bring that second type of wisdom into the context of yoga, of mindedness, to bring the wisdom into the context of calm and unity. All the teachings about various things that you understand and understood and analyzed into being in your All the Buddhist teachings actually come from an embodiment. It resides from an embodiment. It's transformed into some reasoning process about how to convey his wisdom. And then it gets transformed again into words. so that people can listen and learn or read.

[01:04]

Three levels of wisdom are the three levels that teaching about what's going on in this world. They come from samadhi. They come up from meditation to reasoning and analysis and then into which And this process is in the Buddhist scriptures. And there are two basic courses of practice. But there are two kind of main vehicles that are proposed in Buddhism. One vehicle is a vehicle of personal liberation. personal enlightenment, and the other vehicle is the vehicle of universal liberation, for universal enlightenment.

[02:07]

And in both vehicles, the scriptural presentation of both vehicles, of both paths, one path is the path to become an enlightened person who learns enough to be liberated. from bondage and suffering. Simply become wise and compassionate. This is a process through personal discipline and personal purity. It's not so much about personal purity, personal liberation, but about compassion. And it's a path not just to be enlightened, but to be a Buddha for the welfare of all beings. And that path, and in both paths and paths, the teaching of wisdom is presented in terms of these three types of wisdom.

[03:08]

But I'm just going to present the wisdoms in the context of the universal same names. I'm not becoming Buddha. OK. So the foundation of the path of the Buddha is passion. That's the first thing. It's a basic thing in the fundamental path. Passion means also means means. Compassion means not just that you care about other people and want them to be free, but also compassion is the various means by which you work to that end.

[04:14]

The first point is compassion, and then there's ways to train in compassion. The next point, the next phase, the next major ingredient in the path to Buddhahood is called the enlightenment, or the thought of enlightenment, or the attitude, or the altruistic wish to the omniscience of a Buddha for the welfare of the base is the practice. This is basically two parts, two major dimensions. One dimension is, in particular, the compassionate means, types of compassionate means, ethical discipline, patience,

[05:24]

diligence and samadhi. So samadhi is one of the means and also samadhi can also be used for the mind which embraces both means and the other side. So two sides of spiritual practice are means and wisdom. Right here is that as you towards Buddhahood, you practice compassion, you practice compassion, and you practice compassion. And then someday this thought, this wish, this aspiration to be a Buddha will arise. For you can be practicing these virtues before of enlightenment arises. and during and after.

[06:26]

We need wisdom to accompany these practices so that they may become of, in our mind, counterdicts the wonders of our mind. The wisdom which purifies our compassion is the wisdom which purifies our sense that the people we're working for, those who we wish to benefit, people we're trying to help, the people we're devoted to, wisdom purifies us of the sense that they're other. We can be virtuous and we can work for the welfare of others very effective, I would say, sometimes in that work. Happy to do that work and be highly appreciated.

[07:32]

For that type of work, for that type of work in the world of virtuously trying to assist and care for all living beings, that work is somewhat undermined in the sense that other people are out there separate from us. put it positively, that work will be inconceivable more effective if we have wisdom, which understands that there's nobody out there separate from us. Buddhahood, we don't wait until we have perfect wisdom before we start doing these practices, before practicing compassion, before we start practicing giving, before we start practicing ethical precepts, ethical practices, before we start practicing diligence, before we start practicing concentration. To start those things until we have great wisdom.

[08:40]

We actually... I work on wisdom and virtue at the same time. We could say that there's a yoga of compassion. First of all, we can yoke ourself, or we can join in to the practice of compassion. So that's the first kind of yoga that we do practice. ourselves with compassion. Train ourselves with compassion. Yes. Start small. Good. Start small with what? What you feel compassion for. Give me an easy example of something to feel compassion for.

[09:41]

child. For you, that's like, that would be an easy start. You have a sick child, feel some compassion for that child. Yeah, so the key ingredient in developing compassion is to stop the community of suffering. And Paul is suggesting that we can become aware of suffering from, she said, small to recommend that. Sounds funny. It means start with what's pretty easy. Start with the session. It's easy to open up to. If you said, be vulnerable. Be vulnerable means, well, in some sense means that you are vulnerable. In other words, that you can be hurt. And if you can be hurt, it might fall out quite soon that you are, that you feel hurt.

