I'd like to talk tonight about how you can resist authority. And the reason I'd like to talk about this is because I think it'll be useful. So, some people have told me that they resist authority or they have problems relating to authority figures. I've heard that actually several times. But you know, it's really quite normal to have some problem, some resistance to authority

[01:02]

because, I think really, the only way you can not have resistance to authority is to be perfectly balanced. And I think that exactly the same applies to the rest of your life. To say I resist authority is basically saying I resist life. And some people can say that too, that they resist life. I feel that one of the opportunities of having some authority in your life, you know, and you can take that as in your life you have authority or your life has authority, but also that in your life there are authorities or things of authentic things in your life too that you can meet. I think the advantage of that, of having authority in your life, internally, externally or whatever, is that it gives you a chance to become aware of your resistance to life.

[02:05]

It highlights and dramatizes what's going on in relationship to things that have less power. Because authority does, you know, what do you call it, where's my little note there? Oh yeah, authority is the right and power to command, that's one of the first definitions. The right and power to command, to enforce laws, to exact obedience, to determine and to judge. We have problems with judges. We have problems with people who can enforce laws. We have problems with people who seem to have the right or think they have the right or other people give them the right to command and so on. And we have problems with this, but we have problems with other things also that we don't

[03:09]

usually call authority figures, but anything that has the power to command something. For example, cold weather or hot weather or a big truck or a landslide or a snowstorm. These things have the power to command and in some sense the right to command, you give them the right. You say, it's a big landslide or big avalanche, I give you the right to command me to get out of the way. The root of the word authority is augere, which means to create or increase, Latin. Auctor has the same root, author, author is, has the same root, creator, to create,

[04:13]

to increase. This is the source of the word author and the source of the word authority. Also authentic, which we have less problems with, has the same root. Authentes is based on the same root as authority. Authentes, the Latin word, means one who acts on her own authority, a chief. But we don't usually say, I have problems with authentic figures, but we do. With a figure that has its own authority, we have problems with those too. We have problems with everything, we resist everything, unless we're perfectly balanced. That's the only way we don't resist. When you're perfectly balanced, you know like in what is it, I don't know what, Tai Chi, Aikido, whatever. When you're perfectly balanced, some force comes towards you and you move with it, you know, in an appropriate way. You don't get flattened by it, you don't smash it back, you go with it in a balanced

[05:15]

way. And your balance, if your balance is perfect, you don't resist it at all. Only if you resist it can it knock you down. There are two basic ways of resisting something. One is to submit, that's a resistance. The other is to rebel. To push back or to be pushed over are resisting the thing. Another way to resist something is identify with it. Another way to resist it is separate yourself from it. So it's very hard for us to neither identify ourselves with a truth or a teaching nor separate ourselves, but to meet it without identifying or disidentifying. Very hard. Because we have skills for identifying and disidentifying. We have skills for submitting and rebelling. There's nothing to doing neither of those.

[06:16]

There is a skill though, it's a skill of being balanced and upright, but it's an intangible skill when it really is operating. So again, the nice thing about an authority figure is that it puts authority into a figure so that you can test your balance. You can see, are you submitting? Are you rebelling? Are you being pugnacious or obsequious? Or are you just meeting? And, you know, as equal basically, because authority figures, when they're functioning properly, are also like that. Their authority is in their creation. And their creation is their uprightness, is their balance, their creative imbalance. So there's this wonderful book called Until We Have Faces.

[07:21]

Towards the end of the book, there's a statement something like, Until we have faces, the gods can't meet us. And also I would say, until we have faces, we can't meet the gods. If we don't have a face, the authority figure can't meet us. But also, they can't come to meet us, but we can't go to meet them. And putting your face on means that that's really you. It's not like the pugnacious you. It's not the subservient you. It's not the you that's ahead of yourself. It's not the you that's behind yourself. It's not the you that's trying to be something for somebody. It's not the you that's trying to avoid being something for somebody. It's just you. It's your face. And your face, when it's on your face, can be met. Having your face is another example of not resisting your life. But it's hard to not resist having a face, because a face is such a tender, vulnerable, changeable, highly intelligent, responsive thing.

[08:25]

It's hard for us to tune in to what's going on in our own face when it meets another face. So much happens. And we're so sensitive to it. Or we can be so sensitive to it. Is this a fake smile I'm giving you? Is this a sycophant smile? Am I being belligerent? Is this a belligerent sneer? What is this? To be aware of what I'm actually presenting, it's very difficult to be present for that and take responsibility for it. But to have a face is part of what it means to meet the authority in your life, but also meet anything in your life, whether it's called an authority figure or not. Everything you meet has authority, actually. Nothing doesn't have its authority. Everything as it is has authority. There's an authority of the way things are. And an authority figure is someone who says,

[09:28]

there's authority in the way I am. And I'm authentic means I can act from that authority. A teaching that's authentic can act from its authority. So part of what I would suggest to you to consider is, how do you meet the authority of Buddha? How do you meet the authority of the Four Noble Truths? How do you face the Four Noble Truths? How do you stand and face the Four Noble Truths? Where do you stand and face the Four Noble Truths? So, any response to that that you'd like to make? Yes? I just would like you to speak a little bit about the fact that

[10:31]

right now and in today's society, there's such a misuse of authority, or the need for control in the marketplace. Or when you go into a business situation. Certainly it's been talked about in various Dharma centers. And just in relationships, personal relationships, when control comes in or misuse. And if you don't have an aikido background or something, how do you work with that? Well, let's see. Are you asking how to meet an authority figure who is abusing the authority? Yes. And to distinguish. How do you distinguish? Whether an authority figure is abusing the authority? Where are the boundaries? Well, number one is, I would suggest to you, as I have been for the last few days, we are naturally like... Did you say discerning or discriminating? Distinguish.

