This is tape number BME 9814, tape number two. And what I am and let what's happening be what's happening and let other people be what they are. And let yourself feel the way you do about the way they are. Let yourself not like the way they are, but let them be the way they are before you start disliking the way they are. Another aspect of being compassionate is to be conscientious and very mindful. Because, again, it's a detailed letting yourself be what you are. It's a precise, crisp version right now. So if you're sloppy and don't pay attention, you can say, yeah, I'll let things be the way they are and I'll work with what's happening and I'll let you be the way you are and I'll let me be the way you are.

[01:05]

But that's just a general thing. You have to specifically be aware of what you're signing up for. And then it gets hard. But generally being willing to be who you are or generally being willing to be who I am, that sounds kind of okay. But when you get into the specifics, it's tough. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of like, sure, but I didn't know it was going to be like this. Wait a minute. I didn't know you meant that when you said that. The next one, which goes with the previous one, namely, once you actually start getting into what it's like to be yourself moment by moment, again, you start to tune in to the specifics of your discomfort. Like you might say, well, okay, I understand that I can understand the reasonableness that I have to face that I'm uncomfortable in order to become free that I'm uncomfortable and become free of my discomfort.

[02:10]

That's one of the basic things I've just said. I don't know if you caught that, but in order to be free of the world of impermanence, in order to be free of the world of death and birth, we have to accept the world of death and birth. We have to be intimate with the world of death and birth. In order to be free of pain, we have to be intimate with pain. So that's, first of all, that's generous to be intimate with pain. Second of all, we have to be specifically intimate with pain. That's part of intimacy, is this pain rather than that pain. And then, because we're now tuned into our pain, we have to practice patience with it because we start to, as we get more specific, we start to wiggle. So patience is, again, to now that you've tuned into your discomfort, now that you've turned into your discomfort, which is the consequence of ignorance, specifically you're feeling now the particular bite of your ignorance, then you have to like, again, sort of sign up again

[03:24]

When you reenlist now in the program of sitting under the Bodhi tree, you signed up for it, and because you signed up for it, you get a gift. Namely, you get to tune in to your pain. Nice gift, huh? It's a necessary gift. The pain's already there. The pain's already there. Buddhism doesn't create the pain. The pain's already there. Buddhism says, do you want to sign up for facing it? Just sit under the Bodhi tree. You sit there, you sit still, you will become aware, I'm uncomfortable. Now that you're aware you're uncomfortable, and you know exactly how you're uncomfortable, now do you want to sign up again? In other words, do you want to practice patience? And some people at that point in practice say, No, I don't want to. Now that I find out how painful it really is, I heard about this, now I'm actually feeling it. I don't want to practice. I'm out of here.

[04:25]

Back to drugs for me. Or whatever. Basically, you know, addictions, distractions. And that's the funny thing about practice is that some people actually come into the practice, start to become successful, and then run away. they become successful means they start to actually feel this basic suffering which comes from ignorance. And the basic suffering which comes to ignorance is right close to the ignorance. And enlightenment is right at the center of ignorance. So you're actually tuning into your ignorance and you start to feel the pain of the ignorance. You're starting to be successful. At that point, it's very common to run away. That's why it's important to have a teacher. Because at that point is when you should tell your teacher, you should say, I'm out of here. Bye-bye. This is like not what I signed up for.

[05:26]

And for the teacher then hopefully to say, no, it is what you signed up for. This is really, you're getting it. This is really it. This is what happened to Buddha. You're just like Buddha. Yeah. This is what you have to go through. You have to go through this. Like women who are delivering babies, right? They get to this certain place. Okay, yeah, baby, nice baby. No, I don't want this part. Wait a minute, no. Fortunately or unfortunately, they usually can't do anything about it. It just keeps coming, right? But enlightenment, you can get away from. Right when it's starting to come on heavy, you know, the truth, the truth of suffering is coming on like, yeah, I know, I heard, oh, yeah, sure, it happened to Buddha. Yeah, right, okay, fine. Well, you just take that Buddha thing and you take care of it. I'm out of here. That time you need help. You got to go and get some encouragement. Because right when you're starting to really face it is when you oftentimes really want to run away.

[06:33]

So you need to learn to practice patience so you can stand the pain of your eyes opening, the pain of your heart opening, the pain of your throat opening, and your abdomen opening, your body opening to the consequences of ignorance. Once you open to the consequences of ignorance, you're facing ignorance. You're not ignoring ignorance. You're starting to wake up. And it's a painful awakening. Being born is painful. Dying is painful. and opening up to, you know, the big world that you've been ignoring, part of it's painful. So we have to practice patience, and patience is part of compassion.

[07:36]

So giving, give yourself what's happening, be conscientious and vigilant about what it is, and be patient with it. Once you're patient, something else comes, which is really wonderful. It's called enthusiasm. which is also part of compassion, that you actually can be enthusiastic now about practicing patience with this pain, which comes from giving yourself the gift of being yourself. And then the next phase of, and that's compassion too, and the next phase of compassion is you focus now. You really settle down into what's happening. So all this is compassion. This is what compassion is about. Compassion isn't just theoretical, like, yeah, sure, I'd like to embrace my life and be with all suffering people. You specifically have to work with what's... It isn't like you have a choice about what to work with. You have to be generous and work with what you're given.

[08:38]

You have to be generous and work with what you're given. Then you have to specifically notice what you're given. Then you have to feel the pain and pleasure of what you're given. You have to feel the pain of the pain of what you're given. You have to feel the pain of the pleasure of what you're given. And you have to feel the pain of just the fact that what you're given is conditioned and changing. And then you have to give yourself the compassion of patience. And then you get enthusiasm. Because all that energy which is usually used to resist pain and distract ourselves from pain and resist facing our ignorance, all that energy is freed up now to be enthusiastic about getting deeper into the practice and then completely absorbed. And by that kind of compassion, which is not yet infinite compassion, it's more like compassion about letting yourself be what you are and study that self.

