I've heard that the Buddha said, I say karma is intention. And so I'd like to expand on the word intention as a pattern of cognition. I say karma is a pattern of cognition, a pattern of affinity within cognition, a pattern of narration, a story. within cognition.

[01:02]

I would say to you that the teachings of karma are not about how things really are, but more about how things come to be and are transformed. These teachings about karma are teachings about intention, are teachings about stories are teaching teachings about patterns within your mind and these teachings are an invitation to radically revise these patterns to radically revise

[02:31]

our stories about all our relationships. And as I mentioned last week, changing these patterns or these stories of our relationships with all things simultaneously changes the way all things relate to us. And last week I read a message from one of the people in the class. I read the first paragraph of the person's letter, which was that thinking that maybe intention, that karma as intention, was similar to prayer. And I think that's right. So you could also say that karma is the prayers in our mind and another word that you can use as definition of karma is thinking

[03:47]

So someone asked, can you intend or think someone to die? Can you pray for someone to die? So this person asked his mother if she wanted him to pray for her. and what she might want him to pray for. And the mother responded, pray that I'll go and meet my friends in heaven. And then he says, her karma, her suffering, has been to be helpless for the last five years of her life. But if you say her karma has been to be helpless, if you say her karma, her suffering, again, it sounds more like karma is the way she is.

[05:18]

But if you change it to her intention, her suffering has been to be helpless, then you can change it again to say her intention, her suffering, has been to think she's helpless. Her thinking has been that she's helpless, and that has been her suffering. And then he says, she thinks she is a burden. Now when you say to somebody that she thinks she's a burden, It's a little bit different. It sounds different from she intends that she's in burden. Not that she intends to be a burden, but she intends that she's a burden. If you think you're a burden, if your mind is shaped in that pattern of you see yourself in relationship to the world as a burden, if you think that way, you're actually intending that way.

[06:24]

Your mind's shaped you're imagining that pattern of you being a burden. And seeing yourself as a burden is an intention, not the intention to be a burden, but it actually turns into like a wish. You don't want to be a burden, but if you think you're a burden and you keep thinking you're a burden, there's a consequence. Not that you will be a burden necessarily, but it might be that your consequence will be that you'll feel uncomfortable. So in this letter, the person keeps switching between intending and then thinking, and then every time the person says thinking, I change it to intending, and it's kind of helpful. after saying she thinks she's a burden and I say she intends she's a burden or there's a pattern in her mind there's a pattern in her mind of her being a burden there's a pattern in her mind that her relationship with others is one that she's a burden that's a shape of her consciousness and having that shape in your consciousness however whatever story you tell you could also have the story that you're helping people

[07:50]

that could be the way you think about it. That's also your intention. And in a sense, even though you don't maybe, you know, you might want to be helpful, but even if you didn't want to be helpful, still when you think of it that way, it's like a prayer to be helpful. And then it also says, can I support her by intending or praying for her death? But again, can I support her in her suffering by thinking of her death? Could I intend or pray for her to be happy, for her to have a happy death? Yes. I mean, you might be able to. Thinking of someone's happy death is similar, it's almost the same thing, as intending or wishing that they would have a happy death. The person says, I always thought, quote, what will be will be, unquote.

[08:58]

I've never prayed or intended that she die. But now I'm thinking that I could do that for her benefit. But again, now I'm thinking I could do that for her benefit. Now I'm intending that I could do it for her benefit. Now there's a pattern or a story that I could be for her benefit if I imagined or intended her death. Maybe it's enough on that. Well, yeah, maybe enough. If you're going to intend things and it's, you know, Maybe it's good to intend good things, but... The main thing here that I'd like to stress is that... What is it?

[10:12]

It's... Is that these teachings about karma... are not just to encourage us to have good intentions for the world, although that's part of it in a way, and to avoid bad intentions, or to have good patterns and good stories, stories of benefit rather than stories of harm, that's part of it. But sort of the more unusual point is that the Buddha's teaching on karma Maybe I'll say it this way. The Buddha's teaching on no self or the Buddha's teaching on that we don't have a fixed independent self leads to us seeing the teaching of not having a fixed self leads to us seeing maybe that we don't have a fixed self which is similar to sometimes we say that we don't have

[11:21]

self. But it really means that we don't have a fixed or independent self. We do have a self in a sense of like, you know, my self is different from your self. But neither one of us have an independent self. So the teaching of no independent self leads to seeing ourselves or sets up the possibility of seeing ourselves as as evolving patterns, as evolving intentions. Or another way to put it is the teaching of no self, no independent self, alludes to seeing that we are evolving patterns of relationships and karma or intention is the focus of the evolution and vice versa the teaching of karma is that as you meditate on your intention as you pay attention to your attention you'll notice

[12:47]

that your intention is evolving as you pay attention to it. And as your intention evolves, that's actually an evolution in your relationships because your intention is actually the pattern of your relationships. What you intend towards other humans and the environment, that is your kernel. how you think about your relationship, the pattern of your relationship is the pattern of your thinking about your relationship. As you study the pattern of your relationships, the pattern evolves. As you study your intention in relationship, the intention evolves. Really what we are is evolving relationships. patterns of relationship. Really what we are is evolving intention towards the world.

[13:53]

But if we don't pay attention and study our intention, we don't notice the evolution. However, the evolution goes on and the way it goes on when we don't study it is, generally speaking, that the evolution of the pattern of relationship degenerates. and the relationships get more and more painful. The less and less we study the relationship, the less and less we study our intentions, the more the intentions become stiff, obscuring, and painful. The more we study them, the more they start to demonstrate their evolution, their change, their dynamism, and also the more they become obvious or clear. So once again, from the point of view of us not being fixed, we see that we're evolving relationships, patterns of relationship.