[11:33]

We are constantly distinguishing and discerning whether somebody is using their authority properly or not. I think we do that. From what I see, people do that pretty much. They're into that. Okay? Right? So you seem to be into that too, right? All right? So that's fine. That's normal. No problem. Did I tell you that... You know, there's lots of things I'm not good at. Like I'm not good at spelling and various other things. I won't go into detail. My wife is very good at lots of things. But one of the things that she's not so good at, that I'm quite good at, is telling what direction we're going. Like, you know, in terms of northeast, southwest, Nevada, you know. Because, you know, Nevada is east of here, right? Or if we're in some town we're not familiar with, I usually can tell which direction is north.

[12:36]

And like if we're in like Redding and we're going to Ashland, Oregon, I know that we have to go north from Redding. And since I know which direction east is, I know we go east to the freeway and then take a left. She has absolutely no idea. She could drive towards the coast, you know. She could go north and think she was, you know. Anyway, she's not into that. And partly I think maybe that she wasn't. She was born in China. Maybe I have something to do with it. Maybe. But anyway, she wasn't born in America. I kind of know America, you know. It's my home town. Anyway, whatever. That's not her strong point. It's my strong point. So when we drive, whether I'm driving or not, I sort of say which way to go. I say turn left, turn right. And occasionally when we're driving, like it happened a while ago, she said, I think you should turn here. And I didn't think so, but I went with her, you know. And it was... And I said, you didn't trust your own authority there. And I tried not to take it out on her

[13:37]

because it wasn't her fault. You know, she just said something, right. It was my not trusting myself in that case. Anyway, so she agrees that my sense of direction is in some sense more what you call practical and in a sense true. True in the correspondence theory. I say, this is Napa and I can prove it. There's a sign. You know, everybody in the town says so, you know. It's on the map. And also... That's also the coherence theory to me. You're checking it out with other people. Oh, it's coherence. It's all three. Anyway, and so she says, his job is to drive and my job is to question authority. Are you sure that's the right way? I don't think this is the right way. You know, you're... Now, if I, for example, if we're driving along and she wants to stop to go to the toilet or to, you know, get something to eat

[14:37]

and I'm the authority in terms of where we're going, it would be abusing my authority to say, we're not going to stop. And I did that for years. But finally, now I stopped pretty much as soon as she says she wants to stop, I stopped. I've learned that she's hung in there. So basically, I would suggest that if you sense that authority is being abused, in some cases, you give people authority. You say, you're better at spelling. You're better at the computer. You're better at cooking. You're better at, you know, directions. I give you that authority. But then if you feel like the person is abusing it, that's your determination. You say, I think, I feel like you're abusing authority. That's what I would suggest you do. However, I would suggest you do it. How? I'm driving. Yeah. You don't go like, you don't go like come on with this big charge because then basically you don't even know what you're saying, right? All you know is Arlene's on the charge. You have to get out of the way, you know? But you just say, you just uprightly say, I think, I feel like you're abusing your authority. That's what you do. And you go from there. You also don't shrink back.

[15:38]

You also don't like deny your perceptions. You don't have to deny your perceptions, but also you don't have to, you don't have to deny your perceptions, but also you don't have to say that they're true. You can claim they're true and you can say they're true, but you can also not necessarily believe that they're true. You don't have to believe your perceptions even though you might sometimes think they're true and say so. You don't have to believe it heavily charged way. You can be balanced about it. So learning how to do that is also part of learning how to be upright with your experience. So Arlene, is that enough on that or do you want to do more? No, that's fine. Okay. Anything else on this? Yes? Is that book showing a face in place? Yes. And it's interesting, the heroine in the book wears a mask for most of the book. It's very much about faces. In fact, the key point is that you have to have a face to be met by anybody.

[16:40]

But particularly the divine won't meet you at all without a face. Other people may meet you. They're willing to meet your fake face. They often like your fake face better than your regular one. That's why you wear that one. To please them. It's not recommended though in terms of like media life. Putting on a fake face is part of resisting life. Is that it? Yes? It seems like submitting and identifying have some similarities but I'm not sure what it is. Yeah, that's right. Submitting and identifying are very close. I don't know. It's not clear to me how submitting or identifying is resisting life. It's not clear? Well, for example, let's take an example of you and me, shall we? Let's say I was teaching something. All right? And let's say you didn't agree with me.