[09:42]

then insight dawns on you and you start to see what the enlightened being sees. You have to face pain and impermanence and death when your eyes open to the world where there isn't birth and death and where there isn't pain. Where there's only love and joy and compassion. Now compassion The Sanskrit word for compassion, I think I heard the Dalai Lama say one time, is etymologically means, the word karuna means dented happiness. So the person who sees interdependence, who sees everybody as giving her life, who realizes that everybody is her life, this is a happy person. This person has Buddha's basic insight. And not only do you see that everybody gives you life, but you see that you give everybody else life.

[10:49]

Everybody's your mother and you're everybody else's mother. And also everybody's helping everybody else. You see that wonderful world. That's a happy thing to see. But you also, that happiness has a dent in it. And the dent in it is they don't see it. So I want them to see it. And I'm retired now from suffering, so I'm free. I don't have to spend my time coping with suffering anymore. So like I totally have nothing to do but help other people also retire from suffering. I have nothing else to do but help other people see. So then the Buddha thinks, now how can I encourage them to like face the suffering that they have because they don't see? Well, he taught the Four Noble Truths. He said, okay, ready? First truth is suffering. What do you think of that? So people thought, well, it's true, but it's kind of obnoxious. Don't you have some kind of like more nice sounding teaching?

[11:52]

But the Buddha, you know, the Buddha who was teaching that, you see, he was like so cute and so golden, you know, or, you know, so warm and so kind that people felt so good about being around this compassionate person that he could give them this kind of like bad news. So they kind of felt like, geez, is this what you want to give us? Fine. Kind of bitter, but okay, okay. And then he gave them the teaching, but then he also said, now how do you open yourself to this? So he gave the teaching that if you don't understand what's going on, you're going to suffer. And this suffering does depend, however, on that misunderstanding. So there's suffering. The next one is suffering arises, and it arises in dependence on something. What does it arise in dependence on? He said craving. And craving arises in dependence on ignorance of interdependence. And there's also you can be free of this.

[12:56]

So the first two are kind of... The first one is really a shock. The second one, like, well, it implies that there's something... dependent about the suffering. And the third one is like, hey, you can be free of this suffering. So he told them the bad part first. Then it gets better and better. But you can be free of this suffering and you can be a compassionate Buddha. The Buddha taught that you can be a compassionate Buddha. You can be a wise and compassionate, happy person. You can be happy to like work hard to help people. But as someone said, You know, working hard is not hard for the hardworking. And Buddhas are just naturally hardworking for people, so it's not hard for them to work hard for people. So it's happy to work hard for people. They're busy little bees. Because the Buddhas are the unbusy ones, so they can be as busy as they want. Because basically they never forget they're not doing anything.

[13:57]

So how do you get to be a Buddha? Well, Eightfold Path. What's the Eightfold Path? Well, first of all, face the fact of what you're up to, that what you do, everything you do has consequences. That's the first point. Second point is, what are you up to? First of all, what you're up to has consequences, namely what you do perpetuates or does not perpetuate ignorance. If you don't pay attention to what you're doing and you're not generous and blah, blah, blah, your ignorance just keeps feeding on itself and gets more and more entrenched, and your suffering gets more and more entrenched. And when you're suffering and doing things based on ignorance and blah, blah, blah like that, you can now call yourself suffering, but you can harm others. So if you pay attention to that, your behavior changes.

[15:02]

So what do you do? You pay attention to the fact that what you do has consequences and also you pay attention to the root of what you do, which is, you know, your motivation, which is the root of your action. Then you start studying your motivation. And you study your motivation from the position of being present and still. So that if you're still, you'll notice that you're uncomfortable, and you'll also notice that you want to do something about it. You're going to want to do something about it. Also, if you sit still, you'll notice that there's birth and death, and you're going to want to do something about it. And you'll notice that if you watch what you want to do about it, you'll see how your motivation is connected to the way things go.

[16:13]

And your vision will change and what you want to do will change. So gradually your intentions will evolve by paying attention to them. And the place you pay attention to them from is the same place that you sat to have your discomfort related to you and the same place you sat to see impermanence. Okay? So now, another thing it said in that announcement for this retreat was that there would be a dialogue. Let's have a dialogue. Let's have some dialogue. Yes? Yes? You got four? That was pretty good.

[17:14]

I only gave you two and you got four. So the first one is right view. Okay? Right view is briefly that every action has consequence. Everything you think, everything that the individual person thinks that she does on her own, every time you think like that, there's consequences. Every time you speak like that, there's consequences. Every time you use your body like that, there's consequences. If you use your body skillfully, and you speak skillfully, and you think skillfully, in other words, you think in ways that don't harm beings... and you think in ways that help beings, and you talk in ways that don't harm and that help, and you move your body in ways that don't harm and that help, the results of those are generally positive. No, they're positive. If you speak in unskillful ways, ways that harm yourself or others, if you think in ways that harm you and eventually harm others, if you use your body in ways that harm beings, the consequences of those are generally negative.

[18:20]

Negative means pain. for you and others. It means harm. The consequence of doing harmful things is harm. The consequence of thinking harmful things is harm. The consequence of speaking harmfully is harm. This is called negative. The first aspect of the Eightfold Path is that that's so, that that's the way things work. And it implies it would be good to observe that and realize that for yourself. So the second one is look at your motivation, which is called right view, I mean called right intention or right thinking. Right thinking is thinking and therefore thinking in ways that are conducive to harmlessness and non-harming. That's right thinking. In other words, you think in ways not of being attached to things and controlling them, not of harming them or having ill will towards them, but think of things in terms of how to have a relationship with beings where you don't attach, where you renounce your attachments to things.

[19:35]

To think of things and to intend to relate to things in a way of loving kindness and nonviolence. That's the second one. Third one is, then based on the study of your intentions, your speech then will be right. Your speech will be harmless. Your speech will be harmless. Now, then the next one is your physical action will be harmless. That's the fourth one, right action. Then your livelihood will be harmless. Then, based on all that, you're ready to practice right effort. which is also harmless effort. But right effort is very much what I've already been talking about. Right effort is basically, first of all, to let what's happening be what's happening. To work with things as they're actually coming to you without manipulating or messing with what's happening.

