, because it's not lunchtime. When it's lunchtime, we'll see what happens, you know? Kind of like, oh, lunchtime, oh wow, what do we do at lunchtime? Well, you mean what do we do? We eat. Okay, let's eat. So it's like you're sitting in a position where everything that happens gives you your life throughout the day. At lunchtime, you're the eating Pim. After lunch, no more eating. But you're not carrying this self, okay, now I've got this holding Pim now, okay, when do we feed her? When do we feed her? When do we stop her from eating? You know? It's like you got Pim all the time, and then it's kind of like, okay, we've got a world of lunches and not lunches. But all the time, Pim's sitting on top of the world, you know, what do we do with her? When do we feed her? Okay, and then so she gets fed. But from that point of view, there's the world of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and Pim. It's always Pim.

[50:54]

Okay, when you forget Pim, then there's breakfast, and then there's Pim. In fact, or sometimes there isn't, but you know, that's okay. But breakfast comes, and then there's Pim. In other words, breakfast gives you life. Lunch gives you life, rather than you're there, and then try to figure out, now when do I feed myself? So when you forget yourself, it's like there's a world, and then me. There's a world, and then me. There's a world, and then me. In other words, everything in the world gives you life. Everything in the world realizes you. The things that happen realize you, rather than you're there trying to figure out what in the world to use to realize yourself. So you're not always into like control and power. It's more like receiving love, which gives you life, which is where you came from in the first place. It wasn't like there was, you know, you conscious you walking around trying to know, where am I going to get my organs?

[52:01]

No. Life gave rise to you, and the universe gave rise to life, and then we gave rise to a sense of self, and that's the kind of creatures we are. And if you study the self and study the self occasionally, if you stay, if you monitor it and become intimate with yourself, it drops away for a little while. It doesn't evaporate, but you get a little pause there. In that pause, you have a chance to see the birth of the self. In the most ordinary situations, it's born. Suddenly, there's walking. Walking is happening, and then there's you, because there was a little pause there where there wasn't you, you, me, [...] me walking, me walking, me talking, me opening the door, me doing this. It's just like there was a pause where you weren't like obsessing on yourself. You study, you study, you study, you study, what do you study? You study your obsession with yourself. You study your obsession with yourself.

[53:06]

And there's a little break, and then suddenly, you know, you lift your arm up. I mean, I shouldn't say. The arm lifts up. Oh, I'm here. Not I did that even, but just I'm here, and that was not karma at that moment. You didn't do that. Actually, this was stillness. This wasn't even movement. And then there was you, and then there was me, and I got to see that. Rather than I'm doing this, I'm doing that, you know, when am I going to understand Buddhism? It's more like you study the self, which is trying to understand. You study, you study, and then there's a little break, and then you're totally surprised that you're there. And then, whatever it is, you see, it gives you your life. That self is not a self which is there already and always by itself. It's a self which has been born by what's happening.

[54:11]

And then, and then, the next moment could be the same. There it goes again. Something happened, and I'm here. Something goes happen. There's a self along with, it turns out there's a self that comes along with everything that happens, but is it there before, and then we do stuff, or does stuff happen, and then it's there? One's delusion, and the other's enlightenment. When you've got the self, and then you go to practice, or you go to have breakfast, or you look at the sunset, carrying the self, look at the sunset, carrying the self, have lunch, that's delusion. And, strictly speaking, that is, quotes, delusion. It's not really delusion, because that's not really happening. But that's what we mean by delusion is, I'm here already, and now I'm going to live my life. Or I'm here, and then I'm going to go over to the world. No. But that is what we mean by delusion. The other way is, something, anything happens, and then

[55:17]

the self appears. To witness that, and act from there, is enlightenment. To witness, I've got the self, and now I'm going to live my life, to witness that, and to act from there, is delusion. If we're in delusion, it's okay. All you have to do is study that. Study, study, [...] and watch the karma that's generated from there. That study will transform the consciousness from which this deluded activity is arising. So, from this delusion, karma arises. If you study this process by which karma arises, the consciousness which gave rise to the karma, the consciousness which gave rise to delusion, gets transformed. It just tips a little bit, or it gives a little break, and a change of perspective. No big magic destruction. Just a slightly different take. Just like it's a slightly different take