[17:44]

Actually. But you submitted to me. Okay? I think you'd be resisting the life which is you which doesn't agree with me. You'd be resisting that life. Because I'm not agreeing with you? No, no, no. No, no, [...] no. Because you backed off of your disagreement which you held, which you have, which you are. So I just didn't come forward with it? Well, you didn't come forward but also you backed off it when you submitted. You disagreed with me. When you submitted, what I mean by submitting is you say, okay, you're right. That's submitting, right? If you disagree with somebody and you submit to them and you say, basically, submission is, okay, you're right. I'll go with your program. I don't agree but I'll go with it. But not even I don't agree. I agree and I'll go with it. That's submission. That's resistance. Your life. That's resisting your life and it's resisting the authority figure. It's not meeting them. It's resisting them. It's resisting them. Because what you're saying is I'm not going to have a relationship with you. This is the unexpected side of resistance

[18:54]

which is not well known, right? Some of you are surprised to hear this? I've heard it. It's similar to passive aggression. It's actually more cruel in a certain way. Even partial submission is kind of like passive aggression. And also, when you submit... Passive aggression is in some ways more cruel than overt aggression. My wife strongly prefers direct aggression rather than passive aggression. She can deal with both. She can deal with that. Passive aggression, when the person withdraws, and then they're doing it but they're not showing it that they're doing it. It's passive. You can't see it. One of the main ways to express passive aggression is basically to say I'm not going to relate to you anymore. But not even say it. Just withdraw your interest.

[19:57]

That's resisting your life in relationship to whatever it is. Does that make sense? And of course, before I go any further, I just want to mention that the reason for this withdrawal, this submission, and identification is another way to submit, or trying to overwhelm the authority or fight it, the reason for this is that when we meet an authority, we meet our own power. And in that situation, there's a situation of tremendous potential. If there's a slightest bit of imbalance, these are very turbulent, and we feel a lot of anxiety. If we have any self-attachment, any self-concern in that situation, we feel anxiety and pain. So of course, many people say, in situations like that, they say, I want to get out of this situation. I don't like this situation. Get me out of here. Which is a perfectly reasonable thing to feel. It's called resisting the situation.

[20:59]

Now, this is not a situation where you're going to get hurt. I'm talking about, you just don't feel comfortable because your anxiety and insecurity has been surfaced. Yes, Miffin? When you were what? Yes. You know, they started me around. And, um, I felt, you know, from seeing them, very redondous. I mean, they were an authority figure, and to resist them, you know, I mean, to the Tibetans, anyway, would be death. Well, again, you're using resistance. It sounds like you're using resistance in the one-sided way of using it. That's what it sounds like.

[22:00]

When you're saying resistance, you're equating it with rebellion or pugnaciousness. Right? I don't know. I wouldn't say authority. That's not what comes to my mind. Yeah, well, in China right now, I mean, in Tibet, the Chinese have authority. They have the power, and they think they have the right. And among themselves, they think that. But they seem to have the power to command, and they seem to be enforcing their laws. The Tibetans are also trying to enforce their laws, but it's a struggle, right? There's a struggle. So anyway, you're a visitor, and you feel, uh, separate from the Chinese, and it sounds like you feel rebellious. And then you say, you feel that, but since you're a visitor, you can feel that, and maybe it's safer for you. If the Chinese feel rebellious, I would say, if the Chinese feel rebellious, excuse me, if the Tibetans feel rebellious

[23:02]

and pugnacious and separate from the Chinese, if they feel that way, okay, I would say that is an example of resisting their life. Now, the other way, the other way to resist their life would be to, like, you know, go along with the Chinese entirely, you know, become Chinese and forget about the fact that they're Tibetan. That kind of resists their life. I say that would resist their life. That would resist being Tibetan is to pretend like you're not. Just forget about it. That resists part of the difficulty of being Tibetan is to forget about that you're Tibetan. Does that make sense? You following that? That's what I'm saying. Now, Arlene said, if you don't have an Aikido background, okay, if you don't have an Aikido background, but basically I'm suggesting get an Aikido background as soon as possible. Get an Aikido foreground. Learn, as soon as possible, how to play with the forces of nature as they manifest

[24:03]

as human beings. Learn how to play with it. It doesn't mean that you have to think that people will come in and invade your country and take over it. You have to think, oh, that's good. It doesn't mean you think that. It doesn't mean that resistance is thinking that's good. As a matter of fact, I would think that thinking that it was good, no, it doesn't mean that resistance is thinking that's bad. And it doesn't mean that resistance isn't thinking that it's good. Both thinking it's good and thinking it's bad, both could be resistance. The point of the resistance is, again, how you move with the situation, whether something catches, that's the resistance. So, again, using martial arts in Judo, when I used to play it, some people would come in, sometimes quite big, strong guys would come in and we'd play, you know, we'd start moving around on the floor and some of them, they would be big and strong and you couldn't move them. I mean, it would be pretty hard

[25:04]

to move them anyway. They would move a little bit, you know, because otherwise it would be ridiculous just to stand there. They came to learn Judo. They would be very stiff, you know, and if you push on them at all, or pull on them, if you push on them, they wouldn't move, and if you pull on them, they wouldn't move. Of course, you could throw them, but it was hard, in a way, unless they made a move. But, and if they made a move, that wouldn't necessarily work for them, if you were flexible, because you could just use their move to, when they made a move, it was very easy to throw them. You know what I'm saying? If they would move, you could just use the momentum of their movement to take them someplace. But if they're not making any moves and you try to move them and they're resisting, there's not much to do. You could throw them, but there's not much to do. But the point is that they weren't learning anything. And as long as they played that way, they wouldn't learn Judo. The people who learned were the people who got thrown all over the room. And, of course, the people who got thrown all over the room were people who let themselves be thrown, and the people who let themselves be thrown were the people who weren't afraid