[14:58]

From the point of view of looking at your intention, you see that you're a pattern of evolving relationships, and then you see you're not a fixed self. So you can go at the teaching of selflessness, you can get at it from hearing it directly and studying it and seeing it more, but then seeing actually how you are, actually your karma evolving, the patterns of your mind evolving. Similarly, if you study, but that's actually, that's one way to go. But in this class, I'm suggesting another route, which in some ways is easier, namely study your intentions. And the more you study them, the more you'll see that they're evolving. And you also maybe get to see that when you don't study them and you get back to studying them, but they've degenerated while you were on break. And so not only will you notice the evolution, but you'll notice the positive evolution. And with the positive evolution is also a more and more illumination as to the interdependence of yourself.

[16:03]

So both ways supplement each other. So again, Our karma consists of patterns, stories, dramas of our relationship, and these patterns exist in our cognitions moment by moment. The next point is the three ways of saying this. As we revise our intentions, as we revise the stories of our relationships. So again, my intentions with regard to you, another way to say it, is my story of my relationship with you. If I intend to help you, then I have a story that I want to help you. If I intend to be your friend and your servant, that's a story, that's a drama of my relationship with you that I wish to put on with you.

[17:09]

So as we revise our intentions, that's one way to put it, another way to put it, which has a drawback, another way is as our intentions are revised, as we revise our intentions, as our intentions are revised, or even as intentions are revised, the revision of intention effectively elicits new worlds, new relationships, new worlds. And the new patterns of our stories, new patterns of our interrelational intentions condition future intention. Then as we enter into new relationships, we refocus the interdependence of all things and we open and align ourselves with new streams or new patterns of energy and storytelling.

[18:31]

Again, this then changes our present intention. but also our past and future, because events that previously played no part in our story or our history now become relevant to who we are, and so our history changes, so the stories of our past change, so our past changes. So this focus changes the present, of course. The focus on the intention changes the present. Now it changes because there's focus on the intention of the present, but it changes the present intention. Plus it also changes the future because intention has consequence of future intentions, which means future happiness or suffering, but it also changes the past.

[19:39]

Yeah? This year, I'm not, instead of saying I don't answer why questions, I say, what are you driving at? I think I didn't, I think I must have missed something. You spoke about the past previously. So how does the changing, how does the revision of the present intention change the past? Well, first of all, I revise my story. And when I revise my story, I enter into new relationships. When I revise my story or my intention or my way of thinking about my relationship with you, then I enter into a new relationship with you. And then my, you know, the streams of energy which have previously been operating are changed. So I open to new possible energetic relationships with you, new stories with you, and so on. So then also my history changes, my stories of the past change.

[20:46]

You missed that step? I can't see how they do. Your relationship to them changes? Well, if my stories of the present change, okay, Like I change from having a story about a certain relationship with you where something about your energy relates to me in a certain way. Like your stream of energy is different from my stream of energy. I have that story. Or I have a story, the stream of your energy and my relationship with you is that they're similar. But then I change the story. I let that be revised. Are you following that? No? I follow it, but Do you follow me? You have a different story. I have a different story of my relationship with you, okay? Okay. Then that will also change my perspective on my past with you. I see.

[21:51]

It's perspective on the past. My perspective on the past changes, namely my history changes. And what was in my previous history before I changed my present relationship with you, what my history was before, and you in relationship to me in that history, changes. My history will change, in particular in relationship to you. Well, what happened couldn't change, but your view of it changes. What happened couldn't have changed? Karma is not about the way things really are, it's about the way things come to be. Okay? So I'm not telling you what really happened. I'm telling you about how to understand how what happened came to be and how what you think happened comes to be and how what you think happened can be transformed.

[22:55]

So right now, you think you have a story about what happened. I'm not saying what really happened. I'm saying what you think happened. And I'm talking about how what you think happens comes to be. And I'm talking about how studying your intention transforms your present. Paying attention to your intention or not changes the present. A person who's paying attention to their story is different than they themselves not paying attention to their story. And the story will change by the intentions. So paying attention is different and there's a transformation or a revision of the story under the auspices of attention. Once the story starts changing, then your relationship to everybody starts changing and things that weren't relevant before now can be relevant. They're relevant now. people I didn't care about before I now care about for example so I had a history in my in my history I didn't care about that person but now I do care about that person and so that might not change the history but it might since I care about them now and I didn't I didn't used to care about them now and none of the nows that I used to care about them in now I do care about them

[24:22]

And now I can see that I actually cared about them in the past. So I have a different past where I did care about them. I have a different past where I was in a close relationship with them. Now, if I'm in a close relationship with someone, that's fine. But if I'm not in a close relationship with someone, that means I think I'm not in a close relationship with someone. I don't know the way things really are, but I have a story that I'm not in a close relationship. As I open to the revision of the story from not close to close, then also I open to the revision of the past from not close to close in both directions. And the person who I used to think was nothing to me, irrelevant to my life, can now be perhaps more irrelevant, and more irrelevant until they're so irrelevant that they're extremely important to me.

[25:30]

They're the most irrelevant person on the planet. They're my nemesis or something. In other words, my history with the person can change. They can go from a minor player to a major player. They can go from a nobody to a somebody. They can go from a close relationship to a not close relationship. Things can deteriorate, but also things can be healed in the past. We can be saved from our dreams of the past. It isn't as though when you suffered in the past, you understood correctly what was going on. You suffered because of the way you thought about your relationships. You suffered about the story you had about what happened. Now, if you change the story, you change the history, if it's a story of the past.

