In other words, even if you have wrong livelihood, we'll still support you because it's always possible that you'll read that scripture, be soothed, and switch to right livelihood. And as soon as you read that scripture, I say, when you read that scripture in such a way that you feel soothed, you're reading the sutra properly. You know, properly means... without approach. This lady read that sutra right. She wasn't trying to get anything out of it. That's why she got something out of it. She didn't think that was her livelihood. So it was right livelihood. Right livelihood, you don't try to get something for yourself. You try to give to others. You have no approach. You have no grasping. You have no inclinations. You approach your job not knowing what it is. You approach the scriptures wondering, what is this thing? Oh, my God. Totally shocked and soothed.

[01:03]

But if you're trying to get something out of the sutra, well, the sutra says, why don't you just calm down for a while? You can't get anything here yet. Go sit in the Zen there for a while. You're too greedy to read this scripture. So you can be as active as anybody. The question is, is it coming from, are you staying in touch with what's happening. If you are, it's gonna be right livelihood. If you're not, it's gonna be relatively off. The more you ignore what's happening, the more you don't notice how things are happening, the more stressed you're gonna be, the more greedy you're gonna be, the more trouble you're gonna cause. The more you see things like that, the more you're going to be soothed, the more you're going to spread soothing, the more you're going to show others how to soothe themselves. We need to learn how to soothe ourselves so we can show others how to soothe themselves.

[02:06]

People know how to make themselves uncomfortable. They don't need any more lessons. They're going to get them, but they don't need them. What they need is somebody to show them how to soothe herself. If you read this sutra and you're soothed, you know a way to soothe yourself. Show people your soothed body and mind. Say, here, read this. And if they go, say, no, no, no, not like that. Just set it down. Sit up straight. Relax. And just forget I told you that for a little while. Okay? And let me know when you forgot that I told you this. The person says, I forgot. Okay, now read this. The person goes, hmm. the Dharma comes in. In other words, they practice compassion. They take their seat. They're not trying to get anything. They're just a suffering person on their seat. And the Dharma comes in. It does its job. Its medicinal function is enacted because the person is, you know, ready for it.

[03:16]

Esme? Could I say something? She said, I often feel guilty about the way I approach, okay? You know, I don't recommend guilt, but if you approach things, you are guilty of approach. It is an error. So don't get all immersed in the guilt. Just say, okay, what is it, mea culpa? I committed the fault of approaching things. So a Buddhist meditator, if a Buddhist meditator notices that she's approaching something, she says, oops, oops, I'm guilty of approaching. Just confess and go back to Buddha. Confess and take refuge in Buddha, which is, how can I live my life without approaching?

[04:21]

Okay, now let's see what you can do. Right. In other words, not approaching. For example, when it's like a good feeling or a bad experience, all those things happen. The way I see it is like instead I'm looking, I sort of put myself slightly in distance. No, that's approach also. That is. Yeah. Backward approach. That's not intimate. That's still a negotiation. That's still a technique. If you're with somebody, you're kind of like going, Esme, please, be intimate with me.

[05:26]

Don't do this thing. Those things happen. I look at it as a small theater. That's fine. We have a small theater here, that's for sure. Here we are. Good. That sounds fine. Yes. [...] Good. Then I said, oh, I'm beginning to see that I always try to give room for I might be wrong. You try to give room for I might be wrong? That sounds fine. You can give room also for I might be right. Might be and might not be are fine. What I see in that situation, I felt I wasn't putting myself into it.

[06:34]

Sounds pretty good, though, so far. It sounds pretty intimate, actually, so far. Sounds pretty good. Well, not complete maybe, but definitely so far the way you're talking about is the way we realize intimacy. We're in this small theater here called birth and death. This is like small... Birth and death is a small situation compared to the real one. And in here, when things arise, we try to be aware of them. People walk onto the stage and say various things, and we feel things. We try to be aware of it. We see the person. We have the feeling. But there's no approach so far in your story. You're just feeling this stuff. Okay, so when you rise, and then I also see that rises are coming from a thought. A thought? Yes, a thought arises. Right. Yes. Well, excuse me, but the person is a thought. Yeah, this is like, that's Joe.

[07:35]

That's a thought. And then you feel a feeling about Joe. And Joe does something. What you see Joe doing is your version, your idea of Joe. So that's another thought. It's basically all thoughts coming up. Thought, thought, thought, and feeling. And my responses to those thoughts are also my feelings, are really my thoughts about my feelings when I'm aware of them. And then you see reactions to all this stuff. Yep. Those are other thoughts. What I found is very funny. Good. It is funny. Sometimes I'm so glad I'm wrong that sometimes, oh, I guess I was right. And in there, what I found is like there's some sort of compassion doing together. It sounds pretty good.

[08:36]

So far this story sounds pretty good. Pretty intimate. Pretty good. Except when you said it, except when you said approaching and then you said holding back. That's the, you're still holding yourself a little outside and those, so without this kind of like getting a good position now to get intimate, you know. Feeling that you're way out there, that's fine. But trying to get way out there is an approach thing, is an inclination, is a tendency, is a habit. I'll do better with this if I'm sort of like this way. But to feel that you're distant from people, that's just a feeling. And if you just leave that feeling of separation alone, you can become intimate. If you feel separate from me, that feeling is something you can just... Accept and be close with it. And if you can be close with the feeling of separation from me, you can be free of that feeling of separation. Okay? Yes?

