You can be present and not be in touch with your anxiety, but if you stay present for a while, then you start to notice that you're expressing yourself. You start to notice what self-expression is and what it isn't. You start to notice that you're expressing yourself. Can you feel some separation from others? then you start, then probably anxiety will start to manifest. And if it doesn't, is that a sign that you're not being yourself? Um, well, yeah. Kind of. I mean, can't say absolutely, but you might start, one, you might start becoming a little anxious about that. You might sense, you know, since, especially now that you've heard me suggest that to you.

[01:02]

So, like, for example, Kathleen, before she expressed herself there, was probably feeling different than after she, than during and after she expressed herself, right? So, the difference between just sort of, like, she was expressing herself before, but somehow that, that expression brought her quite a, she became quite aware of expressing herself, right? And that maybe your views are somewhat different from Galen's. I don't feel anxious. I feel anxious now. So what is that anxiety like? Well, it's a little uncomfortable. And I think that's really a fear I have about expressing myself. I'll just word it out when I'm thinking. Well, you can have a fear that if you express yourself, you'll feel anxious. But the anxiety is not the fear that if you express yourself, something will happen. You can feel the anxiety before anything happens. Just the fact that you're by yourself, expressing yourself, you feel, you feel some, you know, torment.

[02:10]

You feel under some threat or attack. And if you don't feel it yet, then just enter more and more deeply into self-expression. And again, that doesn't mean self-expression. Self-expression is not just that you express yourself and assert yourself. Because part of what we are is receptive, too. And we are beings which have the capacity to recognize others and to respond to others. But you can't respond to others without recognizing them. Does that make sense? If you're responding without recognizing them, you're just responding to your own idea. And in fact, we do respond to our own idea But we can also check out our idea as we respond. We can say things and ask questions. We can ask questions. We can doubt that we actually understand the other person. We can wonder. We can be in awe. We can respect. In other words, we can look again at somebody and to see if what we thought is anything more than what we thought.

[03:19]

This is part of being yourself, too, is to actually go up to people and say, what's happening? I mean, and actually wonder. Or wonder even before you ask, and then wonder, and then ask, and then wonder, and ask and wonder, and ask and wonder, and doubt. That, you know, existentially doubt, not doubt like corrosively, unhealthily doubt, in the sense that you don't express yourself. Doubt your own perceptions. That's a normal part of self-expression. That's being more, to be a person and think you're right, that's part of being a person. To wonder if you're right is more of a person. So as you enter into a relationship with somebody and you start to express the part of yourself that's interested in people and wondering about people, you start to care more about people. And as you care more about people, you feel more anxiety. you become concerned about what they might be and how they are.

[04:23]

At the same time, you can't just be concerned about them, you also have to express yourself because you do respond to them, always. You sit there and let them sit there, or you sit there and ask them questions, or you sit there and ask them if you can tell them something you want to say. As you get more and more into being more and more vividly yourself and not somebody else, I say to you, you become more anxious. And when you finally... you know, don't move at all from what you are. At the same time, don't move while fully expressing yourself. This is the story of Buddha, you know, the night he was enlightened, you know, he said, okay, I'm going to sit down and I'm not going to move until I settle this great matter. And then they came. It's not been depicted in a major motion picture. that the hosts, armies, armies of testers came and tormented him and teased him and tried to distract him and he didn't move.

[05:28]

He stood his ground. But it wasn't like he closed his eyes to these beings. He was like, you know, quite, you know, quite impressed. And he responded. He recognized these powerful forces presences coming towards him, right? Testing him to see whether his resolve would hold, his resolve to not move, but not just to not move for just not moving's sake, but to not move until he's settled the matter. And not moving has something to do with settling the matter. In other words, not moving from yourself has something to do with settling the matter. And he said, I'm going to be myself all the way until I understand myself. And then, Then anxiety comes and says, oh no you don't, you can't do this, get out of here. We're going to kill you. Okay, here's some destiny cards for you.

[06:30]

This destiny, this destiny, this destiny. Will this one get you? Here's one gorgeous woman, here's two gorgeous women, here's ten, here's all of them. Here's one handsome man, here's two handsome men. Here's monsters. He hears all kinds of terrors. Are you going to move? Are you going to stop beating yourself under these circumstances? He didn't. But it wasn't that he became numb to this anxiety. He felt it. And he responded. And he kept asserting himself and kept saying, I'm going to continue to be here and face this. I'm going to continue to be here and be myself and face this. And he just kept doing it. And then they backed off There's a dance there between you and these demons of anxiety. There's a dance. Are you dancing?

[07:32]

Some people don't know what I'm talking about. Well, then you don't feel like you're dancing exactly, do you? Or it's a funny dance. Do you, I mean do you, I'm going to ask you if you do, but I'm not going to ask you if you do, I'm just going to say that people sometimes think that you can stand up and be yourself and nobody will come and dance with you. I say the dancing partner will come. If you sit still, the world will start dancing with you. You know? the trees and the walls and the stones and the mountains and the rivers and the people and the dogs and the cats, they'll start dancing with you. You know? They'll come around and they'll come right in front of you and they go, woo, woo, woo, and they'll move on. And they'll come, woo. You can't necessarily, I say, okay, now I'm going to dance with Pam. And Pam's my dance partner. No, Pam just comes here for a second and then Pam's gone. And then there's Judith.

[08:34]

and then there's Rafael, and then there's Martin. You don't get to be in control of the dance partners in this case. That's part of the anxiety thing. You don't get to dial in your partner. But if you hold still and be yourself, you'll get partner after partner after partner. But the partners isn't the anxiety. The anxiety is, that you have no control, because that is what you feel when you have no control over what your partner is going to be, and that all these partners are actually just like symbols of what seems to threaten you as an individual. You see, we're not really individuals. This individual thing is a temporary setup. It's not going to hold. It's going soon.

[09:40]

While it's here, we have a chance to understand through this limitation. And the unlimited has a chance to realize itself in dynamic relationships through our being. So do you understand a little bit more about what anxiety is now? Do you have another question? The train hasn't started up yet. Yeah. I understand better because I was going through a lot of anxiety as you were talking. Can you tell us about it? Well, I felt a lot of sadness. I felt like crying from here. Okay, so sadness is not anxiety. So what's the sadness got to do with anxiety? Tell me about the anxiety.