[26:31]

And you are saved, and also the other person is saved in the past by the way you're conducting the present and in the future by the way you're conducting the present. And the way you conduct the present The focus of it, in this class anyway, is called the way you think about it, the way you pray about it, the way you intend about it. But basically, it's just the pattern of your consciousness, which again, you don't make it. The pattern of your consciousness is formed by your relationship with the world. Because your consciousness arises through your relationship of your body with in the world that creates the consciousness and that also gives rise to the story and part of what the world is is your past stories which you've written down that you've told people that are in your body which is relating to the world

[27:38]

So all that comes together to create the consciousness, to create the story. So we've got stories about what's going on, and those stories are the root of our suffering, and those stories are the root of our ignorance. Studying the stories starts a process of evolution, which is already going on, but we start to tap into it. And then past, present and future gets transformed through the meditation. But we're not saying that your present story is really what's happening or my present story is really what's happening. We're saying this is just how suffering and ignorance come to be through these imaginings, through these patterns which come with consciousness. And then by studying these patterns, the evolutionary process leads towards realizing that you're an evolutionary process and that the process tends towards freedom from suffering and enlightenment through awareness.

[28:48]

Okay? Let's see. Should I start taking questions now? I did, didn't I? Joan? Well, yeah, I did say that, and that's literally true, that it's good to intend good, because good has good consequences. However, You've been studying patterns of relationship? Good. I did see it once. It's been a while. Do you know Scar, the character Scar?

[30:03]

The bad guy that... Is he the bad lion? Is he like the uncle of the good lion or something? I mean, yeah, he's the uncle of the baby good lion? Yeah. It occurred to me when I saw the one thing that really, the original thing kind of was so heroic that it wouldn't have been necessary for Scar to be so bad. Uh-huh. Possible. And that there's a way that goodness causes evil to arise, just as much as... Goodness is the answer to evil. And so that's my confusion is, although I pray for good things often, I get confused about the question I deal with in bed.

[31:05]

So for a long time, actually, the idea that just to think about invoking white causes black to appear. So how is it possible to have a correct intention when I was thinking, I think Marilyn brought her daughter to class one time, and I think she asked a question about, you know, similar to your question. So I think I also said this last week that you don't have to pay attention to do things unskillfully. You could try to focus on doing things unskillfully, right? You could, like, try to concentrate on driving badly, right? possible but you know uh but you don't have to you can drive badly without concentrating as i said before you can drive badly blindfolded now you could also just say now how can i drive the most evil harmful way you can like try to concentrate on that and maybe you'd be you know almost as bad a driver and cause almost as much harm if you tried to cause harm

[32:33]

as if you just get in the car with my in with blindfold on drunk you might cause as much trouble i don't know but you know people who do sometimes try to drive in the most harmful way they can people do sometimes do that but you don't have to pay attention and also if you try to drive harmfully you do not have to pay attention to In order to be successful, you don't have to pay attention to see if you actually did drive badly. So whether you're intending to drive badly, consciously trying to, or just thinking in a way that doesn't pay attention, similarly, you can be somewhat successful. But to do good, you have to pay attention to your intention. Generally. Of course, you can sometimes do something sort of good because sometimes when you're doing something unskillful, sometimes it helps people to see your mistakes. But there's a limit to that.

[33:36]

Whereas generally doing good requires attention and paying attention to your intention is also part of doing good. So part of what doing good does is it helps you pay attention to your attention and notice things like that if you try to be good, you notice how that has a relationship to other people. You start to notice the relationship. You start to see that it's a pattern of relationships such that you're good and they're not, maybe. Or you're good and they're less good. You start to see these patterns. And as you start paying more attention to those patterns, your intention starts to change so that you maybe want to do good now but not do good that's better than other people or something. So the basic principle here, which I said last week also, is, you know, focus on the intention, and as you focus on the pattern of your relationships, which means focus on what kind of, on how you see your relationship, focus on your stories of your relationships,

[34:48]

towards people and towards tasks, towards the world. Focus on these things and then watch to see how that goes. Watch the intention and watch the consequences. Watch that. And notice when you veer off and notice when you don't and see how that works. And then when you veer off, in other words, basically when you don't pay attention to your intention or you are paying attention but you see the intention veer off of the way you actually wanted, you know, you were thinking of the way you wanted to and then a different pattern arose because you're not in control here. You're just watching. But watching whatever the intention is, whether it's one you previously thought you wanted to have or not, watching the intention causes the attention to evolve. However, not watching the intention, the intention also evolves but you don't get to see it because you're not watching.

[35:55]

So generally speaking, it degenerates. If you're watching it and you notice that it's degenerating, now the degeneration, which can still occur even while you're watching, Not watching intentions, they degenerate. Watching them, they may also degenerate, but if you watch them, you have a chance to confess the degeneration. And then see how you feel about the degeneration. And usually you don't feel good about it. Those who are watching usually don't feel good about seeing degeneration. Those who are not watching don't feel good, but they don't know the reason why they don't feel good is because of the degeneration of intention. They just feel bad. and then feeling bad without any supervision of their thinking or their intending, they have bad intentions. Which again, they don't necessarily want to watch. But if you're watching the intention and you see it degenerate and then you check, next thing you check, how do you feel about it? And you feel not good.