[20:41]

That right effort by itself, again, needs then, in order to actually happen and continue, needs right mindfulness. And when you have right mindfulness, then you need to be absorbed into this whole process of studying karma, looking at your intention, watching and having your intention evolve, your thinking evolve, such that your speech, physical action, and livelihood are harmless, And then right effort, which means, again, effort of trying to work with what's happening. And then if you don't, if you slip and stop working with what's happening and get into greed and aversion and confusion, that you work with that in such a way as to come back to let things be again. And then mindfulness supports that ongoing effort to let things be, which is right effort. And then you absorb yourself in that way of being That's the Eightfold Path. That's the way to be a Buddha.

[21:44]

And, of course, that leads to the great compassion which, together with the Eightfold Path, brings the Buddha to maturity. Any other? Yes? Can you say more about guilt? Guilt. Well, guilt, I was just talking to someone yesterday about guilt and shame. Shame is, in Buddhism, shame is a wholesome state of mind. Another way you can say shame is self-respect. You feel shame to yourself when you're not doing what you know is appropriate for you. Like I don't feel ashamed not being able to play the piano really well because I haven't trained at it in this lifetime for many hours.

[22:53]

So, you know, for me, to do my best at the piano is not the same as for some of you to do your best at the piano, because some of you are trained in such a way that if you do your best, you can perform certain pieces, and you'd feel ashamed if you didn't perform them well, because you know how to do that. But there's some other things which I do know how to do, and if I don't do those, I feel ashamed of myself. Like, I do know how to listen to somebody when they're talking, and generally speaking, when somebody's talking, it's pretty cool to listen to them, I think. And I know how to do that. And if I don't, I feel ashamed of myself because usually when they're talking, it's appropriate to listen. And it seems to work pretty well. It's kind of harmless to listen to people when they're talking. Have you noticed? Now, at a certain point when you're listening, you can raise your hand. Or you can even go like this. Or you can put your hands together like this, you know. Or you can write them a note and say, could I say something?

[23:59]

I sometimes say to people, did you want to do a monologue? Oftentimes I raise my hand first. I raise my hand and then they call on me. And I say, may I say something? And they say, in a while. And then a little bit later I raise my hand again and I say, uh, I say, can I talk now? And then sometimes they say yes. Well, I was wondering if you wanted to talk with me or if you just want to deliver this thing. Because I didn't really sign up for this monologue. I thought we were going to have a conversation. That can be part of listening. You're listening and you say, well, they've been going on for quite a while. Now I've heard this thing and now they're repeating themselves for a second time. Maybe I could get into this with them by asking a few questions. Now, on the other hand, sometimes someone's talking and I don't listen to them. And then I feel bad because I know I can listen. I have that ability to listen. And it's one of my main things I can give to people is listening to them when they're talking.

[25:03]

I can also listen to them when they're quiet. I think one of the main things I have to give to people is listening to them and looking at them and smelling them and occasionally tasting them and feeling them and thinking about them. That's my main thing with people, actually. I have that to give. And people really do appreciate when they're talking for me to listen, and they appreciate for you to listen, too. It is a nice thing for people to listen to us, really. And if we don't, I think if we have self-respect, we feel ashamed of ourself for not doing what we can do for somebody, okay? But guilt is more like, you recognize me. I did that. I'm responsible for that. I'm culpable. I'm culpable for that. That's guilt. I did that. Or didn't. Yeah. So guilt, I think, is more like a sense that you did or didn't do something. Shame is more a sense that that wasn't up to par.

[26:06]

And I think part of a wholesome state of mind is that I can be harmless. I can be gentle. And you don't have to be arrogant about it, but just I can be a kind, gentle person. And if I'm not that way and I don't respect life, then that's beneath me and I feel ashamed. So part of us knows that we're interconnected. Part of us knows that we're interdependent, and part of us knows that if we don't respect every living being, that's kind of like, we could learn to do that. And the more we understand interdependence, the more ashamed we will be of ourselves for not acting in accordance with that understanding. So some people think they're connected with about three people. And they think, I've got nothing to do with anybody else. So those people will not feel ashamed as much as somebody who feels really connected with a lot of people.

[27:12]

Does that make sense? Does that make sense? Anybody have a question about that? That's kind of an important point. If you'll excuse me for saying it, a point I just made is important. Okay? Is that helpful? Did you understand that? Yes? Yes? It sounds kind of like that. No. You actually feel better feeling ashamed than you would feel not feeling ashamed. So the shame doesn't feel good, okay, but it feels not good in the context of feeling good. So it's like having a big family who you love and you feel good about that. And that's basically how you feel is good. And then you feel bad when you don't love the people that you love. You feel like, I should say, you feel bad when you don't act in accordance with your love. But it's a little bad in the face of a big good.

[28:15]

And it keeps you on track. So it's like, you feel good that you feel bad when somebody is unhappy. You know, like I was driving over the mountain, not here, but someplace else. I was driving over the mountain. And on the side of the road, I saw, you know, this, you know, what to call it, an ambulance. you know, paramedic setup. And then I saw a motorcycle. And then I saw a guy lying next to the motorcycle. And then I saw some blood. And I felt this shockwave of pain. But then I felt good that I felt the pain. I feel good that I feel pain when I see someone suffering. I feel bad if I see someone suffering and don't care. Maybe. Not necessarily, but in that case anyway, I felt this pain and I thought, oh, it's nice that I can care about somebody I don't even know who's having this kind of problem. So the same way, it's nice that I feel bad about me not doing what I can do.

[29:21]

And when your mind opens so that you start loving a lot of people, and you care about a lot of people, and you care about a lot of people's welfare, that feels good. But then you feel bad when you don't have the integrity to stand up and do your job. Kind of like you kind of shrink, like somebody comes up to you maybe and spits in your face, right? One of these people you love. And then you feel kind of bad about not staying there for that difficulty. Doesn't mean you're supposed to like somebody spitting in your face, it just means that that what you're dedicated to since you care about this person is like to be there and be there lovingly. Which doesn't mean you like it. It just means you go, geez, you know, could I check something with you? Did you just spit in my face on purpose? You might find out, no, no, it was an accident, sorry. But you're there with the person. You don't like lean into or lean away from. You're like, you're there.