[56:24]

to study this than to not study it. In going along doing stuff, just that little bit of difference between doing it and doing it plus studying it. In other words, take consciousness, which is the source of delusion, and use it to study the process of arising of delusion. It's a subtle shift, and that subtle shift provides the opportunity for another subtle shift called understanding or insight into the whole process, and a breaking of your belief in the reality of it. So that transformation then causes a release and an awakening, and then the action which comes from this new perspective is enlightened action, because it's not action you do, it's action that's given to you. That's the way you see it now. Could you give me an example of something like that?

[57:26]

Well, like if you come into a room, let's say the activity of a body entering the room, okay? You can be like outside the Cherry Foundation, now you're going to come in, right? You're going to get yourself in the door. This is, you know, not a big deal, but sometimes it is, depends on who's in the room, and also depends on what you're going to do when you get there. But let's say you got to do some big deal, you know, and there's some big important people in your life in the room, so this is going to be a major thing, get yourself into the room. You're going to get into the room. That's like you're not in the room, right? And now you're going to be in the room, but you're already there before the room, and you come into the room. So that's the kind of life it is, very dramatic and wonderful. The other way is, you come, you enter the room, and suddenly you realize upon entering the room, you become aware of yourself. You experience a birth of a new life upon entering the room, and it's a new life for

[58:36]

you, and you didn't drag yourself in the room. You didn't try not to drag yourself in the room, but you actually weren't worried about yourself outside the door, and what's going to happen to you? And stepping over the threshold, you experience that you have just entered a new life, that a new self was born upon stepping over the threshold. And you're born by the floor, the walls, and the people in the room. As they appeared, you experienced your life being born, and there's a kind of freshness there. And also, if you think about that, if the self thinks about that, if you got the self beforehand, before that happens, the self would be afraid. Well, what will happen then? If you already got yourself, you're afraid too, but you have some sense of control. This other way, you have no sense of control. It's more like a sense of love, like I trust, but it's not even I trust, it's a trust in not carrying yourself over the threshold.

[59:37]

And then, in fact, it works out. Everything does give you a new life, but you don't know what it's going to be, and that's what it means by being new. So, the way you get yourself into that is not by trying to do that, but by studying how you ordinarily do it. You study how you ordinarily do it, study this heavy, you know, burdensome way we operate, study that, study that, it drops away sometimes. And then you get this fresh thing of where you didn't know, but you forgot. And then suddenly, you step into some situation, which can also be just walking down the street, you take a step and suddenly you feel a fresh self. But first of all, the smell of the street, the light coming through the trees, the feeling of your feet on the ground, that happens, and then there's your life. So, you feel the life that's dependent on all this, like it always has

[60:39]

been, but you feel, it's like you feel your roots, you feel the roots of your life, and you feel how the roots of your life are the roots of yourself. And you exhale. And you feel relaxed, and you trust, you know, you trust that it always was that way, that your life is not coming from what's, not supporting your life. It never does. Your life is always coming from what supports your life, of course. But we lose track of that, and we think, hey, I gotta, you know, marshal the forces of my life and make my life come. But, you know, that's the burdensome, deluded way of living, and that's protective and that's power. So, that's the origin of karma, is going for power rather than love. And so, you know, that's our makeup, is to go for power. That's our bodies.

[61:45]

And that is powerful, but that makes us unhappy, and also makes us dangerous and harmful sometimes. Not always, but it always makes us somewhat unhappy. It sometimes makes us, of course, extremely blissful too. Sometimes it makes us very happy, these power trips, when they're successful. But even then, we're, you know, in that state, we're still somewhat agitated and frightened underneath. So, we did make that move over and over in the past, that power move. And so, now, if we want to, like, find our peace with that and find happiness under this situation, the thing is to turn around and to study, first of all, study karma.

[62:34]

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