[10:43]

Feel any hurt? Asking you? I was asking you, everybody in the Uri one's head, how they're hurting in this room, so it's hard for you to ask me for them because they're not telling me what's anonymous or understand probably Maybe it's kind of for somebody to stand up and tell us now about how much suffering they're giving us a chance for a discussion. Question? Okay. What pain do you have right now?

[12:02]

You have physical pain in your chest. You're suffering in your chest. And then the thought arises in my mind. Is it implied here that the path to Buddhahood starts with recognizing pain? How it starts? Anything called Buddhahood starts with, like, facing, coming with pain. Is that a little surprising? Start with that? Yes. If you noticed some ethical behavior and you found that You found that, what do you call it, diary?

[13:11]

And you thought, I'd like to learn how to be generous like that. I'd like to learn how to be ethical like that. So that, in a sense, would seem like maybe the start of your interest in those practices, maybe. Is that what you mean? Practice is like what we call sympathetic joy, or it's the joy that will come. It's a practice to develop joy, which comes as you start to notice, for example, how kind everybody is. Did you say kind? Yeah. To start to look and see how people are being kind. that generates a kind of joy in appreciating other people.

[14:14]

So that's part of a Buddhist practice, definitely. The path to Buddhahood, in some sense, that's a good thing that you just mentioned, and it's a part of the practice. What I'm actually suggesting is more basic than that. First, compassion comes from noticing suffering. But first of all, you have to notice the suffering. So there's a presentation of practices. One of them is loving kindness. Another one's compassion. Another one's this joy that you mentioned of noticing other people's good qualities, among which kindness or generosity and so on. And the other one's equanimity. These are practices, right?

[15:15]

They are not presented necessarily as the foundation of the path. The foundation of the path is actually one of them. compassion in order to be real rather than just hear about it, it involves actually noticing the suffering. Practices you're mentioning are good, but one of them in that list is compassion, but The compassion is considered to be more fundamental in the path of Buddhahood than the Synthetism, which comes and goes, in a sense. You might be appreciating other people's virtues as a meditation practice, but you might not be doing that.

[16:18]

But if you weren't doing that, you would still be practicing compassion. That practice is a kind of compassion in a way. the compassion, but it doesn't actually address, you're not addressing the suffering, you're more addressing the merits of people, which is wonderful to notice, it's a joy to notice, but you notice there are shortcomings. The root of the vehicle to Buddhahood is to notice suffering and then to notice Notice a little bit, like Paul's recommending, or she's recommending a little bit, but noticing a little bit of suffering, like when you notice the child that's a little bit sick, and maybe see a child that's a little bit more sick, and the child is more sick, and you see several sick children, and you see a few sick dogs. You see that suffering touches everybody.

[17:21]

saying are you saying what you look on the outside yes not on the inside of yourself wouldn't suggest looking outside rather than inside look both directions you know you can't when you look up you can't see it in other people but it's not too difficult to see it in yourself it's almost always there in yourself subtle but in yourself and then do it in others. And then let it open. And then the next thing that comes is, I don't know if it comes, but the next thing that can come is you actually would like your own self, you'd actually like to be free of your own suffering and you'd like other people to be free of their suffering. And you start to work, this is the hard part, yes? You hold things with acceptance and not aversion. You have to be free of suffering.

[18:31]

Well, I thought you just answered the question. If you hold things with acceptance and not with aversion, we'll be free of suffering. So if we can hold our own suffering and other people's suffering with acceptance and not aversion, we'll be free of the suffering. there may be other work to do to fill out what acceptance and non-aversion means. What I mentioned earlier was that this practice of samadhi, where you're actually realizing that the awareness of the suffering, the awareness of the suffering and the suffering, that they're reading one point, When we realize that, we become free of suffering. You have to suffer and go away. Because at that point, we're not, we're accepting it.

[19:35]

We're realizing the acceptance of it and we're not avoiding it. Suffering that we can become free of is the suffering which is due to feeling separate, misunderstanding our relationship with other beings, other beings and things that are on their own. That's the suffering that is with us because we also have habits of numbing ourselves and distracting ourselves from our anxiety. And we were all, you know, kind of, nobody's like coming and taking your seat away so far. If you did, you might feel some, you might feel really uneasy. Somebody said, would you, would you, seat? All this. I mean, I look deeply into your, you know. What about that anyway?