[30:22]

Like when my daughter was first born, you know, excuse me, but Again, kind of bragging, but there's this little baby, you know, I'm holding this little baby and she goes, this arch of yellow, this vomit, this arch of vomit goes out of her over to my face, you know. You know, it's just not that big a deal with your own baby, especially newborns. It's pretty nice knowing stuff, actually. As they get older, you know, like a teenager doing that in your face is more difficult. you know, chunks of hamburger and whatever. But when you love someone like that and they vomit on you, you don't, you don't, it's not that big a deal necessarily. But if you then would like, your baby would vomit on you and then you would slap it, you'd feel like, well, that kind of, I feel ashamed of yourself maybe for hurting the baby. for vomiting on you, right? But that's the way you'd feel if you loved the baby, right?

[31:27]

You might not get upset at all, but you might get upset. But to be able to stay, even if you did get upset, say, boy, this is really bad-smelling vomit today. Oh, God, you know, wow, this is testing me. Then you would say, well, just a second, now set her down carefully. Don't, you know, get somebody to take care of her and then get her off your face and And if you do less than that and you harm anybody, you feel ashamed. And the more you understand what it's like to be a Buddha, the more you feel ashamed at being less than a Buddha. I should say the more you understand that you're a Buddha, the more you expect that of yourself. The lower opinion you have of yourself, the less you expect of yourself, the less you'll be ashamed when you slip. the more you realize that you have the potential to be a great loving being, a compassionate and wise being, and you really feel like that's my potential, then the more you feel kind of like, well, that wasn't so good, what I just did.

[32:29]

That was like kind of sloppy, kind of impatient, kind of stingy, kind of distracted, kind of inattentive. I feel bad about that. That's good to feel bad about it. Then you kind of go, well, let's try and do it better next time. Okay? So there's a little bit of bitterness, a little bit of a spur to get you back on the track. It's good. It's part of being wholesome. Yes? Sometimes I say something to someone which I'm paying all that kind to someone, and after I do that, I don't like what I did. Yes. That's shame. I don't feel good about it. That's shame, yeah, really. But another element comes in that I'm not duality with myself, that I'm not only accepting myself the way I am. No, not necessarily. If you, for example, if you do something that's harmful

[33:31]

or unkind, same thing pretty much. I think every time you do something unkind, it's almost always harmful. But some people are so enlightened that even when you harm them, they just like gobble it up and get more enlightened. So if you're mean to really enlighten people, it's really bad for you anyway. So you do something that's harmful to yourself anyway. I think whenever I'm unkind, it always hurts me. That's for sure. It doesn't necessarily hurt the other person because sometimes they don't know. Some people don't get it. Like sometimes people insult me. I don't get it. I'm kind of slow, you know. Let me try that again. You don't seem to understand. That was an insult. Oh, I see. Oh, okay. Anyway, if you're unkind or I'm unkind, definitely it hurts me if I'm unkind, okay? Then you say, that's not accepting yourself. If I just see, okay, that was unkind. I feel bad about that. And that's it. That's accepting myself. Accepting I did something unkind and it was harmful to me. That's it. I accept myself as being that way.

[34:34]

I accept that I did something. an unkind thing, and that I feel bad about it, and that it hurt me. That's the way it is. Now, if you go further and then after that say, okay, Martin, you did this unkind thing, you're a real rat, you know, then you're doing more unkindness and you're not accepting yourself. But just calling a spade a spade is actually generous. So if I do a spady thing, just to say I did a spady thing, that's accepting myself and it's not harming myself. When I see I made a mistake, I recognize the mistake as a mistake, that's the truth and the truth grows on that. But then to harm myself and punish myself on top of that, besides the fact that I just feel bad about it, that's overdoing it. That's unkind again. And so that's what some people learn. And that's part of practice is you make a mistake, you notice it, and then you make another one. But after a while, you make a mistake, you notice it, and you move on.

[35:36]

You catch that noticing the mistake is enough. And that's accepting yourself. And that's healthy. That's what Buddha would do. If Buddha makes a mistake, Buddha said, I made a mistake. Now what? Let's go back to work. Try again. No, another mistake. Okay, try again. Oh, got it. That was kind that time. And sometimes even when you're trying to be kind, you notice, well, I tried to be kind, but actually I wasn't kind. I thought it was before I did it, and that was my intention, but part of me was trying to actually be mean. So let's try it again after apologizing. I'm sorry, that wasn't quite what I meant. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. No, let me try again. Boom. Did that work? Yes. So we learn by trial and error. In other words, every time, as a practitioner, every time you act, it's a trial or it's a lesson in, can I do this? Something kind, something helpful. And you didn't make a mistake. Say, that was a mistake.

[36:39]

That's not what I want to do. I'm ashamed of that, and I'll try again. Okay? Okay? Yes. I'm thinking of a question, but I think I may have answered it. I forgot your name. What's your name again? Linda, yes. There's kind of a flip side feeling shame when we don't live up to it. There's a flip side of shame. Which is sometimes feeling proud when we're being compassionate or good or feeling what we feel should be. So the flip side, let me say that again, the flip side of being ashamed of when you don't do what you can do is when you feel proud when you do what you know you can do. Right, a little puffed up. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So again, when you're observing your behavior...

[37:40]

let's say, the Eightfold Path, okay? You're watching your...you're practicing right view. In other words, you understand it's important to study what you do. You notice your motivation, okay? You see, I intended to do something helpful. I did do something helpful, okay? And then you kind of like give yourself a little pat on the back for doing it, okay? That's a little bit extra. Mindfulness is just like, oh, that was good. That good thing was that good thing. And you let that good thing just be that good thing. And then you don't identify with it. It's just that good thing was that good thing. And you feel good about that good thing being that good thing. But you don't identify with it because you're so much like practicing right effort, which is to let the thing be the thing. And there's no inflation. And also there's no deflation and depression around the shame. It's more like rather than getting depressed about the bad things you do, if you get depressed about doing bad things, then you can't recover.

[38:51]

When you do bad things, it's better more to have a little pinprick, that little pain, that little bitterness stimulates you and says, ìOkay. rather than, oh, poor me, I'm so bad, I can't do anything good. That's called the laziness of self-disparagement. So when you notice an unwholesome act, you just mindfully let the unwholesome act be the unwholesome act and you don't identify with it. If you identify with it, then you start getting into a kind of laziness of like sinking down into noticing the unwholesome thing. Same way, if you do a good thing, you don't want to get bloated up about it. In both cases, if you let the unwholesome be just unwholesome and the wholesome be just the wholesome, you don't identify. And then not only do you see it for what it is, but you wake up. right on noticing, you can wake up while you notice an unwholesome act and just letting an unwholesome act be an unwholesome act.