[10:53]

Crying is not anxiety. Crying can be a response to anxiety. Tell me about the anxiety. Maybe that instant before I felt the sadness or... Uh-huh. Okay, good. This might be the case. Now, in the instant before you felt the sadness, what was that instant? That I had lost something. That you had lost something. Right. When you lose something, and also I might ask, he lost something. Now, the sooner you lost, did you let go of what you lost? Yes. You did? No. No. That's what the sadness is for. The sadness is to finish the job. Now, what did you lose? I want to say illusion.

[12:03]

I want to say a... Yes, illusion. Now, which one? Or which ones? A picture of myself. What was the picture? I don't know. And when you lost this picture, which you can't quite tell us about, did another picture of yourself come? Yes. And did that picture of yourself that came get clearer after you were sad? Did it tend to get clearer? Did it get clearer after you got into the sadness? Yes.

[13:04]

The sadness left. And then there was some clarity. Of a new person? Yes. Yeah. There was a person who didn't know about anxiety, for example. He didn't know about anxiety. He was a younger person, maybe in some ways kind of, well, I don't know, maybe kind of cute in his unsophisticatedness. But anyway, that's what you had going for you and that was your best so far. Not best, but that was your current model. And then you lost that one. That one went away. But you couldn't quite let it go, so you were sad. And then you got this new person who knows a little bit more about anxiety. After the following, with this conversation, is that okay?

[14:07]

Anybody else want to stop the train before it starts going again? Yes? What is your name again? Peggy. Peggy. And you go with this peg. Book it. Book it. For this row of selves. I've been wanting to ask this since early last night about the difference between non-objectivity and the word illusion. Are they synonymous? What's non-objectivity? Weren't you talking about something non-object? Oh, objectlessness? Objectlessness. Or objectless meditation? Yes. Would that be the same or synonymous with the word illusion? I mean, I can't get the word out of my mind. Objects are illusions. Illusions are objects. Objectless meditation is illusionless meditation, you could say.

[15:15]

Can you imagine a meditation that's illusionless? no illusions, which means there's no objects. So like if I'm meditating on, what's your name? Reena. If I'm meditating on the object Reena, okay, what's objectless meditation in this case of looking at her? It's an illusion. Pardon? It's an illusion. Yeah, so what's objectless, illusionless meditation when I'm looking at this woman? What would that be like? Hmm? What would that be like? Would she be you? That's kind of like it, yeah. She would be me, in other words, she wouldn't be an object. That's what objectless meditation would be like, is that she wouldn't be an object anymore. Or, that my meditation would be on the process by which I create the sense of her being an object.

[16:25]

I would be aware of how I make up her as an object. In that sense, I wouldn't believe her as an object anymore. That would be objectless meditation. In other words, all there would be is doksan. There would just be, you know, solitary meeting. And then there would be anxiety. Because looking at her, I would not be moving. I wouldn't try to move towards her or away from her because it would not be possible for me to go farther away from her. All that would be possible would be for me to more clearly understand how that is showing me my face. When I look at you and understand that you are the, that that is how I see my face right now. This is my only chance to see my face. I have no chance other than looking at you while I'm looking at you. This is how I meet myself. Then I feel anxiety. In other words, you feel anxiety when you respect every person as kind of like your salvation.

[17:29]

Not your savior. They're not going to save you. They are your salvation. to save you from your illusions. And then you feel anxiety because you're not moving and it was just you. And also you have a lot of doubt because you don't, you kind of doubt that that's you. but you also doubt that it's not you. You know, you perceive if your equipment says it's not you, but you doubt that. You also doubt that that really is you. In fact, don't we doubt that, don't you doubt that who you're looking at is you? Yeah. Yes. But also, when you start doubting that it's not you, you start doing objectless meditation. In other words, when you doubt that other people are not you, you start to think that maybe you're experiencing illusions. And when you feel that way and are with people that way, you feel anxiety.

[18:32]

You feel anxiety for yourself and you also feel like maybe they might feel anxiety too if they're in your neighborhood. And in fact, they probably, they very well might. Necessarily, it's optional for them. Not for you. You're in the middle of it. What's next? I think I've got it so far. I mean, as far as I'm going. As far as you're going to up to this moment, yes. Start the train. I think you were first. Did you hear him say Reb before you raised your hand? In our group, a question came up about where we feel various feelings, like fear or anxiety in our body. And it got a little... difference of opinion. One of us felt... Is it Kathy or Kathleen?

[19:41]

I'm Kathy. Kathy. That's Kathleen over there. And where's Catherine? So I wanted to see if we could resolve this. My own sense of fear, I classically feel it in my solar plexus. I don't feel anxiety there. Kathy felt that her fear was up higher and around your heart. Correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. I'm constrictive, actually. Can't breathe. Constrictive heart. Oh, you're... Yeah, I mean, like, it's not... Yeah, I get sick to my stomach, too. It all happens. But I always think of my... a lot here. But I have... I think I have trouble breathing. I mean... Yeah. But it's like I said that when we talked about... in the Dharma talk, I was talking about softening your heart.

[20:43]

When I start softening myself... I breathe up, so I think it's resistance, so I kind of put up an invisible shell and it's pushing against me and I can't breathe. So when I try to soften things, then it goes away. For a minute. Well, when you feel the constriction and you see, you feel the constriction, then in a sense you courageously interact with it. You start participating with the constriction. when you start participating with it, it starts to soften up. Is this going on forever? No. Thank you. Another possibility is that when you say you feel fear in your solar plexus, it may be that it's not so much that you feel the fear in your solar plexus, but you use your solar plexus as a way to relate to the fear, another way to put it, that you want to relate to it from there.

[21:52]

And some other people might use other parts of their body to relate to the fear. So you wouldn't say that there are particular body characteristics between anxiety and fear, and you could differentiate as to which, to the state that you're in? Yeah, there is definitely a difference between anxiety and fear. Anxiety is non-anticipatory. Fear is anticipatory. And the psychochemical reaction of anticipatory types of thoughts are different from the... For example, I swim in the cold water. When I get in the cold water, just when I first get in the cold water, at that moment of just getting in the cold water, It's anxiety. But when I think about whether I'll survive the swim, there's fear. Yes? I'm still not back to anxiety. Well, I'll give you an example of what I said in the group, too, of what I think of as anxiety.