[20:40]

If someone suddenly became close to you, you might suddenly become aware that you feel separate from them. But as long as they skip far away, you don't notice, you know, the separation isn't really like that pretty deal to you. If we get close sometimes, we feel separate. Just because it got close, we start suffering. Because it got close, we start to notice that we have a low level of anxiety about almost everybody. we think, realize of our relationship, or the samadhi of our relationship. We really don't know how to accept somebody and not avoid them. On some level, the fact that we feel separate from people is a kind of avoidance. Truly accept both our oneness. that's painful by just trying to make a revolution in our attitude, to just try to open to our own self, to be the suffering.

[21:53]

And then to see if we can get to a point where we actually ourselves want more to everybody we meet be really dear to us. Training to be a Buddha is to train ourselves to feel that everyone's really dear to us. Yes? Well, I have the advantage of, what do you call it, objective knowledge. Objective knowledge in the sense of knowledge, where we feel that what we know is an object which is external to us. I think that there's something useful about it, that an effective adaptation in the history of the group.

[23:00]

That was a breakthrough. a psychic breakthrough to actually be able to see that the world was external. The advantage when it was first discovered, when it was first imagined, it still has, in a lot of abuses, a lot of advantages. However, it comes with a price tag of anxiety and a lot of things that promote our situation, to give us more power relative to other beings, also sometimes disturb our relationships with them. Logical advantage at first. And this equipment by which we can imagine quite easily is separate from us. And therefore, and it quite naturally follows that we feel uneasy about it. commitment is our self of that illusion so compassion uh doesn't you know doesn't exclude appreciating people's virtues once you once you start feeling some compassion and start to think that it would be nice if people could become free of suffering then people's virtues might help you uh

[24:24]

Now, feeling that somebody's dear is not necessarily the same as thinking that they have a lot of virtues. You know, feel that somebody's got a lot of virtues and they're dear, but somebody might not be able to see too many virtues at the moment anymore and still feel that they're very dear. The thing is that no matter how they appear, and then, And then you can want to devote yourself to practicing generosity with them, practicing ethical precepts with them, to be patient with your interactions with them in these previous practices, and also practice samadhi, which is the initial antidote state where we feel Actually, who it is, mind and object are one.

[25:31]

Even though we still have some kind of illusion that people are separate, when we're in samadhi, when we're practicing yoga, we feel like that's not true in some way, and we calm down, even while we still kind of think people are out there, separate from us. Maybe they aren't. Practice these things. facilitated while we still have not developed perfect wisdom. We haven't seen that yet. We're going to work towards that because we know teaching that these people that are dear to us will be more helpful to them And I was through the shelter street which came to my head. And I take her open and I'm sure that the cat children, the dog, had been eating.

[26:35]

Just stupid speaking as you were asking me what feeling came longer than anything before. You see the animal, he is a killer. I saw him as an angel. So I didn't see it, meaning that I didn't feel it. [...] What was separate? Which is very powerful. If you are vulnerable, see, which was in my heart. I didn't think I thought about it before. If you are vulnerable, They're vulnerable to the suffering of others. I think it'd be good to distinguish between being open to the suffering of others and vulnerable. Vulnerable means you can be hurt. I think you can be open and not vulnerable.

[27:37]

Here's emphasizing openness, right? And being able to be hurt is another. Openness is not necessarily just openness, just being able to be hurt. You can be open to education, joy. Pardon? You can be open to joy, right. Joy, whatever comes. Right. And vulnerable is emphasizing the part that you're open to being hurt. Such a sign of openness. Yeah, I see. And the problem is that although there's more to be open to than being hurt, you can also be open to being helped. You can be open to being loved. You can be open to joy, right. Those are also commoner openness. But those other openness are not vulnerability. Just to try and get the word to be used in the ways in the dictionary, well, is the part where you're open to the pain, not being hurt, injury.

[28:47]

It's a very important issue. I just want to point out that that's what it means. Now, because I don't want to acknowledge my vulnerability, if I close to my vulnerability, that means, what's so good about being aware of how I can be hurt all the time? I'll just go, huh? It connects you to all beings. But there's other ways to be connected to people. Why not just forget about the vulnerability part? Then I can just feel how they're all loving me, they're all helping me, you know? I'm open to all that, but the vulnerability, I'm not going to be aware of how you can hurt me. But the way the mind works usually is that if I overlook my vulnerability, I also overlook how you're helping me. Because the vulnerability is the hard part to look at. It's not so hard to look at how people are helping you. If I can't face the vulnerability that you're not facing tends to spread.