[39:52]

You could be enlightened very deeply and have a great insight while you notice that that was an unwholesome thing that you just did. Similarly, you could do an unwholesome thing. So that's right. Yes. What's your name again? Christine, yes. Yes. [...] Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, part of enthusiasm is... Part of the practice of enthusiasm is called rest.

[40:55]

One form of laziness is overwork. You know? You can work too hard. And... Another aspect of that rest is, another way it's sometimes phrased, is rejection. Part of enthusiasm is rejection, which means you reject a practice that you're not ready for. So to dive into Zen practice and to do three solid weeks may be just right for you, but five may be too much. So we have intensive practice periods of five weeks. Well, we have one week intensive in Tashin, but we have five-week practice periods, six-week practice periods, seven-week practice periods, up to 12-week practice periods. But we don't usually let people do the 12-week practice periods, especially at Tassajara, before they've warmed up on shorter practice periods. because you've learned by trial and error how to take care of your energy in these practice periods. So you're just starting with three weeks, right off, that's pretty good that you did three weeks, and you got tired, and maybe you should come back and do another three weeks.

[42:06]

And then after that, see, if I did the second three weeks, I didn't get quite as tired, and then maybe come back and do five or six. So part of... Don't push yourself so hard in practice that practice becomes dreaded. This is the end of side one. Please go now to side two without fast-forwarding. Actually, most people start practice out of love or attraction, right? We're amateurs, right? We start out of amour. for the practice. Don't lose that love of the practice by pushing yourself too hard. So like you said, so you're not really running away, I don't think. You're just taking a rest. And you should take the rest as part of your enthusiasm. Say, I want to rest now so I can come back later for another three weeks, but really want to do it.

[43:10]

So I guess I would advise you to rest until you feel that you'd like to do two weeks at the city center or whatever. And in this way. Well, you're doing it right now. You're talking to me. That's one way to do it. Go talk to a teacher and say, is this laziness or is this like just a good time to rest? you should be able to enthusiastically rest, feeling like this is actually, I'm doing this rest so that I can practice more. And you say that, if you say that and you're honest, if you then don't then come back to the practice, you're going to say, what is that about? So if in the long run you feel like you're running away from facing your life, then that's not good. But sometimes you need to rest in order to like face your life. Any people ever get kind of stressed or hassled? Do you ever feel like at the end of the day, like, you know, kind of like you need a rest? That ever happen to you? Do you ever feel like, you know, I don't need any more feedback? You know?

[44:13]

So feedback is good. That's how we grow. But sometimes we're like so stressed that we can't take it in anyway. So it's good to go rest. And after you rest, you come back and say, now, what did you want to tell me? Basically, I ask people for feedback, but sometimes they say, I do want the feedback, but right now, let me take a little nap and then give me the feedback. You take the nap, come and they say... But if all your kind of body rhythms are out of sync and you're feeling like totally... you know, discoordinated with yourself, and then you get feedback. You can't understand it anyway. It just sounds like noise. You can't learn anything anyway. So get back in tune and try again. In this way, over the years, you can drop into a situation of tremendous, well, like, you know, where you can actually feel how everybody is giving you life and not freak out. You ask somebody who's been practicing a long time, could they practice that?

[45:14]

If they were dropped into their practice that they have now, 20, 30 years before, what would happen? They would totally freak. Because it's just, as you open to more and more things over the years, you can cope with more and more complexity and turbulence and so on and so forth. But it's a gradual process of developing your skill at coping with change and birth and death. So you don't sound lazy to me. Doesn't sound lazy. Doesn't sound self-disparaging, although you're right on the edge of slipping into that. And doesn't sound like you just like being indolent. And doesn't sound like you're...I don't feel like you're...at least you're not telling us anymore that you're sort of on the verge of going and doing some unwholesome things like take a lot of drugs or something. And what's the other one? I don't know. That's basically it. Those are the ways to be lazy. The other way to be lazy would be just to go to the city center and overwork yourself and crash and then be really discouraged and say, Zen is just too hard.

[46:21]

It's just too hard. It's no good. It just makes me depressed. That would also be a lazy thing to do. To push yourself too hard could be lazy. So I think you're pretty balanced and I would suggest you rest until you feel like, I would really like to go back and practice at one of those Zen centers again. Were you next? Well, you were next. That's right. Nice. Terry. It seems like there's a special art to sitting upright. There's a special art to sitting upright? Yes. And part of it may be avoiding pain and part of it may be tolerating pain. And sometimes if it's a case of a knee or... Excuse me. He said, did you hear what he said? That there's a special art to sitting upright and part of it might be avoiding pain and part of it might be tolerating it. So avoiding the pain is not the art of upright sitting. But in learning the art of upright sitting, you might occasionally,

[47:23]

Make the mistake of avoiding pain. Okay? So upright sitting, you don't avoid pain. You face the pain. Okay? Yes? But you choose a way of sitting which you can commit yourself for a long time. Which I presume has something to do with comfort. Well, it has something to do with comfort. It has something to do with pain. When you sit, like that lady said, when you sit long enough, you will realize you're uncomfortable. So upright sitting is not to avoid the pain once it's revealed to you. Upright sitting is not to avoid discomfort. Upright sitting is to face the discomfort in a balanced way. So when you have this comfort, upright sitting is like, there's the pain and here's me and I'm sitting upright. There's the pain, it's this type of pain and I'm going to now uncross my legs or I'm going to take a break.

[48:25]

But you don't take the break to avoid the pain. You already faced the pain. You weren't trying to avoid it. You're now doing a positive thing called taking a break. But it's not like, you're not trying to avoid the pain. See the difference? It's like people come to me sometimes in the middle of these intensives and they sometimes say, you know, blah, blah, I got to leave. And I say, are you leaving because you think it's a good thing to leave or are you leaving because you're running away? You say, if you're going to run away, I don't really... Of course, anybody can leave here, right? But I don't support you running away from this. But if you are facing this pain and you are at peace with this pain, if you're upright with this pain and from this upright position you want to leave, fine. Because then when you get over the hill and you get in the next situation, which is painful, you have a chance of facing that and doing the right thing there too.