[22:59]

Can I just say one more thing? When I get into cold water, oftentimes people, when they get into cold water, they lose their breath. You know, they stop breathing. It's one of the first reactions. Go ahead. When I was thinking that the interpretation of what anxiety is, like when it's a state of being, is that you have to be... Everything is anxious in that anything could happen any time. So, like, the example I gave is like you're driving home and, you know, it's kind of anxious and it's night and it's curvy roads. Okay, so I'm saying that when you start thinking about anything could happen, okay, that anything can happen quality, that's where anxiety lends to the situation, the anything can happen. But when you start, when you make that into an object, then you start having fear.

[24:02]

But what makes the fear have its bite is the implications. And the implications that anxiety offers are basically infinite. So when you feel fear, you know you make it into an object of something that might happen. But you know, but you know that that's not really the full story and it might be much different from that. If you actually could pin it down and say, this is it, then you could start interacting with it and then bring it into the present even. And then you basically got it. And you're back into, you're courageous, you're creative, and your self has started manifesting. But prior to coming back and just being an ordinary person again and realizing again that there's endless possibilities in the next moment. And if you stop breathing, either when you make the anxiety into an object, or when you make it into the object and you start to feel the fight, the pain,

[25:18]

The sting of the fear is all the implications and ramifications that can come with that. That's what makes the fear not so much painful, but upsetting. Anxiety is more just plain painful. Fear makes us get very excited and turns on all these chemical reactions. Anxiety doesn't turn on adrenaline. Fear does. But still, the adrenaline going on isn't so bad. What's bad is these endless possibilities on the back of that object. But again, once you've got an object, you can dance with it, you can participate with it. So when you've got an object, there's some sense of your creativity there. Because when you can participate with something, then it moves a little bit when you move, you know? And when you get that kind of give and take going, your creativity comes back And some meaningfulness in your life starts to come back.

[26:24]

And then non-being is pushed away for a while. Because in non-being, you cannot participate with it. Now, your inability to participate with it is exactly why it's safe, too. And why you can't mess with it, and why it can always be your friend. And why your life support can never be, you could never sell away or damage your life support. Because you can't participate with it. But since you can't participate with it, there can be no meaning and no creativity possible. And we can't stand meaninglessness and lack of creativity. Possibility of that. Because we are meaningful beings and we are creative. So it really is an affront. Being affronted is anxiety. And you might stop breathing there.

[27:30]

And you also might stop breathing even if you make it into an object and become frightened. How are you doing? I'm breathing. Retreat? Yes. Fear can be both beneficial and non-beneficial, or there are fears that are beneficial. Again, whenever you're experiencing fear, you're in a crisis. You can go in a beneficial direction or a non-beneficial direction. Beneficial direction is to use the opportunity of fear. Non-beneficial is to fall into the danger of fear. What's the dangers of fear? Hmm? What? Withdrawal. Hiding. What else? Hatred. Hatred, huh? What else? Anger.

[28:32]

Yep. What else? These are minor, by the way. You get paralyzed. You don't think. You can't elaborate. You could be paralyzed. That wouldn't be so bad, but that would happen. Or you could stick it to somebody else and want to allay fear. Yeah. You can basically, when somebody's afraid, you can get them to do... Basically, anything. You can get them to hurt other people because they're afraid. You can say, go hurt that person. Go hurt your mother. Go hurt your children. Go hurt your best friend. Tell a lie about your best friend. Otherwise, blah, blah, blah. And if you're afraid, you can be made to do it. Maybe not instantly, but you can basically, you're a puppet when you're afraid, and you can be made to do cruel things.

[29:39]

Because other things also can happen with fear, but that's the worst, right? That you can be cruel and harmful to other beings. Of course, to yourself. You already are to yourself. I could go on. But anyway, basically, the most horrible things that people do are driven by fear. Just by greed and hate, even by hate, you won't do some things. I mean, even by hate, you won't kill person after [...] person. You won't do that. Just by hate. Just by hate, you'll kill one and you'll kill another, but pretty soon you'll start to get sick of it. Like Achilles or something, you know? He got angry. He took his girlfriend away, right? That was pretty bad. But then they killed his friend, right? He got really upset and went and killed lots of Trojans. But after a while, he got sick of it. He gets sick of it.

[30:40]

But you can be driven far beyond what you do by hatred, by fear. You can kill people that you are not angry at. over and over you can be cruel to people you're not angry at to protect yourself from what you're afraid of anyway that's the incredible danger of fear that's why we must face it dance with it neutralize it even though we're going to go back and visit again and again because anxiety is always driving it towards us but what's the opportunity of fear there's some opportunity what's the opportunity What? Liberation, but before liberation, what's the opportunity? What? Courage. Courage, yes. It pushes you. Awareness. It pushes you. Where does it push you? What? It pushes you towards the fear. And if you face the fear, then what? What? More yourself. So fear can be, if you understand fear properly, fear is telling you, go back and be yourself.

[31:43]

You're off the track, sweetheart. Come home. Johnny, get away from there, come home. And if you understand that message and come back, then fear has been useful to you because you got off track. And then the fear reaction shows you that you can't afford, you cannot afford not to be home. You cannot afford that. You cannot afford that. And fear is what puts teeth in that. It says, we told you six times that you can't afford it. Now, take this. Take these chemicals. Now come back and be yourself. And when you come back and be yourself in a real way, now you're back on track. Now you're on the road to becoming yourself and to becoming liberated from yourself. That's the opportunity of fear. The other is the incredible danger. It is extremely dangerous if you don't interact with it and face it.

[32:48]

If you turn away from it, it just climbs on your back and runs your life. You've got to turn around and gradually open up to it. I have these hawk talons which I'm going to bring down. I found a hawk skeleton up in the hills. I saved the talons. You've got to have hawk talons or eagle talons and you've got to get a hold of that fear. You've got to have eagle, eagle, eagle spirit. You've got to go and face that fear all by yourself and you've got to keep breathing. If you stop breathing, the fear is going to get you. You've got to breathe into the fear. Not to give it life, but to interact with it. Okay, that's the good thing about clear. Next, yes. What's your name again? Wendy. Wendy. You talked earlier about how sometimes when we let love in, we feel like crying. Yeah. And I don't quite understand why.

[33:50]

I think you said something about that you're giving up control. Did I say that? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, I think I said we have fear. We also have fear of love, of receiving love. Yeah, we have fear of love. Yeah, you said that, and it's just like crying. Yeah, it's like crying. I don't quite understand why. Why what? Because you're so happy. You know? You're so happy. It's like, sometimes I cry at times like that, and I also cry when I see people do their thing. When I see somebody, when somebody comes in front of me, and does their thing. I usually cry. It's so beautiful to see a person being a person. There's nothing more beautiful than a person being totally, completely herself. Nothing. That is it. Nothing more beautiful than a tree being a tree and a temple being a temple and a mountain being a mountain. When I see a mountain being a mountain, I cry. But I'm not in control of my crying.