[09:37]

If you become so aloof, would you perhaps become falsely criticized as being indifferent? Well, aloof and indifferent are kind of the same word. Yeah, aloof and indifferent. No, no, not indifferent. That's not good. Compassion, she said compassion, you know. We should be willing to sit in our seat of suffering. We feel pain. And we're not indifferent to the pain, but we can be equanimous with the pain. We can have equanimity about the pain. Equanimity is sometimes translated as indifference. But it's not the same as indifference. It's that pain and pleasure, you have no preference. That's equanimity. It's not indifference. You are intimate with the situation.

[10:40]

Like I was talking to you about this morning. You go visit the person in the hospital. You're with them. You don't prefer that they were like they were yesterday over the way they are today. You're with them the way they are today. You're not indifferent. You made a long trip to the hospital because you love them. You're compassionate. You want to be with them. You want to help them be free of suffering. You're suffering. They're suffering. You want to be together with them. You want yourself to be free. You want them to be free. But you're not indifferent to them. You feel strong compassion. You really want them to be happy. But you don't prefer that they were some other way than the way they are. If you have love for this person and compassion for this person, it must have equanimity with it, not indifference. Love is not indifference. Love is you really want this person to be happy. And you want yourself to be happy. You really do.

[11:42]

And you don't want to be unhappy. You really don't. This is not indifference. Right? Okay? Okay? You really want to be happy. You really want the other person to be happy. You don't want to be unhappy. You don't want the other person to suffer. You don't want that. This is not indifference, is it? But at the same time, you have no preferences. So that if this person is not happy and [...] not happy, you won't abandon them because they're not doing what you want them to do and be the way you want them to be. You do want them to be happy, but they're not. They're miserable. And not only that, but they're fighting it and complaining, which is their misery. You accept that and you stay close to them, but you don't hate them for being different than the way you'd like them to be. So equanimity protects you from starting to hate people that you love who are suffering.

[12:46]

But another example of intimacy is like when you walk down to the yurt, you don't approach the yurt. You just take a step. And you take that step and you feel pain. You take another step and you feel pleasure. Take another step and you feel pleasure. Take another step and you feel pain. You're just each step of the way. You're not going anyplace. You're just in one little theater after another in this world of birth and death. And you're not trying to get out of this. You're not trying to stay here because you're not trying to get out of this because you don't think things are eternal. And you're not trying to stay here because you don't think things are annihilated. You're just working with what's happening. And if you work with what's happening this way, you will stop attaching to these positions. And then you won't be perplexed. and confused about who you are anymore.

[13:51]

This is the middle way. Yes? You see birth and death? Yes? Well, maybe you do. Do you? Okay, so you're in the theater called The Cycle of Birth and Death. It's the name of a new theater. The birth and death circle theater. Pardon? There's a play going on, yes. The big picture is that there is birth and death, right? That's the theater. That's the little picture. How is that different from eternity? How is what different from eternity? Birth and death. Like something is born and then the cycle. How is the cycle different from eternity? Well, it's just a cycle and people in the human mind can attribute eternity to it.

[14:54]

But before you attribute eternity to it, there's no eternity there. It's actually an impermanent thing. It's impermanent. It's like, what is it? It's like this thing, you know. See my hand? See the hand? Do you see a circle now? Huh? Is there a circle there? Yeah. Is there really a circle there? No, there's just this, this, this, and this. And all these things are impermanent. There's nothing eternal about this circle. But if you see my hand going like this, you say, oh, that's eternal. People can do that. We have a mind that can do that. But actually it's impermanent, [...] impermanent. And we convert that into eternalism. Other people say, They see impermanent, impermanent, so they say annihilation, [...] see? Birth, death, birth, death, birth, death, annihilation, annihilation, annihilation. So it's going to be over soon. It's going to be over soon.

[15:57]

It's going to be over soon. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter what you do. So you can, the same story, you can see annihilation, [...] or you can see eternity. You see eternity, somebody else sees a bunch of annihilations. Somebody else sees impermanence without either. The Buddha sees the world of birth and death, there's impermanence, everything's impermanent. Nothing's eternal, nothing's annihilated, that's what the Buddha sees. Ordinary people, this is great, here she sees, we have an example. We've got the annihilation view, here's the eternal view. She saw eternalism in this thing, you see? That's great. You've identified that position, that philosophical position, which you saw. Some yogis see eternity. Other yogis see annihilation. Others see all these variations. The Buddha didn't see either. He didn't see anything eternal or anything annihilated. He saw impermanent things. At the same time, he saw another world where there isn't things coming and going, so there aren't impermanent things.

[17:00]

He saw both simultaneously. But anyway, coming to talk to us about where we live, he says, I see people have, in this world there's two views. Basically, there's annihilation and eternalism. I see people into it. Most of them don't know it. But you now know that you actually saw that. This is a, you know, you're a philosopher, an ancient philosopher. And also, this is the philosophy of some modern scientists too. But the Buddha doesn't see that. The Buddha doesn't see, like, the Buddha can see, you know, a bunch of ants, you know. The Buddha doesn't see the line there as a real thing. The line's something that we put on. The ants don't know when they're in a line. The ants are like, you know, in this extremely fantastic, you know, multidimensional smell dance. That's where they are. We say, oh, they're in a line.

[18:02]

They don't agree with us. Buddha doesn't agree with us. So, you know, have your opinion, but remember, it's an illusion. that we put onto wonderful little ants. I'm studying ants. They're so fantastic. Oh, God. Oh, it's the time to stop our morning session. Thank you for your life. Thank you for your life. And you people are being supported for what you did here this morning, let me tell you. And the people who haven't been asking questions, please ask some questions next time. I appreciate the people who have been, but I'd like to hear from some of the people who haven't been.

[18:59]

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