[49:27]

But if you avoid this situation, as soon as you get out of here, you're going to run into another one. You're going to avoid that. You're going to avoid that. You'll never face what's happening. You'll never learn. But it is possible to be in pain and to face it and to be completely comfortable with the pain. And then say, I'm out of here. But not because you're avoiding the pain, but because you think it would be good to leave. Or restlessness. That often happens. People get restless when they sit still or in a retreat. They get restless and they say, I'm going to leave. Are you completely at peace right now where you are? If they say yes, and then they say, do you want to leave? They say, yes. I say, fine. But you're leaving from being settled with your situation and facing your situation. That's fine. You're not really running away. You're not avoiding it. You're coming from presence. You're coming from patience. You're coming from balance. And it's possible from balance to take a walk.

[50:30]

It's possible from balance to go to the toilet. It's possible from balance to go to lunch. Okay? But it's also possible to do everything from imbalance, like to go to the toilet to avoid not being at the toilet, to go to lunch to avoid not being at lunch. Every time you're always trying to run away from situations rather than you're here and from here you see, I want to go there. I actually want to go from this balanced state into another balanced state over there. This would be something I want to do, not because I'm avoiding this. As a matter of fact, I want to go there because I'm not avoiding this. So you go from, if you excuse the expression, strength to strength to strength. You go from courage to courage to courage, rather than from cowardice to cowardice to cowardice. So you have pain, you face the pain, and you say, it's time to leave the painful area.

[51:31]

And you get another painful area and say, oh, this is painful too. Okay. Time to leave this. You get another painful area and say, this painful area we don't leave. We stay in this one. This one we stay in. Okay. This one we don't leave. This one we don't. This one we should stay in this one. Because it's good to stay in this one. Some pain should be left. Other pains should not be left. Some pains are not harmful. Some pains are indicating that you should change. But the point is that you don't come from avoiding the situation. You come from balance. And you can act from balance. You can go to the toilet from a feeling, I feel an urge to go to the toilet, and I'm going to go to the toilet, but not squirming away from that feeling of urgency. Every step of the way, you feel that urgency. You're present every step of the way And you can eat lunch when you're hungry, but not because you're trying to avoid your hunger.

[52:41]

You just eat because you're hungry, not because you're trying to avoid being hungry. There's a very important difference there. So you're not avoiding the pain. You face the pain. You are patient with the pain. And you move from patience. And then your movements are beneficial. If you move not from patience, you many times will harm yourself. And also you set the pattern for the next situation to be impatient there. And then you just keep harming yourself and missing the opportunity to have your eyes open to the deep insight of the Buddha, which you can have any time, any place if you're there. And it's usually hard for us to be someplace if we think we have an alternative.

[53:48]

Even in pleasure, if you think you have an alternative to pleasure, you oftentimes are not present with the pleasure. In other words, if you're in pleasure and you know pleasure only doesn't last forever and might go away, even right in the pleasure, you're not there because you're worried about it going away. So you miss the taste of your lunch because you're worried that you're going to miss the taste of your lunch. Or you're worried that they're going to run out of vegetables. And it's lunchtime. So please, enjoy your lunch. I'm referring to these different aspects that I was bringing up in terms of the formal sitting practice and the essential insight or the basic insight of the awakened one and also how to bring

[55:48]

that insight into manifestation in our daily life. Of course these three are interrelated, but I'd like to start a little bit about ways to bring the insight into daily life. So that this insight is I don't know, you know, it's already there under our nose. Interdependence is really what's going on already, so we don't have to make interdependence happen. We just have to, you know, realize it. Not have to realize it, but that's the issue is realizing what's going on, making it come into manifestation in a way that we and other people can appreciate it.

[56:55]

So some ways of, you could say, bring it into our daily life, it sounds like we've already got it and we're bringing it in, which is true. Another way is that ways of bringing it are ways of discovering it. So in one sense we're bringing it out and sometimes we bring it out, sometimes we have a sense of it and we bring it out, and sometimes the process of bringing it out, we have a deeper sense of it too. Traditionally one of the first ways to bring out and realize interdependence is by contemplating death and impermanence. One of the first ways to realize interdependence is to meditate on death and impermanence.

[58:05]

One of the first ways to realize that there is no independent self really, that there's only really an interdependent self, is to meditate on the fragility, impermanence, and death of the isolated self. So the ignorant, selfish way of living goes along with ignoring impermanence. So when we ignore impermanence, we become afraid. Or, you know, when we ignore the impermanence of our ego, of our isolated self, we become afraid.

[59:23]

Becoming afraid, of course, then we tend to even more, there's a tendency to even more ignore impermanence. Once you're afraid, you don't necessarily, oh, now I'm afraid, so now I'll look at death. So ignoring death makes us more afraid of death. Being more afraid of death, we tend to ignore death, and that goes round and round. And then ignoring the death of the individual, the isolated individual, produces more fear, more ignorance, and also all kinds of other disturbing emotions come up with that. On the other hand, to turn around and contemplate contemplating death leads to fearlessness and calming of disturbing emotions. Not only that, but put first a negative way, not contemplating death of the individual, isolated person, not facing the impermanence, not only leads to fear and disturbing emotions, but also it undermines whatever... it undermines whatever interest we have in practice.

[60:48]

Doesn't mean you can't practice at all if you're ignoring impermanence. you can practice a little probably, but it keeps undermining it. Or put it the other way, contemplating impermanence and death is the best spur to get yourself going in practice. It's not the best spur at the most advanced stages of meditation, because at the advanced stages of meditation you're no longer you know, believing in the independent self. So you're not necessarily meditating on the impermanent self anymore. You've gotten past that belief. You have other problems, more subtle problems than the belief in your isolated, egotistical life. You've already faced impermanence. But to get yourself started just, you know, in your daily life, impermanence is initially, initially it's the secret to get your practice going, the secret, the secret key.