[34:50]

It's embarrassing. You know? Now, I can try to get control of it, but If I feel not only am I getting to see someone who's really being herself and transcending herself thereby, and am I moved to tears by that beauty and that truth and that freedom and that courage and all that, and that honesty and that integrity, then maybe I can also have enough integrity to cry the way I'm crying rather than the way I should cry. But then I'm also losing control. I'm not any longer worried about how much I should cry, how little I should cry. So then I might become afraid. Maybe I'll cry forever. Maybe I'll get snot on my robes. So then fear can come up. What are the implications of these tears? Will I become dehydrated? Then fear comes in. But before that, I just let go of my control in response to love, in response to appreciation.

[35:55]

I felt safe. I felt like if she can be herself, I can be myself. And it's so beautiful that what I'm going to do is cry now. in terms of it being more personal. In other words, if you accept me or I really feel the acceptance, that might make me feel like crying. That too. Because it's a release or a recognition. Yeah. You get to see the face that looks at your face and tells you that this face says you can be you. As a matter of fact, even the face that says you are you. And that's beyond, you know, good and bad. That's just pure virtue. And I'm seeing it, and I'm very happy to see it. And you see me seeing it. And you know what I'm looking at. And you know you didn't do any special tricks. You just told me the truth, for example. Maybe you even told me about a bad thing you did.

[36:56]

But you said it truthfully. And it's not that I'm sad you did the bad thing. It's that I'm touched that you told me the truth. That you dared to be yourself. you cared enough to send the very best. And you dared, you dared to send the very best, which just simply happens to be you. And the best thing that you can ever give this world is yourself. And that's the most scary thing to give. and or the most anxiety-producing thing to give to the world. And that's all the world wants from you. And the world will also tell you, if you give us what we want from you and what only you can give and what we all need, if you give that to us, we'll marginalize you. They'll tell you that. They'll marginalize you like into sainthood or something. And then they'll tie you up and put you on an altar and you'll have a terrible life. Can you give a personal experience?

[37:58]

Yeah, you know, if some people were plopped into my life right now, they'd say, this is hell. Just plain hell. But it's not hell, really. It just wouldn't be that way if you jumped in without deciding to be there. Okay? Whatever that was. Janet hasn't spoken yet in the group. I think I have an example of not knowing how to supply beer. But it might be shock. I was driving home last week. I was just going to go to bed and the truck came out of the driveway. And so I had to brake and drive around and the bus came out of the way. And then I was in this place. It's beautiful. But it was sort of all at once. So it wasn't anticipated.

[39:02]

It was like immediately under danger. There's what he called when somebody goes, you know, like that, you know, and you come around the corner and you go... That kind of thing. There's that kind of thing. It's not really anticipatory. Right. I thought you said, I heard in my head that you said there wasn't anticipatory fear. Yeah, I think the startle reaction is not really fear. It's more like, you know, almost like a reflex. So I don't, in some ways I wouldn't call it. Well, then, once you think of it, a lot of people go through situations, you know, and they go through a situation, and they're totally there, and then they think about, after it's over, they think about what could have happened. So they do this anticipatory thing, even though they know it's not going to happen, they still do it, and it's just like they are anticipating it, and they start sweating and shaking after the fact's over, even if the adrenaline wasn't released.

[40:15]

Not to mention, it also can be adrenaline-fueled. Yeah. So then you have the adrenaline, plus anticipating what could have happened, and then people go into shock afterwards, even though they got through fine, they often faint afterwards, after thinking just a short time about what could have happened. Even have heart attacks afterwards. But it's still this anticipatory fear in the mind. Because I actually made the decision to just drive on home before I got into shock and fear. I thought I'd rather be home to do that than stop on the freeway and talk to these people. Yeah, good, great, great, yeah. And myself some tea. Because you sat down and went into shock. Yeah, that's very reasonable of you. And also educational. You learned about how your psyche operates. Because you know that to go into fear response while you're driving the car is very dangerous. So you wait till you get home. That's much better. But at the moment of just like, when the truck's coming at you, just like, just truck coming at you, before you even think of truck, implications of truck coming at you, just the truck coming at you, there you can feel anxiety.

[41:22]

Before you think about what's going to happen, just like tiger in the face. Get me and tiger. That's, you know, That's, then you're really there, you know? When you look at a tiger, you know who you are. Just think about that. Having a tiger in your face. That's who you are when you're in a situation like that. That's who you are. That's what it's like to be you. And you, and... And can you stand that level of intensity? You're, you know, when you meet a tiger, you're not like, kind of like, well, so what? You know, you don't really... This is a tiger. I respect this tiger. And also, I'm here too. You know, you're both there and there's a tiger there. This is very intense. This is what it's like. Imagine what it's like if you met every person like a tiger. You respected everyone that much. And at the same time, didn't collapse That you stay there and be yourself in the face of this.

[42:26]

This is who you are. You are capable of being such a person. You are such a person. And so our meditation practice is to develop the skill to be present in such a person as you are. And to develop a way to live in the midst of these kinds of meetings And not veer into running away or grabbing. Not killing the tiger, not running away from the tiger. Just meet it. And slow down enough so that at least in one moment you're there with the tiger. For one moment you're there. And you're completely not running away or moving. You're present with that tiger. Yes, one more time for Janet. Yes. Remind me if there was one other thing that I learned from that particular incident, and that was that I didn't have to stop and let the driver know how angry I was at this carelessness.

[43:36]

I was able to just go on. I didn't have to carry on about it, which I would have in the past probably done before. Okay. You didn't have to. Now, what did you learn from that? You've learned that, and that contains another lesson. What's the next lesson? That I don't have control over the way he feels, and I don't have control over changing the way he behaves, so I don't have control. Yes, and what else? That I was able to make a decision about how to express or not express my rage.

[44:39]

Uh-huh, yeah. Uh-huh. And that's, if I may say so, that last answer was warmer to the lesson I'm hoping you'll get out of this. Can you see the direction of that last thing? I was able to... So where is this going? Where do you think I... Yeah. Yeah. It's going towards... You can give up... In other words, you can give up everything else. You can give up teaching people stuff, making sure they learn their lesson, all that stuff. You give up all that stuff because the most important thing is your authentic self. And you got close to it, and that is... That's what you're here for. Turns out that will be the best teaching you can give anybody because what you want them to learn is the same thing. But they can't wait to receive the teaching from somebody who is herself. And that's who people want to have to be their teacher is somebody who is yourself.