[36:58]

And if you also watch the not feeling good about the intention, that transforms the intention back to what you basically want. And I also propose to you that this process be done intra-psychically, where you actually see in the cognition the pattern, and interpersonally, where you talk to somebody else about your intention to get reflection and a bigger picture on your intention. The process is both, the evolution is both intra-psychic and interpersonal because the intention arises interpersonally. Your cognition arises between your body, your person, and other persons. But the thing that arises is the intra-psychic thing. It's something in your cognition. So you can find it intra-psychically, but then you can illuminate it interpersonally

[38:04]

As it's illumined, as it's noticed intrapsychically and further illuminated interpersonally, the evolution process is intensified. If you just do it interpersonally, there's still evolution, but it's not as full and clear as if it's also interpersonal. If you try to do it interpersonally without doing it intrapsychically, you're talking to the person about something you haven't found. You're confessing, you know, some evil deed or some bad intention which you didn't really find. You just thought, okay, I'm going to confession, which some kids do, you know. And they confess because they think they're supposed to, but they're not confessing anything they actually found. So it doesn't work very well. So this is the process by which karma is transformed, by which past, present, and future is transformed, by which beings in past, present, and future are saved. Let's see, I think Elena. Elena is.

[39:08]

You want some water? So Elena's next. Then there's Bob, Mark, and Linda. Elena? Did I take care of your question somewhat? Yeah. Okay, we can go over this again and again, yes? I can see Bob. Thank you. You can see what? I can see that you used to think that your friends' actions traumatized you and harmed you. Yes. And then that switches and you begin to feel, oh, really, they benefited me. I didn't realize that before, but ultimately, David, I don't benefit from rash body consciousness before. I could see that the department of your parents would change.

[40:11]

Yep. And yours, too. And mine, too. Yeah. But what about the suffering that I may have inflicted on my parents? Well, as you said, if you inflict suffering on someone, but your intention is a good, then you don't really have a bad intention to confess. What you have to confess is that with this good intention, people found you painful or whatever. But if you actually were trying to hurt them and the story you had was one of ignorance and suffering for you,

[41:21]

and that also then got translated into ignorance and suffering for them, okay, then whether it's happening now or in the past, the same practice, confession and repentance would apply to past, you know, whether it's yesterday or two minutes ago or 20 years ago, it's the same practice. Confession and repentance in relationship to what? Your current understanding of what you want, of your intention. for your life right now. So again, come back to the present. What do you want to do right now? Right now? Yeah. I would like to understand my father, who I didn't understand before, and mother, my cherishing, which I couldn't do before or didn't do before. Yeah, so that's your intention right now. And you can just keep working on that until your present story starts to change, until you see your present situation evolving by what you're doing right now, until you have a story of your present evolution.

[42:38]

Not really what's happening, but you're now tapping into the process of evolution. And eventually, your whole history will get swept up in this transformation But to jump away from the present and try to go someplace else to fix something, not going to work. You have to tune into the transformation right now. And the transformative process is your present, actual, imperceptible, mutual cooperation with all beings right now. That is the really powerful practice. That's the way you are right now. When you find that practice, it transforms future and past. Your parents are included in this transformation. And you can say benefited, but it's in some ways more than benefited.

[43:38]

It's liberated from benefit and harm. It's sort of beyond benefit at this point. It's more like it's freedom from benefit and not benefit. Now, to get to that place, you have to do a lot of benefit, maybe, which includes paying attention to things and so on, because we're not going to be able to open to this current evolutionary reality. reality if we don't pay attention. And in fact we have trouble paying attention because of all our stories of not paying attention. The consequence of them is that we have a hard time paying attention now. But again we can confess I'm having a hard time paying attention and see how you feel about that and find a way to feel about that interpsychically and interpersonally that's transformative and gradually you enter into

[44:40]

The actual way you're working with everybody right now, and the way you're actually working with everybody right now, that's, it's not you or Buddha, but that practice is actually what transforms past and future. And liberates everybody from all their stories, which they had, are having, and will have. Bob and then Mark and Linda. Bob? I mean, Ray. Roy. Roy? I was wondering about motivation as part of your intention. He said motivation is part of your intention? It's a synonym. It's a synonym. Motivation is a synonym. Motivation is not part of your intention. It's just a synonym. Thinking, motivation, intention, prayer, I'm using them synonymously.

[45:47]

So good intentions, good intentions are good because they have these good results, but they also have shadow results. They also constellate something else. So good intentions are not entirely good. the actual way karma is not about too much good intention and bad intention. Karma is about looking to see how you come to be of good and bad intentions. But in order to find out how you're free, you sort of have to use good intentions because they're training in paying attention. Because before you can see how you're actually working together with everyone, you can see your intentions. And good intentions require attention. So we recommend studying using good intention as a way of entering into knowledge of your intention, knowledge of your motivation, knowledge of your prayers, knowledge of your wishes, knowledge of your thinking.

[47:02]

When you understand it, you'll be free of the suffering which is caused by even good intention. Good intention has consequences which are also part of the bondage system, the cognitive entrapment, which is part of our challenge. I guess you could have misguided good intentions. Yes, you can have misguided good intentions. And again, that's why it's good to confess even good intentions, because interpsychically you look inside and say, well, that's a good intention. Now, if you look interpsychically and find that it's not a good intention, that also should be confessed because another person can help you understand more clearly how bad it is. Or, you know, can point out to you how you have obscured the bad intention by the way you reported it. But until you reported it, you didn't notice you were obscuring it.