[62:04]

So there it is, I mean, Are you meditating on your death? Are you contemplating your death on a fairly consistent basis? If you are, that's going to lead you to be less fearful, more calm, and more enthusiastic about practice. If you're not doing it, well, I won't tell you how bad you're feeling. I would just say if you're not doing it, One of the best ways to start extending the Buddha's vision into your daily life is meditating on impermanence. When you start to meditate on it properly, one of the signs that you're meditating on it properly is it tends to initiate the aspiration to attain complete enlightenment for the welfare of all beings.

[63:13]

So the arousing of the thought of enlightenment is very closely related to seeing impermanence. When you start meditating on impermanence but you haven't quite got it right, you might not also feel the arising of the aspiration for unsurpassed enlightenment for the welfare of others. So one of the ways you can tell when you've got the right view of impermanence is that you feel this great, wonderful spirit of wanting to help others. Yes? Christine? What do you mean when you say meditating on? So far I've known meditation to be, you know, when you're here. She said, what do I mean by meditating on? So far what you've been thinking about meditation is you don't think about anything? Talk about emptying your mind? Okay. What I talked about this morning was not thinking about something, right?

[64:18]

Except it was simply, it wasn't exactly thinking about where you are, but in fact you are thinking about where you are. If you don't think about where you are, you don't feel like you're anyplace. But you do feel like you're someplace, don't you? Hmm? Don't you think you're at Green Gulch in the Zendo? So you're already thinking about that you're in the Zendo. And don't you think you're Christine and don't you think you have a body and so on? Okay, so I'm not telling you to think that you're Christine. Okay? I'm not telling you to think you're a woman. I'm not telling you to think that your body starts and stops someplace. I'm not telling you to think that you're in the meditation hall now. Okay? You're already thinking that. What did I tell you to do when you think you're Christine, you think you're a woman, and you think you're in the meditation hall? What do you do? What's the meditation? Well, to start with, you're not meditating on impermanence, right?

[65:19]

Okay. What are you meditating on? Yourself. But you're not exactly meditating on yourself. You're letting yourself be yourself. That's the meditation on yourself. In other words, you're not like thinking about yourself some other general way. You're specifically being aware that how you're experiencing things right now and how you experience yourself right now. That's what I said, right? Just be where you are and be aware of that. All right? Now, If you're aware of yourself, I'm not saying go out of your way to look for impermanence, I'm just saying there is impermanence there, there is death there. The fact that you're going to die is like right there. The fact that you're alive the fact that the individual is alive implies that there's something called death right nearby.

[66:23]

So you don't necessarily like to run around looking for death, but I'm just saying if you want to see a way to extend the spirit of interdependence and selflessness in the daily life, at least just be open to this issue of impermanence. It's actually quite nearby, and if you jump around too much, you won't notice it. If you're still, you'll notice it. And if you're still, you're hearing me talking about it right now. Now, the question is, after I bring this up and I mention to you that this is one of the first ways to extend it into daily life, I don't know when that thought will come back to you again. And you said that you thought maybe meditation wasn't thinking about anything. But again, meditation isn't thinking about something. It is being aware of what you are thinking. See the difference? So I'm not telling you to think about something.

[67:24]

I'm just saying, if you're thinking, it's being mindful of what you are thinking. So right... impermanence will be part of your awareness. When you start noticing what's going on with you, you'll start noticing that you are growing old. You'll start to notice that you're changing. You'll start to notice that there's sick people all around you. You'll start to notice that there's old people. Now, if you live in a little box, you know, And you're young and healthy, you might not notice that there's any sick people or old people around. And that's the way the Buddha was. That's part of his story, is that he lived in a place where he was protected from seeing what normally happens to people, namely that they get sick, and they get old, and they die. And also, unless they die really quickly, the process from getting old to dying is usually rather painful.

[68:31]

deny that, but you have to watch other people get sick, get old and die. And you have to watch people you love get sick, get old and die. And they have to watch you get sick and old and die. This is stuff which you naturally would notice if you start paying attention to your own body. But I'm not telling you so much to think such a way. That's not the meditation. The meditation is not to think of this or think of that. The meditation I'm teaching, the meditation is being aware. What are you thinking of? The meditation is not to feel this way or feel that way. The meditation is to be aware of what you are feeling and let what you're feeling be that feeling. Let what you're thinking be that thinking. So it's to like be still and upright in the midst of whatever's going on. It's not so much what's going on. The meditation can be done no matter what's going on. Okay? That make sense? Whatever's going on is a perfectly good opportunity for meditation. And the meditation is to say thank you to whatever you're being given.

[69:36]

Now if you're asleep, it's hard to say thank you. I mean, it's easy for me to say thank you when you're asleep. I say thank you for being asleep. But if you're asleep, it's hard for you to say thank you. Or if I'm asleep, it's hard for me to say thank you for being asleep. So being awake and paying attention to what's going on is the meditation. But that's not really about something. It's just about whatever. It's not about this or that. It's about what's happening. All right? And then again, and you said that's emptying. In a sense, it is emptying in the sense that you empty your... The meditation is empty in the sense that the meditation... It isn't about this content or that content. It's empty in the sense that it works with whatever's happening. In that sense, you empty your mind of an agenda to work on anything other than what's going on. But if you've got something going on, you don't try to empty it of that.

[70:40]

And a lot of people, when they start meditating, they try to take what's in their mind and get it out of their mind. So then they have what's going on in their mind, plus they have a kind of extradition program or deportation program going on. No, you just let what's happening happen. That's emptying your mind, in a sense. And if you notice what's happening, if you start to open to impermanence, then your meditation is getting warm. And then if you start to notice impermanence, and in the process of noticing impermanence, you start to notice things like geez, it would really be nice to be enlightened and I would actually like to make the effort to be enlightened so that I could help people because I don't have much time left. It'd be nice if I did something really good before I left. When people are about to die, they often think of doing something good.