[45:46]

That's who they want. And they'll come eventually. Like I said, they will come and dance with you. They will come. Every single one of them will come on their schedule, not on yours. The truck driver may not come right after the accident. He may come quite a while later. You drive home, the truck driver is the one you think should get the lesson maybe. You don't think too much about that because you're so... absorbed in this thing about being you you drive home and the truck driver is the one who should get the lesson from you because they got so close but in fact although they're the one who should get the lesson in a way because they were so careless in fact the truck driver gave you a lesson if he hadn't been so uncareful you wouldn't have got the lesson so the truck driver is your benefactor so that's why you want the truck driver to share in your benefits You want to share your experience of your life with the one who carelessly, unknowingly gave it to you. Because you know he doesn't know. So you want to give it to him out of compassion.

[46:46]

But you know he's not ready, so you just drive home. And on the way home, you stop at the stop sign. And you look at the car next to you and you give it to that person who you didn't expect to give it to. And they look in your eyes and they get it. And they drive on. And then they carry on the tradition. Not of being Janet, but of Janet being Janet. So they get to be Ralph, drives home as Ralph. And Ralph opens the door and looks at his wife and he gives it to her. So the way this is transmitted face to face is not under your control also. And eventually the truck driver drives up and his neighbor's wife looks out the window at him and he gets the message so that when he gets back in the truck, next time he'll be more careful. That's how you wake the truck driver up. In these kind of inconceivable ways, it's the transmission of the vision of what it's like to be a human being and be willing to be present and appreciate your life. There's a story, you know, there's a movie called, I think it's called The Hit.

[47:53]

And I think it's starring John Hurt. Do you know John Hurt? Yeah. And I think the story is about this guy who squeals on the mob, turns the mob in after a bank robbery, and then they catch all the mobsters, and he gets what he called protective custody in Spain. But he kind of knows he's somewhat anxious because he kind of knows they're going to come and get him. He's anxious and afraid. So while he's waiting for the mob to come and get him, the way he works with it is he gets ready, he's going to let them kill him when they come. He said, they'll come, and when they come, I'll just let them kill me. That was his plan. So when they got out of prison, when the mobsters got out of prison, they sent John Hurt, the hitman, to get him. And John Hurt's a very good hitman. He goes and finds a guy, drags him out of his house and takes him away.

[48:58]

Kills a bunch of people in order to do it. I think he has an assistant. Anyway, they abduct this stool pigeon, this squealer, and take him back. But they notice as they abduct him that he's very relaxed and doesn't run away. He runs a little bit, like to the other room or something. But basically he goes along quite peaceably and quite relaxed, and they're impressed. Especially John Hurt's assistant is impressed. And we're impressed too to see this guy's relaxation at being hit. So the idea is he's going to be taken from Spain across the French border and back to Paris where the mobsters are waiting for him. And so there's this trail of blood as the abducted as this person under protective custody is being brought across Spain, and the people are protecting him and trying to get him back from this gangster.

[50:01]

And they abduct a girl, a lovely young Spanish girl. They pick her up as a hostage on the way. Anyway, to make a long story short, at the border, the French-Spanish border, the hitman says, I changed my mind. I'm not going to take you back to Paris. I'm going to kill you here. And the guy says, wait a minute, no, no, that's not the plan. There's even also this one other time when he had a chance to escape, and he didn't. He just walked a few miles away and looked at a waterfall. Anyway, he said, no, no, that's not the plan. I'm not going to get killed here. You're going to take me back, and I'm going to get killed in Paris. He said, no, I'm going to kill you here. And the guy totally freaked out. He became terrified, tried to run away, and the guy shot him. So then the hitman, you know, packs, he kills his assistant. And he's going to kill the girl, you know, he's going to kill the girl, but instead he whacks her, knocks her out.

[51:11]

Doesn't kill her. And I forgot exactly what happened, but anyway. You know, in terms of how he, about the interaction when he hit her, I think he just whacked her one and knocked her out. And he changed his clothes into hiking outfit. which he happened to have, and he hiked across the border, where the French police are waiting for him. What's happening? She's uncontrollably being herself. What's happening? It was so funny. He said, it just happened to him. So then he walks across the border, and I think, oh! And in the meantime, the police found the girl and the guy and the murdered people. They found the girl. So then they drove to the French border. So they got the girl at the border. So the guy comes trotting across the border, you know, very happily, and no one knows who he is.

[52:14]

And the girl sees him and says, there he is. So then the police go after him. And he goes into this little... souvenir store at the border, you know, where they have lots of, like, teddy bears and other kinds of top, you know, things you can buy at the border. He goes in there and the police come in with their automatic weapons and they start shooting at him. So then he, you know, eventually he gets kind of worn out from all the bullets in him, and sits down among your teddy bears. You know, now, my friend, who I went to the movie with, the way he understood this, they not only take a picture of this guy's face, you know, he's sitting there in these teddy bears, and this guy, this guy has this look on his face, like the look that the other guy wanted to have on his face when he died. But he's got it.

[53:15]

This guy is there, and he's being... This is called anxiety. He's got anxiety. It's lead anxiety. All this stuff is coming at him. He's being tortured and tormented. He's being suffocated with bullets. But he's there. He's totally there. He never flinched or tried to not be there. He was completely there. And there he is. This guy's completely sitting there. He's going to die pretty soon. But anyway, for now, he's alive. And he's himself. He expressed himself. And he got some feedback. And at this time in his life, he wasn't hurting anybody. He was not hurting anybody. And you get to see his face. The girl walks in and looks in his face.

[54:20]

And he looks back at her. And then you see her face. Now she's got it. Except she doesn't get shot. This is face-to-face transmission. And when it was on his face, he was not shooting anybody. He was not shooting anybody. It wasn't on his face when he shot those people. It was a little bit on his face when he hit the girl rather than killing her. But it was on his face when it finally came down to how are you going to die. There it was. He died the way this guy wanted to die that he killed. He got the idea and he embodied the presence of dying with dignity and courage and not trying to run away from it. It was in his face. The girl came in and saw it and she got it. This is how stuff happens sometimes.