[48:06]

So last week I used the example, right, of people coming to see me and saying, sorry, I'm slightly late. You know? Because, you know, if you think about yourself, why I'm late, you know, That was a result of not a very skillful intention about being on time. I tried to be on time, but really I didn't succeed. And now I'm going to confess that I was late, but I'm going to confess in such a way that I don't get in much trouble. And you don't notice it, even while you're confessing. But you tell the person, they say, well, you know, what's going on? Well, you know, why go to the trouble of confess when you're trying to hide yourself? So sometimes people come into the room, you know, a small room with no place to hide, and then they disclose their unskillfulness. And the confessor says, well, why come in here and try to hide? This is a bad place to hide. It's much easier to hide outside.

[49:08]

Don't come in here and hide. It's a silly place to hide. But at the same time, although it's a silly place to hide, it's a good place to get caught. Because if you hide out in the street, confessors won't necessarily come up to you and say, what are you hiding for? Why hide out here? Because they don't feel invited to talk to you about why are you standing in the middle of the street hiding? But if you go in the room and hide, they go, whoa, what? They don't understand. Of course they do, but they act dumb. So you can be smart. So that's how you find out about it. If it's a good intention, you find out more about it. Or maybe you find out it's not so good. And if it's a not so skillful intention, you find out more about it. But you have to find it inside first. You have to find the good intention. Say, I found a good intention. Here it is. Okay, I see it. Thank you. And as soon as the person says thank you, you say, oh, I guess it wasn't so good. But also sometimes you say, this is a really bad intention.

[50:13]

They say, I don't understand what you're talking about. I don't get it. And you realize the reason why they didn't get you is because you didn't tell them what it was. Or you told them half of it. And half of it is not that bad sometimes. But in your head, you have a short abbreviated version of it, which means the thing to yourself. But you don't have to actually feel the real thing. So you have this cartoon version of your evil And you don't feel that bad about it. So then it doesn't transform you, even though you're aware of it, because it's a cartoon version of it. It doesn't have much impact. But sometimes you have an inner version of it which is really quite clear. And it's just perfect and it really does transform you. And when you tell someone else, they say, God, that's really great. It's a good way to put it. I see what you mean. And they don't change it much because you already could do it yourself. But usually when you tell somebody else, it opens it up more.

[51:13]

And opening up your limitations and your narrowness of your intention opens up how you come to be in relationship to everyone. So this study teaches you how you're actually helping everyone and everyone's helping you. What we want to find out about is the good news by admitting the relatively confining and constricting news of our patterns. These patterns are limited patterns. They're not the whole picture. We have to notice a limited pattern in order to open up to the total pattern. wholesome patterns, skillful patterns, or unskillful patterns. Both of them are keys. But the point is that usually it's easier to start paying attention to the pattern when you're doing good. Because it's required. But you can notice it on unskillfulness too. Mark?

[52:15]

I was thinking about... recognition of our karma, like you said, and the dualistic subject-object relationship between observing yourself and your interaction with others, and also your idea about cognition. And I couldn't put my finger on it, but in particular, the empowerment of you teaching the group, and you can feel the group, the mind churning near the end of the class, which is the cognition and karma in action. So my feeling is rather than intellectualism in a direct approach, of course observation is good, but you know, the the empowerment of being one drop in the stream of the ocean and I learning from everybody's energies in the room which had been simulated energetically by a catalyst and not necessarily psychically today but verbally but just the difference between me and my relationship in Berkeley and

[53:35]

the empowerment of Sunday, or being by the ocean, by green gulch, or the feeling of everybody after 9-11, because everyone felt a certain emotional cognition that affected minds everywhere. So that's all I was thinking of. Because just the idea of recognition sunyata or prajna on two opposites. I don't know. I didn't understand what you meant by what are the two opposites? Well, you know, according to Gunther, the sunyata is male and the female is more prajna, but that has nothing to do with this class at all. I was just thinking about the recognition of my karma, It's an evolving pattern, leaving me out of it, you know.

[54:40]

I'm kind of, like, I stay out of it. You know, I'm what they call an introvert. So, I'm not complaining. Oh, good. No, I mean, obviously I can't. But, you know, I mean, like... you know, it's just me working in the world of ego, and my own that is and, and, and just the other directives, teachers, energies, past, current psychic connections, and, [...] you know, like, ,, the tantras. The mental energies would surpass the physical, which brings together cognition of all world experience.

[55:52]

So I'm just tripping on that. And we could tell from your lecture that you already deal with those things. Well, can you see that what you just proposed was a pattern of relationship? I see it as a pattern of relationship. Can you see... Because I'm just kind of in it for the evolution, you know, although it doesn't always work that way. Can you see it, the story you just told? Yeah, I can see it. I focus on it too much. And can you feel invited to let that story be revised? Sure. Mostly through reading or teachers, though. Okay. But you're willing to let that story be revised? Sure. You feel like some opening to the revision of that story?

[56:56]

Yeah. That's why I'm here. Okay. Good. Good. Linda? I'm not sure whether my question or my thoughts are very integrated. But after last week, I was thinking about, okay, what is my intention? We talked about that. You talked about good intention and bad. Can I say something? Can I say something? When I say, what is your intention, I just mean, I'm primarily concerned with right now. Not a general thing. So the word vow is sometimes like confused with the momentary, the present vow. Okay? So if you have to bore yourself a vow like I vow to save all beings, that's fine. But what is your vow right now? That's the study I'm talking about. So look for your intention. Look for it right now. Okay, so I think you're addressing what's going on with me, because I was thinking, like when I just asked myself about this question, I thought there is this intention that life has, and really the only intention we can have is either to allow myself to be shaped by that, or to have my own little, what I think are my intentions.