[26:04]

to be thrown, and the people who weren't afraid to be thrown were the people who learned how to fall pretty well. So the first thing they teach you in Judo is how to fall. If you're afraid to fall, then you resist. Similarly, if you're afraid to fall in any human interaction, if you're afraid to fall, you resist. And if you resist, you're stuck. If you're not afraid to fall, you don't have to fall. Because if you're really not afraid to fall, you can... I would say just to throw out some things to you, okay? If you're not afraid to fall, really not afraid to fall, you don't ever have to fall, ever. Unless you want to. Now you say, what if you met a super skillful person? Okay? Huh? Yeah. What if you met a super skillful person who, I mean, just they have tremendous skill at, you know, moving your body around, and you're not at all afraid to fall. Wouldn't they be able to throw you? Sure they would. Sure they would. But ladies and gentlemen, what

[27:07]

did I say? Remember the other thing I said? Huh? You're not afraid to fall. No, I said, the person's not afraid. Unless you want to. Unless you want to. If somebody was that good, I mean, your life is thoroughly unafraid to fall. Which means, you're not going to be thoroughly unafraid to fall unless either you're crazy or you know how to fall. If you really are unafraid to fall and somebody is really good, you are perfectly happy for them to throw you because you learn from being thrown by a master. That's how you learn. That's how you learn. You cannot learn from the master by not getting thrown. And you can't throw them. So the only way you learn, well, you also learn before they throw you when they're just moving you around the room. You learn from that too. But the reason why you learn is because you're willing to be thrown, and when they throw you, you learn often even more. And one time, when I was a beginner,

[28:08]

excuse me for bragging, but one time I was a beginner, I was very flexible, very relaxed, and the master of the class was taking me all over the room, throwing me all over the place. And one time, while he was in the process of throwing me, I threw him. And he was delighted and fell very nicely, and it was instant. It was just in the flow of things. So when you are really unafraid to fall, you really don't mind falling, and especially you don't mind falling when you feel what it's like to be thrown from being thrown. I mean, you feel what it's like to have someone really do a good throw on you. But if you're afraid, you don't know how to fall, and you're afraid to fall, then you're going to resist being thrown and you're not going to learn how to throw or be thrown, and you're going to resist the situation. What? Oh yeah, you hurt yourself too. Right, if you're little and you resist, then they can throw you anyway, but you're breaking

[29:09]

several pieces then. But because unless it's a really skillful person, they can throw you so you won't get hurt even if you're resisting. But if you get thrown by somebody who's a little bit more skillful and more powerful than you and you're resisting, then you don't know how to fall. So that's the reason why you should learn how to fall on those things. Right away, the first thing to learn is how to fall. It's the main thing to learn. And then you won't resist your life, because you know you'll be all right. So anyway, we're all going to fall pretty soon, right? So get with the program. Stop resisting your life, which means stop resisting your death, right? Anything else? Liz, did you want to say something? I was thinking about speaking your peace when you feel like there's something you need to say. And if the person that you're speaking to, it may be that they don't really want to listen to what you have to say, or maybe put you down for it, whatever. So to kind of continue not resisting your life, it seems like you have to kind of hold

[30:14]

your own context to certain values of, okay, I said this, and whether or not they're trashing me for it, I'm true to myself because I said it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. But don't stop there. Yeah, don't, yeah, what's next? Next is, you know, saying maybe you don't want to trash. Yeah, you know, number one, the way you responded to me, you know, here I just said what I had to say to you, and I felt like, well, by the way, before I say this to you, do you want to hear how I feel about the way you just talked to me? Check with them. Sometimes they do, but they don't know they do unless you ask them. And sometimes they don't. Sometimes people trash you, in other words, disrespect you when you present yourself to them, but they don't want to hear any more from you about that. So I would usually check beforehand to see if they do. If they don't, if they say they don't, then I would say something more,

[31:18]

probably. But it wouldn't be the same thing as I would say as if they said they did. I don't know what I'd say, but I might say, I would say, you don't want to hear any more from me? Yeah, that's right, I don't want to hear any more from you. Matter of fact, you're going to get in trouble if you talk to me anymore. And I might say, okay, that's that. See you later. But anyway, if I got trashed, but I didn't, even though I got trashed or disrespected, okay, I wasn't going to drop it there. I was going to come back and offer them a chance to play some more. And I would, if they wanted to play, I would say, well, I felt disrespected by what you said. If they don't want to play, then I don't think I'm resisting my life by recognizing that they don't want to play. I'm accepting that they don't want to play. If somebody doesn't want to play, I think that's my life. This is your life, Rev. Anderson. Liz does not want to play. Face it. Okay? You really don't want to play. If you did, then I would tell you that I felt disrespected by your response.

[32:26]

But the point is, I didn't back off. I came back again. And you said no again. And I figured, well, that's just the way it is. You are disrespecting me. And I didn't pretend like I didn't think you were. I didn't say, I'm probably wrong. Because I don't even know exactly what to do with what I think yet, because you won't relate with me. I have to interact a little bit more before I can verify whether that really was disrespectful. But I'm willing to get in there if I'm willing to face my life. I'm willing to get into it with people who are willing to get into it. But it doesn't make much sense to get into it with people who don't want to get into it. And that disengaging can look like disengaging. Yeah. It can look like saying, we're done. I'm going on. I'm leaving now. Sometimes that's repeating. Sometimes what the real feedback to somebody is to walk away. Because they're telling you, either directly or indirectly, I want to be isolated. That's part of the thing about codependence. Is that a person saying,

[33:30]