[71:46]

when they know they just have a little time left, they don't often think, now what more nasty thing could I do before I go? You know? Some people do, actually. You know, they think, you know, one more mean thing, kill one more person for me. A lot of people anyway think, geez, I don't have much time left. Now what was it again that I wanted to do? And somebody said, I think Jung said, when a man's dying, he often, he seldom thinks he wished he'd worked more. Usually we think, I wish I'd spent more time, you know, looking at my children or, you know, saying I love someone or something like that. Usually that's what we think of when we're dying. So when you start to realize impermanence, you think, geez, I would really like to do something really excellent before it's too late. that's a sign that you're thinking about impermanence in the right way. So again, meditating on what's happening with you

[72:50]

when you start to notice that this impermanence is what's happening to you, that this individual self is fleeting, it's fleeting, it's rapidly changing, it's going away, it's not going to be around much longer, you're starting to see what's going on with that impermanent, limited self. And then, when you notice that and start thinking compassionate thoughts and start generating interest in meditation, then that's even reserving more and more to the core of the meditation. Okay? Is that right, Christine? Yes, what's your name again? Shiva. Shiva. So are you saying is the purpose of meditating on impermanence more compassionate and then made more compassionately? Yes. The purpose of all of Buddhism is compassion. That's the point of Buddhism, is great compassion. Right. And what about the fear of death? The fear of death? goes away when you meditate on death.

[73:52]

Properly. Death for me is in the natural daily thoughts, too. So I don't meditate now, but I think about it. That's a start. Where I hear stuff, though, is not me dying, necessarily, but what will happen to my daughter, who I'm responsible for, who's over three and a half, like something would happen to me, what would happen to her, and that's when I become fearful. Right. So how do you deal with that? Well, one way is, when you look at any living being, particularly your offspring, and you become afraid that they're going to die, okay? And it's reasonable to become afraid that they'll die because they might. Being afraid that you're going to die is more to the point. So it turns out, well, anyway, number one is What sometimes happens is people look at somebody else dying and they skip over looking at the fact that they're going to die.

[74:57]

So it's good when you notice being concerned for the welfare of your daughter that you start meditating on your own death. That's good. That's where it should be. It should be primarily on yourself, your own death. Secondarily on those who you consider to be very closely related to you. But it should come back to yourself. because actually that's the place where, you know, the enlightenment's going to occur, is on yourself, meditating on yourself rather than on the other. So then you start meditating on yourself and you feel the fear, okay? Now, a number of things. Number one is that for the welfare of your child, it would be good if you would become more and more intimate in your awareness of death. The more fearless, the more intimate you are with death, the more you'll be able to take care of your children, right? In fact, we do not know when we're going to die. But between now and then, the best thing we can do for everybody we care about is to meditate on our death.

[76:09]

When you first start doing it, you might become afraid. Becoming afraid means you're not meeting the death uprightly. You're a little bit leaning into it. So it doesn't mean that if you're upright and you see your death that you don't care. It just means you see your death and you face it. And some part of you feels fear. Some animal part of you feels fear. But the meditator doesn't feel fear. The meditator just lets the fear of the death and the death just be like that. And that way some part of you becomes very intimate with this. And as you become more intimate with it, that way of being intimate with it makes you better and better able to take care of your daughter no matter what happens. And taking care of your daughter does not require you to be afraid of dying.

[77:16]

But it does require you to be aware of your impermanence. Taking care of your daughter well requires you to take good care of your awareness of your death. People can hurt their children if they're not aware of their own impermanence. How can we do that? Well, one of the main ways we do that is getting busy with our children, manipulative with our children. If you only have a little bit, or with your parents, or with yourself, if you only have a little bit of time left with somebody, you're not going to try to fix them up just before you leave. I think so. If you only have another hour with your child, you're not going to be like, you know, trying to get them, you know, put makeup on them and get their hair done.

[78:19]

You might touch them and straighten their hair a little bit, but the point is you're going to be like into appreciating them and telling them how much you love them rather than saying, you know, you shouldn't dress like that and you should do this and you should do that. Like my mother, you know. My mother's 82 and... And the doctor told her if she smoked, she's going to kill her, right? And so she's been trying to quit smoking for a while, and she's chewing these, you know, these Nicorect things. So the issue of getting off nicotine, forget that. But anyway, maybe she stopped smoking. But recently she told me that she started smoking again. She told me. I didn't catch her. She confessed that she started smoking. She said, I'd rather die than keep trying to quit smoking. She's 82. She knows her children have been, particularly my brother, have been kind of like pestering her to quit smoking for a long time.

[79:22]

She's done it a little bit off and on over the years, and now she's smoking again. The doctor does not think she's going to get lung cancer. but she does have emphysema to some extent. So this might be it for my mother, the smoking thing. But this is what she wants to do. So my brother lives right near to her. He has to think about how does he want to spend his time with his mother. Does he want to be pestering her for the little bit of time she's got left when she may or may not stop smoking? Or does he want to Maybe leave the room if she starts smoking, but, you know. So when you get into the impermanence, somehow you're more gentle, I think. And it's not that you don't think in terms of the long term, but that you get more into the appreciation of the present and you get to be more gentle and...

[80:25]

more calm and more grounded and and again you start to open up to the vision of interdependence. This is kind of a radical thing to say, but anyway I'll just say it, just to get it off my chest if you'll excuse me, but we only have a little time left together And from the Buddha's point of view, although we only have a little time left together, that means a little time left together in this body. This body's not going to be around much longer, and neither is yours. But we're together for a little while longer if we can appreciate reality and appreciate compassion. if we can appreciate reality where there is, you know, no birth and death, and feel compassion from that vision, if we can do that, this life has been worthwhile and we have given a great gift to ourselves and everyone we meet.

[81:39]

So when you realize impermanence, you can realize that that's the gift you have to give. That's more important It's more important to give that gift than to be around ten years or twenty years or thirty years rather than two weeks. And some of you might disagree and might feel like, I think it's better to be a semi-enlightened mother for ten years than to be a radiantly enlightened mother for two weeks. I disagree. I think we're here to become Buddhas even for a short period of time in this body. And I feel to have, to be a Buddha mother to a child is a gift that, I mean, it's an inconceivably great gift to give to your children is to be a Buddha mother, a mother Buddha, a woman Buddha who's the mother of a child. We don't know how much longer we're going to live anyway.

[82:44]

The thing is to give your child unconditioned, infinite love. That will set the seed for her happiness for an inconceivable span of life. This is the end of tape number two. Please go to tape number three to continue.

[83:09]

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