[55:25]

You know, the most unlikely people wind up with the most wonderful things if they're willing to take the teaching. And then they're saved from all the Of course, saved means you get killed, too. That's part of it. But for that moment, anyway, that's what it takes. But it's not easy to be present when this happens, I guess. I mean, I would imagine. But he was. And the other guy wasn't, even at the thought of being killed in the wrong spot, threw his composure off. But in fact, the thing about non-being is we don't get to choose when we die. It isn't when we're in the mood Generally speaking, it's not when we're ready for it. We just have to be ready, period, all the time. That's the thing. And there's a possibility that we will be able to. That's why it's good to warm up, though, for it. And to start practicing beforehand.

[56:27]

So, Martin and Rafael. Yeah, when I was working from the guest house here, I was feeling very good. It was a beautiful day. I don't know, sorry. I felt an inch of my inside, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. So, I thought something was happening or something. Something broke. Maybe I should phone. Maybe you should what? Phone only. And then I thought, no, that is, I'm doing what I always do. You know, I am making it into a fear. Now I know I got to make some action that will make me feel better. I'm not going to do anything. I just want to let it go. And I did, as you know. I felt fine before it went away and I forgot. But then I was thinking, why did I get it?

[57:43]

Because the insight, what did it come from? Why in that moment? Maybe because you were happy. Maybe because you were in the presence of beauty. Maybe because you really were alive. The more alive you are, you know, like you being you, the more alive I am as me, the more susceptible, the more vulnerable, the more at risk am I to anxiety. And then if I notice that I want to run away from it by making it into object, think it's my family's in trouble or something like that, distract myself from it, then get involved in that. But if I just stay here, it goes away. But then it comes back again. Every time that you express yourself again, it comes back.

[58:45]

It can be released innumerable times, but every time it gets released, you get another sample of what it's like to be you. You get another lesson in being yourself. Another lesson in studying yourself and seeing what you really are. Yes? Oh, no, excuse me. Martin and then Christine. I had an incident happen around a month ago. I was driving my car down 580 going east where it merges onto 101. I mean, going north. And there was a nice rain falling and the ground wasn't any wet. And I thought... This is the kind of weather people get into accidents. The ground can be a little haughty. As I went into the merge, there was no cars behind me, and I was probably only around 50 miles an hour. And all of a sudden, I look in my rear view mirror, and this car was coming right for me, like a rocket.

[59:47]

And it smashes right into my rear, on the left side. And I go against the wall and I stop. And this woman comes running out of the car. She says, are you all right? She said, I lost control. I couldn't stop the car. And I was in shock. And the amazing thing for me is I wasn't even angry. Usually I say, hey, look at my car. I didn't even feel any anger. I thought that in that moment, God, she lost control of the car. And a tow truck came and the police came. And my car was towed to a garage in Egypt. I rented a car that night.

[60:52]

And around a few days before that, I noticed an insignia on the back of the car. I said, oh, I wonder what kind of car that is. That you rented? No, I was just looking at this car in the street. It was an insignia on the back. I didn't know what kind of car it was. It represented the back of the car. And the car I rented that night was a Toyota. with that insignia, and it was the last car on the lot. And it just, the rental place just closed and waited for me to get a car. And after that, I felt anxious driving, particularly in the evening. I thought, you know, it was raining, I didn't want to get in my car. So my car is still being repaired. It's been three weeks already. And my driving habits have changed. I'm more cautious. I keep on looking in the rearview mirror. See if there's any cars hopping.

[61:59]

It was quite shocking. I could have been killed right there. That could have been it. I had no control. I came out of nowhere. Yeah, that's the way it is. And being cautious is highly recommended, not in order to avoid accidents, because that's not what avoids accidents, but in order to settle into being the person in the car. And that doesn't avoid accidents either, but that sets you free in this life. You know, Get into the car carefully. Check it out. That's how you get to feel what it's like to be you in the car. Christina? I have a question about does anxiety happen while one is expressing oneself or actually right afterwards?

[63:08]

When one becomes conscious of It happens while you're expressing yourself. Simultaneous. Well, again, there's two ways of expressing yourself. One way of expressing yourself is like, here I am. Another way of expressing myself is to say, how are you? So when I'm into the how are you, when I ask you how are you, but I realize that that isn't a self-expression, then I'm really here, and it's maybe easier for me to feel anxiety of being myself, being a person who actually is asking, sincerely asking you a question, and that's really who I am at that moment. I'm not going through the motions, I actually wonder. I feel anxiety then. Now, when I'm expressing myself in the sense of asserting my position and asking you to recognize me, or I see you recognizing me, at that time it may be a little harder for some people to feel in that side of it, emphasizing that side for a moment, to feel the anxiety.

[64:23]

But it is, I propose to you that it's simultaneous. If it's afterwards, what you have then is you're expressing yourself as someone who is remembering something. And you could remember the anxiety that you maybe were not so aware of. Maybe you could see in retrospect more easily than you could at the time. But if you are fully doing that, you feel anxiety at that moment too. New, fresh anxiety. Fresh. And that's the anxiety that comes with being yourself now. And that's the situation in which you get to see how you really are and get liberated from yourself. This work is done in the present. The actual liberation happens in the present. It happens in one moment. Okay, now I feel like it'd be good to either, I think at this point, either have a period of meditation or something else.

[65:28]

Would you like a period of meditation? Yes. Okay, now just let me check to see if that's a problem with anybody else here. If you'd like to do walking meditation again, that's okay. Now, it says here 3 o'clock Dharma talk. Does that mean you're having a Dharma talk in the Zendo? Well, what we can do is we can go... You can go check and we can go over to the Zendo. And for the next period of time, you can either... If we can sit in the zendo, let's go in the zendo. And Christina will be over in the zendo to tell us if we can. Okay? And if we can't, then I would suggest that you sit around outdoors. If we can go in the zendo, let's go in the zendo. If we can't, let's just sit outdoors. And those who would like to do walking meditation can do that. And I will ring a railroad bell

[66:30]

at the end of that time, and then please come back here. Okay, it'll be about a half an hour. It'll be about quarter to four or so. sort of overall course on Buddhism. And the basic vision of... the basic vision that Buddhism kind of was founded on, according to certain stories, is that the Buddha at a certain point saw

[67:40]

that all beings are by nature Buddha, but because of fixed ideas and attachments, are unable to realize this. And sometimes we talk in terms, a couple of weeks ago when I gave a talk here, I talked of like three kinds of coverings, kind of coverings over our enlightened being. Three kinds of obstructions to our enlightened being. And one is the covering due to action. Another one is the covering due to defilement or affliction.