[58:25]

So in a certain way, when you say it's a good intention or a bad intention or I'm losing my, so I'm thinking of the big thing, the big picture, and the big intention is to allow, you know, however you would express the early thoughts about I might express it in allowing myself to be fully shaped and transformed by what is. And you're saying, look at just in the moment what you're doing with another person. Yeah. Or with yourself. Just look at the present intention and that attention to your present intention will lead to the realization of how actually all along your intention was formed in relationship to all beings.

[59:34]

So even your intention to go to the toilet or say hello to somebody that you find I have the intention or intention to move, that intention arises in you in relationship to all beings. The important thing is, the thing we have trouble seeing is how whatever our intention is, the intention to cover our mouth when we sneeze, that that intention is done in concert with all beings. That's what we have trouble seeing. When we don't see that, then our cognition is not fully developed because we don't feel close to everybody. So by paying attention to just ordinary, whatever the current intention is, it is actually something that arises together with everyone. So we want to pay attention to this, whatever it is, because that's what everyone has come together to make as you, as your intention.

[60:42]

Paying attention to that, not only will the intentions evolve positively, But the understanding, the cognitions which surround the intention will evolve towards understanding that whatever the intention, even a low intention, still arises in concert with all beings. And that's the big intention, so to speak. That's the big thing you're doing with everybody. So it's a question of realizing that in the moment and through the moment, through the moment, Do you give an example of, you know, you gave the example, I want to be, I have the intention to be kind to my spouse or something. Yeah. And that intention doesn't go very far unless you see that that is the intention of the whole thing. So actually, I'm mixing together, in a sense, I'm sorry that I did it, but in a way, but like I can have the general intention to be kind to my spouse.

[61:53]

Kind of general. Yeah, like I have the bodhisattva vow. But actually, vows also have consequence. When you actually make a vow, and you could say, I make this vow, and actually this vow counts from now on. But then I don't always think of that vow in every moment, but the vow has effects. But then in the present, I'm thinking about stuff like, I'd like to move my hand from midair to my knee. But the whole world makes me into the person who has the intention to move his hand. And the whole world makes me the person who has the intention to be kind to someone. But I'm emphasizing what is the intention right now, because that's the one that the world has made. The world has gone into a lot of trouble to make you the person you are right now with your present intention. Paying attention to these present moments opens the door to the vast vows, which sometimes you feel. Sometimes your present vow is this vast vow.

[62:57]

the linguistic expression of it. But you don't understand it yet, maybe. Like, I vow to save all sentient beings, but I don't understand it yet. But I do understand that I have that feeling right now that I want that. And I also understand that the next moment I forget it and have some other vow, like I want to help me ahead of someone. Like right now, my intention, I think, is to understand. Yeah. And somehow... Yeah. Yeah. So that's... We need you to notice those kinds of things, those present moment-by-moment things. And then maybe when you leave the class, maybe it's possible that you might forget to try to understand this teaching for a while. Then you have some other intention, like to drive carefully. And then you're so certain, oh, I can feel the intention to drive carefully. And maybe you feel good not only about wanting to drive carefully, but paying attention to it. Because you kind of think, oh, this is part of what we're supposed to practice doing, is paying attention to our intentions.

[64:01]

To do that, again, as I say, your intentions will evolve positively. But along with the intentions evolving positively, the cognitions in which they live, which are also made, the cognitions you have are made in concert with all beings, and also everybody else's cognitions are made in concert with your cognitions. And your intentions are made in concert with other people's intentions. So all of our intentions and our cognitions are inter-penetrating, inter-mutually creating each other. If we all take care of what's being created here, which we have direct access to and indirect access to in ourselves and in others, both of these things, both our psychological and cognitive processes evolve towards the realization of how we're actually working together with everyone. And as that understanding develops, that understanding also affects other people's cognitions and intentions.

[65:07]

So some beings have developed a very deep understanding of interdependence and therefore they've been able to convey that to a lot of people. even before they talked but talking is one of the main ways they do it to get people's attention to this phenomena but we st but but i'm so i'm using vow in two ways or in prayer in two ways there's your current prayer like i pray that i can drive carefully i pray that i speak carefully but i also pray that let this be beneficial to all beings and i pray that there come to be an understanding, not just me, but that we come to understand our actual relationship with each other, with the understanding, to some extent, that this is being proposed as the way of peace among beings who have not yet realized peace very fully. And I intend to get whatever kind of

[66:10]

inspiration I need to continue this practice too. I feel that. And it's a general vow and something I specifically feel moment by moment sometimes. In a moment, in a moment. Does that make some sense? Yes, Bill and Patty and Bob. Bob used to sit over there. Yes, oh yeah. Yes, Bill. Could you talk about the role of tranquility meditation, which you were talking about, just hearing what was being heard, and during meditation, intention. Intention, they seem like a little different to me. Yeah, they are. And I'm not sure which is the appropriate thing to do in a meditation practice. For most people I know, tranquility meditation, you're not really looking at your intention.

[67:11]

And tranquility meditation is more like you're just simply experiencing things, giving up any kind of...basically giving up thinking about them much. Now, there may be impulses and intentions going on simultaneously. But you're not actually working on those. You're just trying to let in the herd be just the herd. Or in the exhale, just see if there can just be the exhale. In the inhale, just the inhale. This type of giving up discursive thought when you do it consistently, comes to fruit as tranquility. Once you're tranquil, you will be in a better position to practice any kind of wholesome activity, including attention to the wholesomeness of your cognitions. Before you're tranquil, meditating on intention might be irritating or you might feel frustrated because you notice you have trouble consistently paying attention.