I'm independent. I don't want to relate to anybody. I don't want to tell people what I'm doing. And then if people around want to, what's the matter? You're doing a better job. Rather than saying, oh, you don't want to relate. You think you're independent. OK, well, let's manifest that then. And then they say, God, I'm all by myself. In other words, their independence is being manifested. And they say, oh, wow. In other words, they don't feel comfortable being the way they say they are. And some people might feel like, well, that's cold to let them manifest the independence which they say they are. In other words, let them be isolated. But that can be you not resisting your life, which is you're with somebody who says they're independent of you. And that can be very compassionate. Yes? I'd like to make a

[34:34]

request that before you answer more questions, if you have some other material that you wanted to present tonight, make some presentation and then leave some time for other questions at the end, if that's OK. If what's OK? That you said that? That I said that. It's OK. There was one more thing I wanted to say, which reminded me because you said something about it. And that is, I'm saying this partly because if I now present something, I'm not trying to, what? Coerce. Coerce you into believing something. But I'm also not trying to, like, backpedal so that you won't feel anything coming up to meet you. So like, oh, here's four noble truths. Take them or leave them. So if I say, you know, this is the authoritative content of Buddha's wisdom,

[35:35]

you know, I'm just saying that sort of so you have something to feel. OK, so I don't know. You want me to talk about right view? Sounds good. It's material, right? Right view. So right view is a big topic. Right view. But I'm going to talk about some kind of problem areas of it to start with. Not so much because this material is so important, but because it's very good material for you to practice playing with. OK, for example, here's some things that are involved in right view, which I told you about before. Right view involves a belief. First of all, I'm going to say it just kind of like what you call it. I'm going to say it. Just say it. OK. Right view involves a belief that there are past and future lives.

[36:36]

That the causal mechanism of karma does function. That there exist arhats and other beings who have traveled the Buddhist path and attained nirvana in the sense of like total freedom, unassailable bliss kind of thing. And of course, essentially, right view entails the belief and acceptance in the Four Noble Truths and their cosmological background and the philosophical underpinnings of the cosmological background. You know, the core of right view is acceptance of the teaching of the Four Noble Truths and their cosmological background. In other words, the samsara nirvana background of the Four Noble Truths and the philosophical underpinnings of the cosmological view. OK. Now, the Four Noble Truths are the part of the right view that are like the pivotal thing

[37:50]

in terms of transcendent wisdom. Studying rebirth is not the topic exactly. The meditation on or acceptance of rebirth is not the topic, which is the ultimate content of Buddhist wisdom. And even karma isn't. And even believing that some people have attained the path isn't. But I think those are interesting to bring up. It's kind of like, I had this feeling like, I'd like you to warm up on these things. And as you get more skillful at how these things, then you can turn your skill on something which I wouldn't want you to mishandle. It's OK to mishandle the laws of karma. They can take it, so to speak. It's OK to mishandle the sages and this past life stuff. You can rebel against it and submit to it and do all the other kind of stuff. But if you work with this and finally obtain your face and your uprightness

[38:52]

in relationship to them, then that posture, that mode of study which has arrived at in relationship to this material, then can be turned on the Four Noble Truths. So then the mode of study, which is nirvana, will be applied to the content of nirvana. So in some ways, we've been studying the Four Noble Truths. And I have not felt much resistance from you except about the suffering thing a little bit. But I think by bringing up some of these other materials, this may surface some more of your holding points. And then if you can work with those holding points, then I think you'll be in a better position to take another tour of study of the Four Noble Truths. That's my feeling. And also, I don't like to skip over difficult things, as you know. And by difficult things, it's not so much that rebirth is difficult, but it's that rebirth seems to bring up difficulty for people, and karma does too. So I'd like to talk for a

[39:53]

while about those topics. And if anybody has a problem with the idea of there being arhats, we can talk about that too, but I haven't heard much problem with that. But maybe that will turn into the next thing. Where are the arhats? Well, they always were rare. They always were rare. And if that's what's really important to you, and like—oh, and then I want to read it again. This is the correspondence theory way of reading this, okay? Right view involves the belief that there really are past and future lives, that the karmic mechanism that the karmic mechanism of causation really does function. There really do exist arhats and other beings who have attained nirvana, and so on. So if that's really the most important one to you, and you would like to prove it, then I would suggest you start traveling

[40:55]

and see if you can find an arhat someplace. I am not claiming to be an arhat. Well, I mean, that's sort of—it seems to me that they demonstrate a proof that I can perceive about the Third Noble Truth. Right, so if you would like— Where is it? So I think you're going to have to travel, because I'm not—is anybody here claiming to be an arhat? No. So if you want proof, then I think you should take a trip. And I would suggest, you know, starting off in Southeast Asia, or, you know, India—start in India and move around India for a while. Ask around if there's any arhats in India. See if people say that there are some. If there are, go check them out. If you can't find any Indian, or even signs or reputation of anybody as being an arhat, go to Burma, Thailand, you know, Cambodia. Then go to China, Korea, Mongolia, Tibet, Japan. And if you don't find any, then you will be unsuccessful in getting objective proof of that. So then, I don't know where you'll be. Of the Third Noble Truth, right? Yeah, in a way, of the Third Noble Truth, in a way, yeah. Even though it's—you also then

[42:00]

have trouble establishing that proof of that aspect of the Fourth Noble Truth, which is the right view, which entails that you do believe that this is possible, and that there are, and that there have—not so much that there are, but that there have been such beings. Yes? How would you know if you met such beings? How would you know? How would I know? Well— How would one of us be capable of that? Well, they would have unassailable—they would be in a state of unassailable bliss and freedom. That's—so then, how would you find—how would you determine that about a person? It doesn't mean that such a person would advertise this, but what makes it also look harder to find? They would not necessarily advertise it. And being arhats, they actually would even let—if they were just arhats and not bodhisattvas, they would even be less likely to make it known. What about the Dalai Lama? I don't know if he claims to be an arhat, but, you know, he's certainly in the ballpark.