[29:56]

And I use track of how you're helping me, how you can hurt me, or how I can be hurt. If I go around aware of how you can hurt me, then that openness tends to open the other way. So the vulnerability close to things which are not so good to close to, the vulnerability to open to others like people. You have to pay the price. But that's also closely related to acknowledging how you feel separate, because it's in the separateness that you get hurt. It's hard to go around feeling vulnerable. It's hard, right? But that's part of what... That's part of what Judith thought of is can we lack the vulnerability and not avoid it. That will be good. To learn skillfully how to live with it and see what else comes with it.

[31:03]

What else will come with it is compassion. Compassion for people that you maybe want compassion for, compassion towards. But again, as Paul said, you can start little. It's a little peek at your vulnerability. When you feel pain, that's not the same as vulnerable. Vulnerable is when you feel pain, you're able to feel more. Vulnerable is your pain can increase. Vulnerable is when you're getting hurt, you can get hurt six other ways at the same time that haven't happened yet. Vulnerable is to be aware that you've got other problems that might be coming to you. Besides the one you're already feeling. To feel the suffering you're already feeling is good. But to be aware that bigger ones are coming. Bigger problems are coming. Bigger problems are coming than any of us have experienced it.

[32:08]

Check out before they come. I'll have bigger problems than we've seen before. Bigger pains. Bigger shocks. More are coming. The sooner we get used to the stuff, the better, the sooner we're on the Buddhist path. Making joyful. Practicing compassion. The better, yes. Let's talk a little. Does it seem, do you think to yourself that, I mean, I'm just wondering how you conceptualize any of problems, do you think of them as more problems or do you think more coming? Well, I think of it as, in one sense, I think of it as like waves coming, the crashing tidal waves coming. What's your experience of that? Well, they haven't come yet.

[33:09]

I've had a few little waves. Recently I broke my leg, even though it was a little wave. I'm riding, I rode that wave, and then I'm riding in the recovery wave. A tendency to think, well, we won't be breaking our leg again soon. But there's also a tendency to not spend my time thinking about that I'm not going to break my leg. And also not to think that I am going to break my leg. But just that basically, I kind of feel like this was really hot potatoes compared to what's probably going to come. It just is coming. It just is coming. And in some sense, the practice of yoga or the practice of, you know, the practice of Buddhist way is to help us get ready for this big wave, these big waves that are coming. And so that we not only can ride them, but ride them in a way that benefits other people.

[34:14]

The way it hits, the way we respond to it, it's kind of like, I've been waiting for you. So the problem is really like an opportunity. It's like, this is what I've been waiting for all these years. So that when a wave like this came, I could respond in a way that really inspired me and everybody else how good it is to practice. Because look at how she handled that wave. That's fantastic. She like really took it in stride and kept loving people right through that big flipperoo that she was put through. You know? What comes to my mind is this... The famous fight was between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. Was that the fight in Canada and Africa? Is that here? It was either Fraser or Foreman. Anyway, some big, powerful guy was fighting this aging boxer.

[35:14]

And this was like a big wave, you know. The wave that was coming was much stronger than him, but he, some people were waiting for this moment. When he was like, when this big wave hit him, he adjusted. So we had these big waves that were coming. We can get knocked over by them. We can retract, we can get knocked over by them when we resist them. They can't knock you over if you know how to flow with them. But sometimes it requires tremendous skill to flow with some big shocks. So flowing with the little shocks, and the little shocks are like everybody you meet is a little shock. Some people are big shocks, but most people are little shocks. Most people are a little bit of a shock. Even when it's pleasant, it's a little bit of a shock, because even when it's pleasant, There's still that separation. It's jolts you, you know.

[36:17]

Because that separation is jolting. It's kind of ict in reality. It makes sense. It's separation. We go, we even go to see people that we really want to see. People we really want to be with. We go out of our way to go be with them. And when we get to be with them, we feel the jolt of this person we really want to be with. And we want them to try to get away. Because of the You know what I mean? I don't want business to meet this person and you actually meet them and there's this very strong thing and like, I want to go up someplace where I don't feel. You do want to meet, but when we get close and we don't meet, it's hard for us. Meeting other people. It includes confessing that we don't find somebody dear. That's part of the process of getting to feel that people are dear, is to feel like, I don't really feel this person is as dear to me as .