[68:22]

Once you're tranquil, you don't have much trouble paying attention. Matter of fact, if you want to look at your intention, you can do it moment after moment quite easily. And you probably wouldn't want to distract yourself from your attention because when you're concentrated, you generally speaking do not want to do unwholesome things. but you feel quite enthusiastic about doing any kind of wholesome thing. And whichever one you want to do, you can do. If you want to sew, you can sew. If you want to talk carefully, you can talk carefully. If you want to drive carefully, if you want to pay attention to your intention, whatever wholesome thing you want to do, it's pretty easy. But then you're switching now. Now you're using the tranquility, which came from giving up discursive thought, for example, to apply it to thinking about tranquility. something or paying attention to how you're thinking. So this meditation on intention is you look at the intention, you look at the intention,

[69:27]

You notice if it's an intention you feel good about. You notice if it's off track. You notice if it's unwholesome. You see how you feel about it. You confess it, and so on. You're actually quite... You're thinking about this. You're thinking about thinking. Are you doing that during a meditation practice? You can do it, but generally speaking, it's probably good to do it when you're calm. So you can actually meditate on intention in sitting meditation. But you'll be more successful if you've already, in sitting meditation or standing meditation, practiced tranquility. So again, as I said at the beginning of the course, my instruction is settle the self on the self and then forget the self. Expanding that slightly, settle the self on the self. Learn the self and forget the self. Another one would be settle the self on the intention. Just settle on the intention. Feel the intention to sit.

[70:28]

Just the intention to sit, to sit, to sit, just sit, just sit, just sit. Settle that way and then study the intention of sitting. Learn about it and then forget it. Become free of your karma after studying. The more you study your karma, the more you'll become free of, for example, the idea that you do anything by yourself. You'll become free of dualistic understanding of your own activity, which is built up from thinking and intending things dualistically for a long time. So one phase is just... The first phase is more like tranquility. Settle yourself on yourself. Let your breathing just be your breathing. Let your inhale just be inhale. Let your exhale just be exhale. Let your posture just be your posture. And even let your intention be your intention. That's it. And you calm down. And study your breathing. Study your posture. Study your intention. Study yourself. And the fullness of the study, you realize you'll forget it because you won't be able to find your karma because you won't be yours anymore.

[71:35]

All you'll see is this interdependent reality which saves all beings. That's where you forget yourself. That's where everything enlightens you. The big chunk in the middle, well, the big chunk at the beginning is learning how to calm down. The next big chunk is study yourself, study your karma, study your intention. And there's this big evolution that happens there which opens you more and more to how karma actually happens, to how you come to be in relationship to intention. All that part's the active thinking type of meditation, which leads up to a certain point that the thinking will actually tranquilize you again. At the culmination of the thinking, it'll actually put you into a trance, deep concentration, the way you think about your karma. And it's the concentration which is the concentration where you're actually concentrating, you're actually aware in a concentrated way of how you and all beings are working together.

[72:38]

That's called the self-receiving and employing samadhi. So first, usually we calm down, then we study, and then we forget. We calm down with duality, we study duality, and we forget duality. But that middle step is a huge one, where we study dualistic intention. I intend to do this, I want to do that. I want to do something skillful. Now I forgot to do something skillful. Now I'm confessing I forgot to do something skillful. Now I'm repenting. Now I'm back on wanting to do something skillful again. And I'm watching, okay, here's another skillful thing I want to do, another skillful thing. Gradually we forget I'm doing things. because our consciousness evolves with this deep and continuous meditation on good intention, on skillful intention, and deep meditation on slipping from skillful intention and confessing and repenting it and returning to skillful meditation.

[73:49]

But the thing that's developing through this is the concentration on the intention through skillful and less skillful but the skill is developing, nonetheless. And the understanding is developing with the skill. Does that make sense? Is it possible? I don't know. Was there anybody else who had it with him? I think somebody was. I think Patty. Yes. I have a confession that I'd like to offer. I have a confession. And I find joy. I'm feeling the joy of life. I heard some news about people that was not confident for that. And I feel joy in hearing that news. And so there's a part of me that thinks scope of action is good.

[74:51]

And the joy is not. It's got a pinch of unhappiness. because I think I shouldn't feel annoyed about people having had this bad experience. Yes. But then I find myself with my thoughts trying to get myself to feel bad about the news. And that doesn't feel true. That feels like I'm doing natural gymnastics to try to change. Uh-huh. And so I'm wondering... You know, I confess I feel the joy that's tinged with non-joy because it just is, and that's pretty much it. It could be just that for now. The only time you told me something about intention was when you told me, I thought I heard an intention to make yourself feel bad because you thought that that would be good.

[75:55]

Otherwise, I didn't hear you talking about intention. Well, you said our thoughts are intention. No, I'm saying that the shape, the pattern of your thought is your intention. So if you hear some news and you feel joy, I don't hear yet you telling me about your intention. So my intention came when I felt the joy. When people suffer, you should not feel joy. Yeah, that's more like your thinking. See, that's more like your intention. I shouldn't feel that way. So you're kind of intending to feel another way. Okay, there's more the intention. And so I'm not saying it's useful to notice, for example, you know, what day it is, what room you're in, and things like that, what color the wall is. Those are all important things to notice. But particularly in this class I'm trying to emphasize, notice the intention that's coexisting with your cognition of the feeling of joy.