[43:00]

I mean, he's certainly— He claims to be Avalokiteshvara. Yeah, but Avalokiteshvara—Buddha was, you know, Avalokiteshvara, too. He doesn't actually claim to be, but he said, like, he said, you know, when they told me that, I used to think, geez, that's really strange, but he said, the more—but, you know, the more I sort of, like, play the role, I kind of, like, now I just kind of feel like maybe I am. It's kind of more like that, like, I guess I am, kind of, rather than he's claiming. But Avalokiteshvara has attained the arhat state, too. Buddha was an arhat, and a great bodhisattva. Buddha is Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri bodhisattva, Samantabhadra, you know, blah, blah, blah, and he's an arhat. Not all arhats are great bodhisattvas, though, but bodhisattvas are supposed to do the arhat thing at some point along the way. Anyway, the thing about arhats is that they are free, and they're really happy. And they understand the Four Noble Truths.

[44:04]

So you can check them out. If you can't—if they won't, like, demonstrate, you know, tell you that they're in great bliss, and they won't—and they aren't, like, going on trying to show off that they're free, you can kind of just see if they seem to be stuck anywhere. Is there any sticking points? You know, in a respectful way, you can go up and start, you know, sticking your finger in their ear or something. Check it out. They may say, no, please don't put your finger in my ear. I hate that when you put your finger in my ear. I hate it. But, you know, that would be a sign of freedom, that they could tell you that they don't like you to stick your finger in their ear. But would they get angry at you for it? Well, they might. If it would be beneficial, it would be helpful to you. But they probably wouldn't get angry because they probably would— they would be free of, you know, you stick your finger in their ear. This is not, like, going to really bother them that much. This would be a sign of an arhat. I mean, arhats, you're not going to be able to really bother— and they only would be— they're not going to be bothered, but they would possibly manifest rage if it would be beneficial to you, if they're bodhisattva arhats. If they're not a bodhisattva arhat,

[45:07]

they won't even get angry at you if you start, you know, chopping up in little pieces. They won't. They'll just keep practicing patiently and say, wow, look what's happening to me. I am being chopped up into pieces. I heard about this happening to some arhats and now I'm one of them. That's what an arhat would do. I'm not saying you should— you definitely should not. But I mean, I'm just saying that even that, even that, an arhat will not get angry at you if you start cutting up in little pieces. They will not. They will not. That's one of the ways you can tell. But you shouldn't use that test unless, you know, under some special circumstance. I would say, check with me before you do that one. You could also just— I think the simplest thing to do would be just to say, are you an arhat? And then they might say, yes. I want to know how you stand.

[46:08]

How do I stand? Or sit. I sit in confusion about it. And at the same time I have— I can— the popularized version of it is easy. And that comes. That is part of it, really. Uh-huh. Well, that's a mostly part of it. And if you can believe that part, we can work from there. What I seem to have trouble with is understanding it as self or ego or individual consciousness. It's not. That's not— Buddhists do not say that it's a self-reborn. Does not say that. In fact, parentheses, I'll go into that too later. But anyway, we do not say a self goes between five skandhas and through the gap. A self goes through the gap and then gets reborn. That's not it.

[47:09]

So you don't have to go for that one. The Buddhists are not asking you to do that. As a matter of fact, they're saying that ain't so. Babies in the womb do not have self. They don't. But they do have a lineage, a continuity of karma. Karma is not necessarily self. Yes. Well, I can stand with it in terms of a genetic kind of a karma. I mean, and I don't know what gets carried that way, but I certainly know that I bear that. But it seems to me you talked about people remembering past lives. So to me, that implies that if I were remembering a past life, Sarah would be remembering other beings, other identities, other separate identities. It seems to you that you would be remembering separate identities. That's right.

[48:09]

Okay. So again, parenthetically, what the Buddha said, he saw when he looked back at his past life, what he saw was five skandhas. He did not see any selves. He just saw five skandhas. He saw five skandhas. He saw five skandhas, five skandhas, five skandhas, five skandhas. Did they have names? Five skandhas have names. Yeah. Yeah, they do. But the names are just one of the five skandhas. They're not like the thing. One of the skandhas is a skandha that has names in it. I'm sorry, what? One of the skandhas has names in it. It's not the name of the five skandhas. It's just that the five skandhas have names. five skandhas has words that's how you can tune in what's happening if you're a human with words but the buddha didn't see like sarah and brooks and bert and gloria he didn't see that he saw five skandhas five skandhas five skandhas because that's what buddha saw all the time now does that mean he doesn't know that this is stewart of course but he sees that stewart's this part of the

[49:10]

five skandha thing because you know well okay that's what that's what you see when you're yeah so so but you when you're in life and if you are you know if you've developed enough uh you probably could put names on them if you wanted to is that right put names on them yeah you mean just for fun yeah yeah you can probably know the names that they had had before the names that they had had before yeah yeah but yeah and you can put new names on them just for fun and say that you know you can nickname them and give them buddhist names it's putting the names on them that they had had in the past that i have trouble with yeah but see putting the names on that they had in the past is just that you understand their five skandhas your own five skandhas and see that in this you just check the skandhas out and you can see what's in the skandhas also i'm interested in how you lie down on this susan well um thank you i i thank you i think direct experience i mean both of the men that i