[37:19]

I confess that. But I would like to learn how to appreciate this person. I think that would be wonderful. I truly appreciate this person. You're thoroughly, absolutely confused. You're happy? May as well be. I mean, it's as good as anything else. But are you saying that when the sense of separation stops, then the shocks, or the sense of shock stops? Yeah. I'm saying that's peaceful. But it doesn't necessarily sound like that's the thing to aim for. I mean, it's a good thing to know about, but not necessarily... The reason I'm asking that is because this morning, I was having this little conversation with myself, and it was about... I realized I'm constantly, constantly in some state of anxiety, always.

[38:22]

And I hadn't really noticed that before, so I was like... Yeah, we're okay. We're okay. Yeah, happy. But so... Good for you. You noticed? Yeah, well, I was distraught because I was like, okay, so this is where it all comes down to. How do I get past it? And then it's like, no, you don't want to get past it. You want to accept it. And I was like, okay, I accept it. And that's fine, but it's like the moving through it. When you ask about the suffering, I think that that's where the suffering comes in for me. If I just sat still somewhere and stayed hiding... In my room, which was kind of where I felt like doing today, I don't think it would hurt so much. It was like if I can just be still in that golden air. But I can't do that. I mean, I won't do that. I've got to get up and go. And so as I move through or move past the fear, it hurts. Always. It's a kind of a hurt it. But it doesn't necessarily have to.

[39:26]

It was what you were saying. If you notice the pain, you can also notice for your help. So I got this call, and it was like, I want you to come in. And it was like, oh, God, I really was hoping you'd say you don't want me to come in. And I got there, and it was through that, and it was really OK, because things were settling the way they needed to. But it was like, if I could just make that stop, that shock. If you can make the shock stop. The shock stop. That sense of separateness. I was just like, if everything is the way it's always been going to be, it's okay. Just do it. Fine. I can't stay there. I can't stay at that one point at that place. I have to assume that it's there. You can hear the teaching that's there. then you can do practices which deepen your understanding and realization that that's the way but part of the process of realizing samadhi to recognize that one thing you said is that you can't closet you don't want to stay in the closet if you are in a closet and you're feeling anxious in the closet

[40:49]

And when you go with your anxiety in the closet, you're probably going to be ready to open the door. You might feel more anxiety, but since you face the anxiety felt in the closet, then you face the anxiety out of the closet. Anxiety, you can be patient with it, although you still feel anxiety because you still don't see straight. You're still a little bit deluded. You're still deluded. So you still feel anxiety, but you're being patient with it. In a sense, you're getting comfortable with it, being yourself with it, even though the source of this or this split in the relationships with the world is still there, so it still hurts. But you find that being close to it is a lot better than running away from it. In some sense, you cannot let the closet into bigger and bigger worlds But we start small.

[41:50]

We face what it's like under your covers. And face the anxiety under your covers, then somebody can say it right now. And you say, no, not yet. How about now? OK. And you come up more and more. The goal is not just that you get over this delusion. part of the process is for you to get over the delusion. The other part of it is that all these practices of giving and ethics and diligence and patience and concentration, which you have been doing, as you develop wisdom, these practices become released from the welfare of the whole world. So the point is that the whole world realizes That is you working with everybody, helping you, of course.

[42:55]

And one of the ways that is by meeting you and giving you chances to practice compassion, giving you chances to practice to see if you care about them, to see if you're open to their suffering, to see if they're dear to you, to see if you can give to them, to see if you can be patient with them, to see if you can be enthusiastic about being very careful about all your relationships. to be honest. All these kinds of practices that you can work on with people, they help you do that. You can't develop these virtues without people. Fortunately, there's plenty of people and animals to give us opportunities to develop these virtues. We have to have other beings to develop these virtues. We have to gain a world to develop these virtues. as we open to suffering and open to compassion, we start to see that developing these virtues would really be good.

[43:57]

Practices plus, you know, meditation practices in terms of calming down and realizing mental appointedness and then the wisdom practices help us see differently. See differently. If we had the wisdom, then all those practices would be very easy. If we could see clearly, we'd know exactly how to give. We'd know how much to give. Give the right number of pennies or nickels to the beggar. It would be like a really good meeting. Help the person. Compassion. And then we call these virtues. We work on meditation. And then we start working on wisdom. And as part of wisdom, as we learn teachings which help us see better, then you take those teachings and we understand them and bring them back to our meditation.

[44:57]

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