[68:53]

And the third one is the covering due to, you might say, knowing. Of the three, three coverings, okay? Do you remember them? So what are they? You don't remember? Did you tell Lee, please? Um, action, defilement, or her affliction, and melody. Are you getting up? I just had a fear of standing up. Do you think? Do I have to use for me?

[69:58]

This is called karma. Karma is action. This one's called the klesha. This is called niya avarana. The thing is, the practice is to see through these coverings. That's enough.

[71:37]

So the way you see through the first one, the way you see through or drop the obstruction due to action is by Believing, what were you going to say? Not reacting. Not reacting to what? The action. Not reacting to the action. Is by belief, basically by belief that action is important. By believing that your actions are important. Which I guess probably some of you anyway already believe that. This is the way to see through these. This is the way to see through the first one, is by developing the belief that your actions are, that what you do is important. Very important.

[72:45]

So this is, these are the actions done by an individual person, right? You, the individual, your actions. What other people do is important too, but that's not your main concern. Your concern is about what you do. And there is a teaching about how important your actions are. And the basic teaching is that doing good, which means doing what you think is good, which is the best you can do in terms of what you think is good, you can also consult with other people. That's part of it. In other words, you might think it's good to consult with people about what's good. That might be your opinion. Generally speaking, it is. But anyway, doing what you think is good, whether you're right or not, just trying to do your best, and then maybe finding out that it wasn't, and then changing your attitude and then trying again. Doing what's good leads to wholesome results. This is a... This is one side of it. The other side of it is that doing what's, you know, unwholesome or cruel, evil things lead to unfortunate results.

[73:55]

Would that be the bad karma? When someone says that someone has a bad karma... Bad karma means, well, sometimes they say bad karma in terms of bad karma is like this person's experiencing the results of their bad actions. That's sometimes called, I have bad karma. Means I'm experiencing the results of wrong action that I've done in the past. Okay. You'd have to change the course of your actions. That's the next part of it. First part is that you believe that the course of your actions is very, what you do is very important. and that good actions lead to good, and wrong action leads to trouble, and that you would align your action with that law. It isn't just that you believe that if you do good, it will lead to good things, and if you do bad, it will lead to bad things. It isn't just that. It's in addition that you actually decide that it would be good also, and that you will align your actions as best you can with that policy, with that program.

[74:59]

Just to accept it and to continue to go ahead not to do what you think is wholesome and to go ahead and do what you don't think is wholesome. If you do that, you won't be able to remove this covering due to your actions. You'll continue to have this wall blocking your wisdom and compassion and profound understanding of what life's about. You'll be blocked by not... changing your behavior in accordance with that law. In other words, you must actually intend to practice good and intend to refrain from doing what is evil. And the law is that this is always true and inexorable and nigh that, but there's some other aspects of it that are also good to believe. For example, that karma accrues interest continuously.

[76:06]

So a small good can become an enormous good over time. And a small evil can become an enormous evil over time. And another part of the teaching is that there's a lot of time and that karma accumulates over many lifetimes. So, that's part of it. Another part is that the results of karma do not happen all in one lifetime. So, part of the theory, part of the teaching is that human beings, basically, all of us have done, not we have done, but there has been done in the past, enormous amount of wholesome things in order to be born a human being. everyone in this room is the latest evolutionary manifestation of a tremendous amount of good.

[77:07]

Or actually, I don't know if a tremendous amount of good, but some good that has become a tremendous amount of good. Or a tremendous amount of good that has become even more tremendous. But all you people, according to this law, have are here because of enormous, truly enormous amount of wholesome energy and merit. The afflictions that we experience in this life, even great afflictions or small afflictions, are due to unwholesome behavior in the past. That's the rule. So, as a result of this, one could experience considerable anxiety because The slightest small thing can lead to big misfortune. Soon and also sometimes later.

[78:11]

So if one takes this teaching on, which I can elaborate on more, but basically if one takes this teaching on, one becomes very careful and conscientious. What about people who are destroyed, like in a war? You mean someone who's killed in, like, a war? Yeah, all, like, people. Yeah, a group of people, a nation or whatever. Um, well, um... Let's just take one person at a time, okay? Let's say now, I don't know what, that someone come in this room and shoot me, okay? Being shot is not necessarily misfortune. But if someone comes in with a gun and I go into a state of fear, and I'm not present for that, okay, and I can't look at the person in the face,

[79:15]

and be present as the bullet is shot towards me, then that's unfortunate because I won't be present. And my inability to be present with this difficulty is due to my past action. But if I can be present with that, I can be present with, for example, if I were being shot, if I can be present with that, then being shot is not in itself a misfortune. The misfortune is primarily by the way I interpret what's happening to me. I'm not sure, but I think, at least in the movie, when Gandhi was shot, he said, bless you. He said, oh God. He said, oh God, oh God, oh God. He said wrong. He said his mantra. Which, so, you know, that the bullet was not exactly a misfortune to Gandhi because he just continued his practice, which he would have done if somebody had given him a kiss, too, maybe.

[80:22]

The reason why some people, when they're being attacked by bullets or swords or criticism, that they can sort of, they can say, you know, I feel fortunate to have lived and this good fortune to have lived is due to, I believe is due to my good action in the past. To meet difficulty with that spirit is a result of having thought like that before and believed that this thing, believing that that's how things work, plus also believing that a good response to some negative thing like that will also be evolutionarily beneficial for myself and others. So if you multiply it times lots of people, then from this point of view, this is like, I'm thinking from the point of view of the person whose own wisdom and compassion is obstructed, okay? So if you multiply it times lots of people, then you have lots of people who have the opportunity either to see through the obstruction due to their past action, or not.

[81:29]

And it turns out that past action is partly important because if you're not careful of how you think and talk, when it comes time to dealing with certain difficult situations, The way you'll talk is, you know, you'll talk in a nasty, unappreciative, selfish, frightened way. And then, not only will that be an example of the covering, karma covering, but you'll then generate more karma coverings for later. Okay? So, if it's lots of people, then it's lots of people who, in a large group of people, you know, it may be like 3% or something are using it well, 30% are using it kind of neutrally, and maybe 70% are using it badly. But difficult situations are not necessarily used worse than positive situations. Sometimes people use positive situations in a really bad way too, like something good happens to them and they immediately think, oh, you know, I'm glad I got this instead of you.