[50:22]

married i walked up to and said have i met you sometimes before a very strong sense of having met this person never seen their face but i mean real familiarity and i get very uncomfortable with having to come up with a story about how this all happens because i feel um a movement towards sort of self-preservation and wanting to be and i don't hear any of this wanting to have had rebirths an idea of wanting in a bodhisattva way i hear it boy i really want to come back and again and again and it feels i i just i get uncomfortable with it because i feel the trap of that of wanting to know about it because i want to continue to exist as myself so i prefer to sort of just believe i mean have

[51:24]

faith in that it is it happens and that it's a continuum that i as i am conscious now won't be conscious of in the same way so it really in a way my actions are going to affect another being what i'm doing right now is going to affect another being positively or negatively and it makes me want to be careful not because i'm going to suffer in the way that i understand myself now but more that i'm going to cause suffering suffering is going to happen in the world because of what i'm not being careful about so it's not quite the story of a specific thing going forward but a continuum which i feel is more accurate to what i believe i get uncomfortable with the desire to make a story you get uncomfortable with the desire to

[52:32]

make a story about it i just accept it which i do you'd rather just accept the story which you do i accept that um rebirth is connected with karma but what i'm asking is you said it's are you saying you feel uncomfortable with wanting a story okay and you would just like to accept but is is what you would just like to accept would you like to accept a story it's a story what you would like to be able to accept the story i would like it to not be so emphasizing the continuation of myself as i know myself you'd like to accept the story but you wish you had a different story well i would congratulate you if you actually do you're not just saying it to impress me get my approval that you actually do have a sense of the desire to be born again and to have this continue and you can actually feel that that's

[53:34]

very good because that's that's what we call the link of craving of what do you call it of grasping and becoming that's that link those feelings are the what is it the eighth and ninth link the ninth and tenth link in the chain which makes rebirth so she's uncomfortable way i'm reading hearing this she's uncomfortable because she's sensing a part of the process of rebirth she says she accepts it but she's also uncomfortable with it good it is uncomfortable situation so well he's representing the side of the room feel a little frustrated um by uh by the way we're treating the topic uh and uh even though i appreciate i really uh appreciate considering the possibility of

[54:35]

rebirth the reason i get frustrated with it i think uh we touched on the other day because of the uh this doesn't seem like we can do much more than just consider the possibility and it just ends right there short the only form of verification that you've mentioned so far is retrocognition and you yourself said that you haven't really bothered to try practicing that so there's that um there's also the fact that doesn't seem like the buddha um recognizing that claims that it's uh that it's necessary to acknowledge the truth of rebirth well excuse me but it's not quite necessarily the uh the way i've heard it but it's powerful nonetheless it is powerful to consider the possibility it's just that so this is not the same from my experience especially frustrating so again this verification thing so i acknowledge the fact that it's powerful to consider

[55:36]

and it just sort of ends at that for me and i do acknowledge the necessity for verifying experience the second if there's no truth it just sort of stops at that because all you've mentioned so far is retrocognition in terms of verification yeah okay it seemed like that i didn't feel that all these arhats have practiced retrocognition or did they have said that that was necessary i think almost most arhats have practiced it but have they practiced it or has it come up as a result i mean what you do is you know i think i think you do practice it it's an actual exercise course that you do and most of them have done it but i think you have misunderstood what i've just asked okay and this and and uh what i've been asking for you to do is to tell me how you relate how you stand in relationship to this i want to know that because i thought you want that you're presenting the topic for example you're talking about this thing of verifying it okay i'm not talking about verifying it i want to know what your posture is your relationship to the teaching

[56:41]

okay to me the most important thing is your attitude towards the teaching you can learn you can study rebirth from now on the rest of your life you can read about it you can you can try to verify it but even if you try to verify it what is your posture in in the verification process what do you what is your what is your attitude here that's what i'd like to find out well it's a slightly different way of saying i mean i've been taught at zen centers that buddha did not want to talk about metaphysical things like this he said he's not interested that he's interested in what what you're now with the suffering and that's what he wants to talk about now i've been taught that it's in center uh-huh so you're shifting it slightly you know it's like not only did you talk about that but well i mean you've been taught certain okay fine now you're being taught something else that's there now which i guess you didn't hear before is that buddha talked about rebirth a lot okay you never heard that before it's in center that's okay fine you didn't now you've heard it okay so that's a little shift that i have

[57:47]

to relate it's a shift you have to relate to right and i'm and i'm wondering how are you relating to it that's what i'm trying to find out how are you relating what is your response to this material because the important this material this this material rebirth okay i could present to you something else i could present to you to what do you call it um uh what do you call it uh interest rates the latest information about interest rates i could present that to you and ask you what is your response to that okay and some you know and you would and you'd have various response what i want to know is what's your response because if you had the right response to this material then you understand it but if you have the wrong response in other words if you're unbalanced in your response if you're stuck in your response then this material will not be understood by you then you will not develop an understanding of formal truth you understand that's what i'm trying to find out now that's what you know about you you know about and you can demonstrate your posture your response the way you're dealing with material see yes well all of