[77:02]

So something happens and you feel joy. Okay? What's the intention there? At first you didn't tell me an intention. Then you said, then a moment later after you felt the joy, then an intention rose and sort of a thinking arose that you shouldn't be this isn't this might not be good to feel this but that's more of a judgment okay but it's a little bit of an intention too that it's not good to feel that so there's in that thinking there's a kind of intention then there could be an additional a wishing or trying to feel differently That's more clearly an intention. But just the thought or the opinion that this is not good to feel joy at somebody's suffering, that's kind of your intention there. Studying that is what I'm recommending. So rather than you intending to change your intention, rather than intending to change your intention, which you can intend to change your intention, but what I'm saying is study the intention to change the intention.

[78:05]

studying the intention to change the intention will be positively evolutionary. Intention to change intention is basically just more karma on top of karma, which in this case isn't terribly bad karma, but there's no observation mentioned here. There's no studying of the karma to change the karma. The studying the intention period or studying intention to change intention is pretty much basically another intention. Being aware of the intention, being aware of the intention to change the intention, this awareness causes the transformation, which may need to entail some confession, like you made a confession. Now, when you made the confession, since you did it out loud, first of all, you did it internally, then you did it out loud, then we got into, like, not so much getting into the intention, because the intention, I mean, excuse me, the confession, because the confession wasn't so much about karma, it was more about a feeling of joy.

[79:11]

And feeling joy is, generally speaking, not an intention. It's not an intention. It's not thinking. It's more the result of an intention. So now I can tell you another story, you see. So because you confess, you invite me in, and now I start editing your story, and your story can be revised. Now, you didn't clearly have a story that you're feeling joy was an intention, but I'm telling you it's not. Right, and that makes sense. A feeling of joy. Yeah, and I can even tell you that sometimes... You know, the other story could be that when the people, you could feel joy at somebody feeling misfortune, but it's not an intention. It may be due to some past intention, which again you may learn about, but that itself is not an intention. But then you had an intentional response to it, and that's what you should be studying.

[80:12]

And it's good to notice the difference between a feeling and an intention. And feelings are one of the main ways that intentions mature in our faith. Feelings are not intentions, but they are the way we experience the maturation of our intention. So wholesome intentions mature as feelings. Generally speaking, positive sensation. Pain is generally the maturation of negative intention, and neutral sensation is the maturation of kind of neutral intention. But I'm saying this not to give you a simple rule. but to tell you about how to be aware of the maturation of karma so you can study it and tell the difference between a maturation and an intention.

[81:27]

I'm a little lost with the maturation part. So after I had joy, I had the intention of needing to change my response because I felt guilty. Yeah, because you haven't... And so the... Oh, didn't sadness arise? Oh, yeah, and then sadness arose? It isn't that that's a maturation of what you just did. Yeah, I can't tell you what, you know, what past actions led to them, were maturing themselves through your joy and through your sadness.

[82:27]

It's more like, and I don't recommend trying to figure it out, it's more like when you feel these sensations, maybe just listen to the teaching, this is the maturation of past conditioning and past intention. And then also notice if there's any intention to do something, to get more of something or less of something, more certain feelings or less of certain feelings. The coming of feelings is offered to us because of past intentions and also that is the maturing of past intentions. But we don't say this Yeah, but we don't say this so you'd start trying to manipulate what feelings you're getting. However, people do. But the recommendation is study if there's an intention to manipulate your feelings. That's what has positive evolution.

[83:31]

And generally speaking, it's not skillful to try to do things to get positive sensation. That's addictive behavior generally. But again, we don't tell you to try to stop that either. If you notice the intention to do something to get more pleasure, we don't tell you to stop that. We say, study that intention and you will become free of that addiction. Not by trying to get free of the addiction, although it's a long-term interest. Trying to get free of addiction is another addiction. But studying this thing is not trying to get free of addiction, although you will. But the way you really get free of addiction is not by trying to get free of addiction, but actually by studying your intentions and opening to how you're actually related to everything, to see how you're actually evolving. When you start to see that, you start to become free of addictions.

[84:35]

But if you try to become free of addictions, you blind yourself to see the evolutionary process somewhat or completely. The more you study intention, forgetting about doing something so that you'll get some effect, which is another intention, the more you study you're trying to do something to get an effect rather than trying to get an effect on all that stuff, the more you actually study this process of intention, the more you become free of it. and free of the addictions which are set up by the intentions so the karma sets up the addictions and trying to get free of addiction is another intention which tends to feed the addiction but studying the attention does not feed the addiction it undermines it and doesn't just undermine the addiction it opens to what when you see when you see the actual way that this thing happens you don't need addictions anymore

[85:39]

You don't need pleasure to get through the day. Although you may get some, that isn't what you need. You're being fed by reality. You're being fed by all beings. Now, maybe they're feeding you pain, but when all beings are feeding you pain, there's a joy which obliterates any concern about any kind of, you know, pain. So it's called freedom from pain. And it's freedom from ignorance, and it's freedom from karma And being tranquil helps to be able to study intention rather than messing around with it and meddling with it and doing intention upon intention upon intention. We have 10 seconds just, John. You answered my question. I answered your question. At least that's my story. Oh, Bob. Sorry, Bob. Okay, well, I was back on the subject of how you're working out your present karma can actually change your past.

[86:47]

It kind of reminded me how the therapeutic technique of looking at pain in the past and going from your present place of understanding to looking at that situation in the past from who you are now and then making a change on that So is that kind of what you meant by changing the past in that way? Who you are now changes what you were? Yeah. At 9.15, I would say yeah. I'm not lying, but yeah. If you ask at the beginning of class, it would be a different answer. It would be more expanded.

[87:38]

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