[82:31]

That would be an unfortunate way to receive a gift. But to receive a gift and say, I'm receiving this gift and I must be receiving this gift because of some good I did in the past rather than I'm better than somebody else, it's not because of something about me, it's just that I did some good thing in the past. That's a good way to receive a gift. So, in fact, sometimes people, when they run into some difficulty, is when they, is their finest hour sometimes. when their dignity and virtue comes almost strongly, sometimes when they're being harassed. Joyce? Do you believe that a person's situation in this lifetime is solely based on karmic action in the past? Do I believe that a person's situation? I believe that the way the person sees their situation is the way they see the situation is totally the result of the way they've seen situations in the past.

[83:35]

But if you look at the person, the way you see the person is due to your past time. It's so, like I've mentioned, if I touch Jackie, she might be insulted, complimented, or whatever. How she takes my touch, that's her interpretation of it. What I meant by it is my interpretation of it. But she could be harassed by what I do to her or feel grateful. The fact that, you know, I could touch her and she could say, don't touch me anymore, even if she felt fine about it. Did you see that? Was your hand raised? When you're talking about the action, the defilement and the knowledge, you're talking as the person, as an individual, or as the person as a whole group? I'm talking about individual person because it's individual.

[84:40]

The Buddha looks at all of you and sees you as Buddha, okay? You may or may not get that, but the Buddha sees you as Buddha, so the Buddha... The Buddha thinks you're fine, you fully possess all you need to be a Buddha, to be happy. But because of your attitudes, you have coverings, for example. And because of the way you have thought in the past, there's an obstruction due to the way you've thought in the past, blocking you from seeing your Buddha nature. That's for you. So that these things really are for oneself, without how one perceives one. Not how one perceives others, you mean? No, one perceives oneself. Pardon? Therefore oneself, not what? You're talking about the karma. Yes. When I first heard you say this, my interpretation was that was how other people view oneself. How other people view me? No. Well, anyone.

[85:41]

How each person views themselves? Views themselves. And so when you go into, you needed these karmas, there was other people's reactions to your action were to foul their knowledge. No. It's the opposite. No. These are the three kinds of ways, these are the three coverings on our own mind that block us from realizing our true nature. Okay? Our true nature is already set. We're fine. We're basically good. That's what the Buddha saw. The Buddha was happy to see that people are basically Buddha. That's what Buddha saw. But Buddha also saw they can't believe it because of these kinds of coverings. So the practice is to address these three kinds of coverings so that you can see. You begin by re-examining yourself and so on. Well, actually, first of all, before examining oneself, you have to remove this first level of covering because this covering even covers yourself.

[86:45]

You can't even see yourself clearly until you remove the first covering. If we're not careful of our actions, if we don't, first of all, people, generally speaking, will not be careful of what they do unless they realize that it's very significant because it's easier not to be careful. You know, it's easy just to sort of like do whatever you feel, just act on every impulse. That's easy. Except if you think that that will have some negative results. Or unless you think that if you're careful about how you act, it will have some positive results. But even if you think it will have negative results, if you aren't careful, that isn't sufficient to stop people from not being careful, unless they hear the teaching that The negative results that you get from doing unwholesome things is extremely negative. It's like little tiny things make huge trouble.

[87:46]

Big, big bad things make huge trouble right now, but also huge trouble over long periods of time. When we realize the full impact of this teaching, then we start to be careful. But just hearing, of course we all know that if you slap somebody in the face, you might get in trouble for it. They might not, if you slap a Buddha in the face, the Buddha won't hit you back. But you'll get in a tremendous amount of trouble, so you won't immediately get, if you hit a Buddha in the face right now, you will not get in immediate trouble. The Buddha won't hurt you, plus the Buddha will protect you from anybody else hurting you for doing that. But the disrespect of a Buddha, so that you would slap the Buddha, or spit on the Buddha, or not be kind to the Buddha, that disrespect, no one can protect you from the results of that over the long term. The Buddha will be long gone when the

[88:50]

when the interest on that comes to you. So, when you realize how severe this, how this law is, then you start being really careful. And also you start feeling fear and anxiety around this. That's why you have to be, in order to accept this teaching, you have to be able to experience anxiety and not run away. Because if you run away from the anxiety, either by getting into fear or by kind of like denying it, then you'll create more karmic hindrance. And you won't even be able to begin to study yourself because these huge walls, you know, people will keep beating on you and stuff like that. And when they're beating on you, you can't really like turn around and like look at the subtlety of your self-concept. Yes? Yes. The first one actually includes body, speech and mind. Yes, right. So it's involved in... Right, body, speech and thought. Primarily, first of all, in thought.

[89:52]

Thought is always before the verbal and physical manifestations. So here again, being able to be present with your anxiety is very important in order to be careful of your actions. However, removing the first one is not sufficient to attain complete enlightenment. because you still have these other two coverings. The next covering is the covering due to defilement or afflictions, emotional afflictions like greed, hate and delusion. They also cover up, you know, greed and hate cover up your compassionate mind. They kind of cloud your penetrating perfect wisdom. So in order to remove those gross afflictions, afflictive emotions and troubling, disturbing feelings and so on, in order to remove those, what they're removed by is to see the lack of self of your personhood. When you see that your person really doesn't hold together as an independent unit, then you get freed from the second kind of covering.

[90:59]

But again, now even more intensely, more intensely, you have to bring the self into view which again means you feel lots of anxiety all around that self. But in order for the self to be seen through, you have to see the self that you've got. So again, being able to face anxiety and fear and to engage the fear and vanquish it and come back to the present and experience the anxiety all around yourself is what you need to do in order to clearly see yourself. When you can clearly see yourself, the pearl, the self, rolls on itself and reveals itself as not an independent thing. Which immediately addresses the karmic thing because you no longer even have the basis for karma anymore at that point, because you don't have the independent actor. So it also protects you from future karmic accumulations and hindrances, even though you can still be good. Yes, Joyce. Quick question. Delusion has to do with seeing yourself as being separate, right?

[92:04]

Yes. Okay. So if you don't see yourself... Separate, independent self. Sorry? Separate, independent self. Right, okay. So therefore, if you don't see yourself as separate, if you don't see yourself as separate, then you'll experience green paper. Right. At this point, when you realize this, these afflictions drop away, your vision gets even clearer, or your vision gets clearer and the afflictions drop away, either way you want to put it. Anyway, you see what you are. You can still have an ego still there, like I said before, the ego's there, but now you see how the ego is created by everything else. You know, my ego is all you people make my ego by not being me. That's how I keep track of myself, is by all of you and many other things. So when I see that

[93:00]

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