[58:55]

a sudden i've become um what has to do with my voice up and out and um what does it really mean if they're talking about you know this is true that there should be births um i mean if it's serious we really are serious there is such a thing about you know what do you mean excuse me excuse me you know you say if but i have to stop you because you're going off in a direction which is not what i'm talking about you're you're and you're and you're saying things which haven't been said okay i'm not sitting here telling you there is rebirth i'm not saying that i'm saying right view involves a belief in rebirth you see the difference between these two statements i'm not telling you that's true i'm telling you right view traditionally involves that belief i'm telling you about right right view that i am saying okay and i'm asking you now that you've heard that right view involves that that's different from me telling you that that's true yeah okay now

[59:58]

so you're not being told that okay so i want to know what i'm doing is that i'm considering i'm considering the right view yes and in the consideration of right you and i'm taking a look at my body center now yeah and in a much more serious way okay um okay that your response just what we were just worried about poor you know poor uh poor unselfish me and uh you know maybe i'm more selfish than you know maybe you know i'm just don't have buddy self-compassion maybe i don't want that question that's coming up for you yeah so that's part of your response to this material yeah okay that's what i want to know and then there was several other hands there was jack and oh i think kathy was next yeah with this very strange

[61:01]

way of raising her hand very low key so i like the idea i mean you like it yeah well the next thing i'm going to ask you about is karma what's your what's your posture about that teaching well some of it is but this one of the teachings of karma one of the fasticles is karmic retribution in three times zen master karmic retribution three times yeah you people seem to be having trouble verifying the next two categories of karmic retribution i mean i don't teasing you right i think anne and jack um i actually have a reaction to regret this result of a couple of zen masters that i've been

[62:06]

reading their writings and feeling like i believe in their authority as as enlightened people and they're talking about it like it's true like for a matter of fact whereas i've actually heard people say adsense and i you don't have to believe this uh-huh right like john heard that too so that hasn't it's just been like coming up in the last couple weeks that i'm starting to get really anxious about feeling like oh my god this could actually be true i'm in a lot of trouble now you know feeling that anxiety of as considering it as an actual true possibility yeah so this is part of what you're responding but uh so you're kind of like trying this on in a certain way as quite a correspondence theory truth and and uh like really i don't have any way i don't consider that i i don't think i consider

[63:10]

a way of verifying no no you correspondence theory you don't have to have a way to verify it just you need one but you don't have you correspondence theory is you think it's for example you think something is true and you think it's really true okay you don't have to prove it for yourself but you have to prove but you have to prove it to other people who don't agree with you and in order to do that you have to come up with objective data objective phenomena to prove it but you don't have to have a phenomena for yourself all you got to do is think something is true and mean it what you mean by true is that that it actually does correspond to the way things are well to prove it you don't do it for yourself though if you feel like you're actually going to be reborn as a banana slug you don't have to prove that to anybody else unless you're unless you're telling them that they're going to be i just want to point out that it's nine o'clock it's fine for us to go on well it's nine o'clock it's fine for us to go on but it's also fine to stop i anyway i hope you understand what what i'm trying to do is is is get a sense

[64:14]

of how you how you how you respond to this because i feel like my my my passion is is to help you find the the posture the attitude the way of meditating on this material so that you will be able to develop right view so that you can develop the same type of posture and attitude towards rebirth as the buddha even though you don't necessarily have direct experience of it the way he did but you can have the same posture because that's what's enlightening if you can have the posture that he had towards his world then you can have the posture he had towards his teaching if you start getting flipped and flopped around in relationship to the stuff he knew about that isn't what happened to him it did for a while for many lifetimes it got flipped and flopped around he said but then after a while he stopped getting flipped and flopped around well what did and then what did

[65:16]

he get stop getting flipped and flopped around about well he told him rebirth is what he got stopped getting flipped and flopped around about he stopped getting pushed around by samsara he developed this thing called upright sitting in the middle of it and didn't move in the middle of samsara it was samsara that he had the problem with samsara is rebirth and again it can be rebirth in this life or many lives but the point is he was upright in that situation now i'm exposing you to the same material that he was exposed to and that he exposed his students to if you want to expose the group to some other material like i say like interest rates fine it's the same thing what's your response to it but you know as a group we're less interested i think in interest rates as a group than we are in rebirth even though we don't not interested in that either too much but and the next one is karma after i do this i'd like to go on and see what your response is karma i have some material too to present but that's not as important as your attitude because we can't present much material in the next 21 days or whatever it is not much can be presented in

[66:19]

terms of actual like teaching of what the material is but we can develop an attitude my my program for the next year is studying this if we can go to i'm going to be studying this i'm offering workshops this summer on this i'm teaching classes for yoga on this this is the year of karma and rebirth for me i'm going to be studying all year if you're around me you're going to get presented all year what i'd like to but even if i'm not around where you are you can have an posture an attitude you can continue to study this on your own but if you don't know about your attitude if you're not aware of your posture by which you study it then i think you know you're not probably going to be successful in understanding the four noble truths but if you can become aware of how you're you know how you're getting frustrated or upset or scared or anxious or angry or blah blah or disbelieving or believing or liking or just all the stuff that happens to you if you're aware of that and stay upright in the middle of it you can keep studying and keep studying and keep studying and this stuff will get clear to you and you will understand i predict you will understand

[67:22]

and i can tell you which lifetime you understand and what your name will be in the name of your i i haven't got into past life things but i do i do predict the future that was a parenthesis i'll explain more about that later so

[67:54]

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